Might want to check your comprehension skills. The cancelled series was against the men’s team.

There is no women’s team to play against because the Afghanistan Cricket Board and government have banned them.

What are you talking about? Her government has banned women from playing any sport at all (amongst other things such as getting a proper education).

The whole point of this boycott is that there is no opportunity for Afghanistan women cricketers to play Australia. In fact, Australia is looking after the Afghanistan women’s team which fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover and are not allowed by their cricket board to represent their country.

What a ridiculously naive statement. As foolish as Neville Chamberlain trying to appease the Nazis.

Women will never be brought into the fold so long as the Taliban is in power and the ACB is run by Taliban appointees.

Time to cut Afghanistan loose and show the world that cricket takes the rights of women seriously.

Never quite cracked it as a test batter, but he’ll go down as one of the best Shield bats of his generation, one of the few domestic bats to average 40+ in FC cricket.

Hopefully he can add another T20 World Cup win before his international career is over.

I’d like to see Aaron Hardie batting in the top 4 for WA if he wants to be considered as a top 5 batter. Scoring runs at No.5 means you are auditioning to bat at No.6 or 7 for Australia. Same goes for the likes of Ollie Davies, though surely NSW move him up the order next season.

I would have preferred Marnus going to open and Smith to 3, but I think Smith will end up doing a decent job as opener. His struggles in NZ don’t have a lot to do with him opening in my opinion. He did a great job seeing off the new ball in the first session of the series.

His footwork is out of alignment and he needs to spend a bit of time fixing that up. Mostly, like much of the batting lineup I think he needs a decent break after playing almost non-stop since June last year.

I hope Smith does get the chance to play some Shield and get in the rhythm of opening for NSW prior to the first test, rather than playing the white ball series. I think that will give him every chance to succeed in the BGT. If guys like Justin Langer, Simon Katich, Usman Khawaja and Shane Watson can move up to open and make a success of it, I don’t see why one of our best ever test batters can’t do the same, even if he is past his prime.

Fair enough, that’s where the confusion is and your follow-up post makes sense in that context. I certainly think what you clarified is a reasonable opinion, though it differs to my own thoughts.

This has to be Khawaja’s last summer, so surely he’s gone.
All I’d be doing next summer is a new opener and this only two of Head, Smith, Labs or a bolter at 3/5.
I read that as saying Khawaja is gone next summer (so new opener) and then one of Head/Smith/Labuschagne being dropped.
You still seem to be suggesting you wouldn’t have Smith as a lock for the test side (that he’d be competing with others for a spot), which I can’t agree with at all. He has way too much credit in the bank to be discarded after two bad tests.
For what it’s worth, I’d simply pick the same top 6 at this stage unless something changes in the next 8 months. I don’t see a batter in Shield cricket who would do a better job than any of the current top 6 or who is banging down the door properly, and the current batting lineup have enough performances on the board to be given the chance to perform after having a decent break and opportunity to fine tune their games a little.
Edit: From your clarification I now understand you mean next summer will be Khawaja’s last.

The selectors have been proven correct in their approach by the success Australian cricket has had over that time. The periods of less success have coincided with periods of more chopping and changing in the side. This current selection panel has done a stellar job overall, borne out by the results of the team and some bold (and much criticised) selection calls paying off.

So who are you planning to bring in to replace Khawaja and Head/Smith/Labuschagne?

Personally, I think that would be an absolutely crazy thing to do – chucking in two bats totally unproven at test level to replace two bats who have shown they can do it, even if their form over this summer has been a bit shaky.

Smith even being in the conversation of being dropped in itself is insane. Two bad tests after a middling home summer and Ashes (both with perfectly good outputs for a normal test batter), and you want to bin the best test batter of his generation?

Agree, there’s definitely something there with Ollie but now he’s established himself at Shield level the Blues need to bat him at 4 next season. Back up this season with another strong one at No.4 and he deserves to be in the conversation for the test side.

Same goes for Beau Webster. He’s been fantastic for Tasmania but he’s scored all his runs at 6 and 7. Test attacks are deeper and more skilled than FC attacks, so scoring runs when attacks are fresher and the ball is newer is a better predictor of success in test cricket.

The one glimmer of hope was that it seemed to be a new ball wicket where batting became easier once the ball softened up. Still, I thought we lost a wicket too many to the new ball meaning we needed pretty much everything to go our way to get up. Which is sort of how things eventuated apart from the late wobble when Marsh and Starc departed. A great victory indeed.

Whoever bats at 9 seems to bat better. Starc was batting better when Cummins was at No.8, now they’ve swapped Starc’s batting has gone downhill and Cummins is on the rise.

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Yes, its so odd – a certain section of fans oscillate wildly from denigrating the opposition as not fit to play test cricket, to bemoaning the Australian team if they aren’t scoring 500 and knocking the opposition over for 150 in every innings.

I’d personally much rather enjoy the contest from a positive viewpoint, but each to their own.

To be fair to Langer, the team only played two test series away from home during his tenure, and he was missing Warner, Smith, Cummins and Hazlewood for one of them (2018 Pakistan series in the UAE).

That said, I agree 100% that moving on to McDonald was the right choice (and believed it was at teh time too) – the results have been great as you say – only one test series loss (away against India who are virtually unbeatable at home), and he seems a much better fit for Cummins’ leadership philosophy.

The batters currently in the test side.

Sigh… is this what “news” has come to, knee jerk reactions based on single innings.

– Smith gets out in the first innings at the Gabba – failure as an opener, drop Green and send him down the order.

– Carries his bat in the second innings – he’s going to be the best opener in the world, averages 60!

– Scores 31 in tough conditions in the first innings at Wellington – crucial contribution, set up the Australian innings.

– Gets a duck in the second innings – time to retire mate, it’s Dave Warner all over again.

Can’t wait for him to score a hundred and duck in this test so he can be the next Jack Hobbs followed by the next Chris Martin.

Bancroft is not young and he doesn’t deserve a test spot. He has a test average of 25 and his FC form comprises good but not excellent Shield numbers, plus terrible numbers for Australia A and in County Cricket.

Agree re: Renshaw, he hasn’t earned a spot either. But his overall FC record over the last 12-18 months is better than Bancroft, especially for Aus A / PM XI.

The gap in talent between the test side and Shield bats is a concern. Nic Maddinson might be the best bet if he can stay fit, but he’s not young either.

How is this news? No one with (at least) half a brain thought Marnus was getting dropped for this test. What a ridiculous, manufactured slant to this story.

I think the injuries hurt them more this time than last. Ferguson got injured during his one and only test match, so it’s not like he has been a key test regular for them. Williamson missed a dead rubber, and one of Boult’s two missed tests was the dead rubber too.

Losing Ferguson after 11 overs in the first test was more than offset by losing Hazlewood after 8 balls.

This time around they’ve lost their best fast bowler and best opening bat. That said, Jamieson has a terrible injury history so it’s not a great surprise he’s not fit. Part of the reason the Australian attack is so great is their ability to stay on the park.

Literally no one was complaining about that review until this article. It hardly wastes much time, 2 minutes in a test match that finished 5 sessions early.

Wickets are so important in test matches that it’s worth spending a bit of extra time to get them right. If one externality of having 3 referrals is a couple of speculative reviews at the end of the innings, then so be it. The game is still far better for having reviews.

Personally I’d like DRS to be revamped, but in the opposite direction – to find a way to take reviews out of player’s hands and have a system like other sports where reviews are undertaken by umpires without player input. I think having wrong decisions stand because players have run out of reviews or were unsure and didn’t want to risk burning one is bad – we should be aiming to eliminate umpiring errors as much as possible.

In the absence of that, I’d actually be in favour of fielding teams having more than 3 reviews, since it is far more difficult for batting teams to burn through reviews than fielding teams (given a batting team can review 3 out of a possible 10 dismissals, whereas each batter could be given not out incorrectly an infinite number of times).

The Wagner of 2024 is not the Wagner of 2019. He was ineffective against the South Africa C team when he played this season and averaged 40+ at nearly 6 runs per over last season against England and Sri Lanka.

I think New Zealand have made the right call moving on from him. There’s no point wheeling out a retired bloke who hasn’t been in good form for one test match when the Trans Tasman Trophy has already been lost. Get Ben Sears in and give him a taste of test cricket with an eye to the future.

Marsh instead of Mitchell for mine. Mitchell batted a long time in the second innings but he went nowhere in his innings, never really put pressure back on Australia like Ravindra, Blundell and Phillips did at times in their innings. Marsh’s 40 in the first innings had a far greater impact on the match, plus he took a handy wicket.

You’d then have 7 Aussies to 4 Kiwis which I think better reflects the dominance of the Aussies. You can’t pick Marsh or Head for Cummins and have three front-line bowlers. Cummins bowled well and kept the pressure on, that’s an important role even with limited wickets.

I guess we found out that yesterday’s score was a good one, and we got a bonus 100 runs this morning on top of it!

Funny old game test cricket…

After Kane’s duck today, he averages under 40 against Australia, India and England and over 60 against every other opponent.

Whilst he has the second best test average of the ‘Fab 4’, that (and the huge discrepancy between his home and away records) makes him the fourth best of the four in my opinion (but still a great of test cricket).

I think you need to be careful in disregarding runs against certain opponents, but I think its right to dig deeper into players records to see how they’ve gone against the best opposition.