Roar Rookie
Joined December 2016
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Building my writing up here. Interested in all sorts, but mainly Cricket, Basketball, Soccer and sometimes AFL. Thanks for reading :)
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As the AFL ums and ahs about a professional team in Tasmania for the umpteenth time, all they have to do is look down…
We've been starved of F1 action in Australia after COVID-19 suspended the 2020 Australian Grand Prix half way through the weekend and then 2021…
The Sydney Kings have been a fascinating team this season, and after a middling start to the year, they’ve put together a run of…
If a cricket match is played in a stadium and nobody is watching, does it really happen at all? That’s a thought I kept…
The NBL season kicked off with a momentous occasion for Tasmanian professional sport. The newly minted Tassie JackJumpers NBL franchise began with an overtime…
Momentum in T20 cricket can often turn on a dime, and with a slower ball yorker to clean bowl the dangerous Nat Sciver, and…
That’s the part that I did have some trouble resolving. Foxsports should and do have a role in broadcasting the stuff that FTA won’t pick up and could potentially do the commercial free simulcast thing like they do for tests and footy – they have shown a commitment to the Women’s World Cup where others haven’t and neutral overseas tours.
But I think the point that really hurts is that Channel 10 did make the offer and mist likely would have had the commitment to do more than what’s currently happening.
Limited overs, limited exposure: Cricket Australia's TV deal and the declining interest in the short forms of the game
A few as an example: bowling plans to specific types of batsman, analysing opposing trends, looking at player matchups especially for limited overs, trying to understand general areas where the team can improve, figuring out plans and trends about how the opposition bowl and how to attack or defend that bowling, – then there’s the technical advice, people management, organisation of training and organizing the team. Like OP says maybe there’s a solution where you get other people invovled but imo you need someone to be able to communicate the analysis, have oversight and set the culture of the team. Maybe if you have a thoroughly experienced captain and a set of advisors, late era player like Ponting or Sangakkara etc. it could work, but in modern cricket a coach does a lot, I’d argue for more specialist coaches i.e a redball and whiteball coach if anything.
Can Australian Test cricket survive without a coach?
I think you could drill down to the specific skills that they are looking for in the overall make up of the team as to why they are currently going with this lineup. E.g. with Gardner, her T20I strike rate is genuinely really good and when firing, she has the ability to lift the pace and hit like few others. Are there are others who fit that that role waiting in the wings even as specialists?
Its hard though because there genuinely is an incredible amount of depth and flexibility that the Aus Women have, especially when you factor in McGrath and Perry, you could potentially set your lineup in so many different ways. That’s why I think they might have decided something like – well King and Wellington are both specialist leggies, Carey’s darts are different to how Schutt and Vlaeminck bowl, and she gives you protection if there’s a collapse, and Gardner when in form is just about as fast as scorer as anyone. You could go a completely different direction and play both Perry and McGrath as your second and third pace bowlers, and go batting heavy or play King and Wellington and you’d still have a genuinely good lineup.
Can rusty England recover and find a solution to their Tahlia McGrath problem?
I’ve been saying for a while that Renshaw is going to have a really really tough time on this tour as Ashwin and Jadeja are going to have their way with him for sure. However, the chances of Australia actually delivering a winning result on this tour is low, and I think he has to play in the majority of the tests to either see if he can actually handle it at this stage of his career or at least give him the taste of playing in South Asian conditions against top teams.
The selectors basically made the decision whether to protect him for later down the road when they included him in the squad. I know the idea should be to win as many test matches as possible but since South Africa the selectors have put one eye on developing younger players. If he truly is the opener of the future, he’s going to experience adversity at some stage of his career and he’s going to have to develop character and mentality that is robust enough to withstand the rigours of test cricket and international tours. May as well get an idea for how well he can adapt even if those adjustments and adaptations end up being a while away. I think if everyone stays patient around the idea of him at the top of the order its only going to pay off for a lot longer than just having an eye on next years Ashes.
Why Matt Renshaw should be left out of the Aussie team
The Hurricanes are really the model of what you’d be looking to do in Tasmania, and whilst I think Tassie is starved for professional sport and I think the community is ready to get behind a team that can do well and be in the national spotlight. Having the Hurricanes here is really amazing because there’s finally something everyone can get behind that has that national stage. However even the Canes have taken a bit of time to get a really strong and comimited foothold because sometimes coming out for events consistently is unfamiliar for some here..
I really think NRL would be a bit of a stretch in Tas though, there would be a passing interest but I really just think the culture is not really one that is conducive to NRL or familiar with it. It would take a lot of investment and I think it would take a long time to build the commitment to it especially if the team is performing poorly.
It’d be an interesting experiment though, it could possibly turn an AFL state into a NRL one if successful but I don’t think it’s likely. I could definitely see an A-League team doing well here, but I think something that is underrated about the A-League’s potential popularity in the state and more generally is that it really needs better free-to-air coverage. Without that a lot of people are more unaware about what is going on in the A-League and I think would just not quite get in the forefront of people’s minds until that happens.
The next NRL expansion location? Tasmania
Yeah, the Warriors this year don’t fit as snugly as they did last year, they might still win the whole thing but I think Bogut missing the last part of that series was pretty big for them, and health was overall a big factor. He had played pretty well in those playoffs and gave them a look that I think they needed to use. I’m just not sold on Durant as a player who sort of fits into a team scheme without being THE focal point of the offense and can force a little bit at the end of games, but who knows this might be a bit of a Miami situation where it might take them even a full year to figure it out with Durant in the picture.
That said, I swear when we argue about who is better with these teams though we are hair splitting, both game seven and Christmas Day were won on tough Kyrie Irving circus shots, it could easily be different later in the year.
The Warriors need to embrace cavalier basketball to beat Cleveland
Yeah, I don’t know if its a good idea to pick Cummins for India. I mean he hasn’t played a Shield game since 2011 and we just don’t know how he effectively bowls in long form cricket against top or even middling batsman at the moment. And with the way the summer is shaping up he might have 1 game of Shield before the squad is announced, maybe less if he’s playing ODIs. I think it would be better for him to play out the Shield season if he can and get a bunch of first class cricket under his belt. Granted he probably won’t need to be bowled for long spells on those pitches and having atleast two or three options of genuine pace in India is probably the only way for pacemen to succeed there, I just think its a big risk and maybe going the dual spin option of O’Keefe and Lyon would work better. There needs to be a priority on quality spin as you can see how much England relied on Ali and Rashid and how they struggled at times during the series.
On Renshaw in the side I think it depends on what the selectors aims are for this team at the moment, if they are looking to rebuild and develop the team, sure let him get the experience there. But I keep having these visions of Ashwin and Jadeja doing as they please against him. A this early stage in his career and it might be worth protecting him a bit and view more towards the Ashes next summer.
Australia in India? It will be 4-0, and it will be ugly
The rivalry is a bit overblown these days, it is a fair journey to ask of people to go up and back for a game. But as the Jack Jumpers do they have their base in Hobart but split their home games between the two.
As a basketball state is born, will the AFL ever join the party in Tasmania?