Just to be clear mate, I’m not going to read these essays or respond, so don’t post on my behalf.

Ultimately you manipulate statistics too much, with arbitrary limits and measures introduced to support what you want the statistics to say.

You’ve got your opinion on Mark and the vast majority of the rest of us have other opinions and that’s the nature of sport.

I get that you’re a total M Waugh fanboi and I understand why. I’ve also taken on board your previous essays about M Waugh’s ability to score runs in tough situations, when others failed.

It is for this reason that I keep him in that second rank of batters, despite only averaging 41, when others like Morris, McCabe, or Hayden clearly scored far more runs, far more consistently.

But at the end of the day, a batters job is to score consistent runs and you don’t average 41 if you aren’t failing surprisingly often or failing to make the big scores that truly deflate opponents (see S Waugh’s 200 against the Windies in ’95 when M Waugh did his thing, but as usual, was gone without pushing on to a huge score). One of my pet peeves with your endless stats is they don’t reflect what is expected of a professional batsman. Mark might have scored a good century, but he should have pushed on like Steve did, you don’t leave it to others. He got out when the score was 300, we could have collapsed and his century may not have been match winning. Steve’s 200 was.

On Hayden, whilst I’ve pointed out the criticisms of him which are raised and are fair, there’s still the realty that M Waguh’s peak batting years were the ’90s; he was born in 65, so he was 29 in ’94 and the next five years were his peak batting years. In contrast, Hayden was born in 71, he was only young in the ’90s. It’s not surprising that M Waugh performed better in the tougher years than Hayden.

There’s an argument to be made that even Waugh benefitted from not being selected until ’91, when he was 26, Hadlee’s gone, Botham’s gone, Khan’s gone, the Windies best quicks are gone. So even M Waugh benefited from the ‘timing’ of his career.

It’s not clear if you’re responding to me because for some reason, your posts don’t trigger as responding to me.

I put M Waugh and Hayden in the same category, that class of great below the pantheon of excellence. For me, the truly outstanding Australian batsmen are Trumper, Bradman, Chappelle, Border, S Waugh, Ponting and Smith.

I’ll concede that S Waugh is the weakest of that group and I’m also willing to accept Harvey into the group, if someone wants to make the case.

And this is what point 1 is all about; he did have success, but it did happen as the good teams started to wane, so your point about Pakistan is well made.

Still, you can only play what it is in front of you and you can’t really criticise a guy who’s peak batting years happened to coincide with that time (he was 29 in 2000, so his peak batting years were literally the exact period).

I basically agree with this assessment, after a very competitive decade in the ’90s with the Windies still okay, RSA strong and Pakistan strong, most test teams were pretty modest from approximately 2000 to 2005, except Australia.

But I will say that for me, it was due to the bowling, not the batting. Most test teams continued to feature very good batsmen; the Windies still had Lara and Chanderpaul, also Sarwan was decent and Gayle was good. RSA had Kallis, Kirsten, Gibbs, Smith debuted during this period. Pakistan had Inzi and others, whilst India fielded an amazing batting line up. Even Sri Lanka was fielding a decent batting line up with Jayawardene, Jayasuriya still there, Sangakkara emerging etc.

What let down most teams in the period was bowling. The Windies had none for example. Pakistan lost Akram and Younis and the replacements simply weren’t as good. RSA still had Pollock and had Ntini, but Donald was gone by 2002 and Steyn not yet on the scene.

The reality is that bowlers win tests and whilst most of the world’s bowling was poor, Australia was fielding one of it’s greatest bowling line ups ever in Warne, McGrath and Gillespie, so it’s really no wonder that were so strong, as our batting also matched the other strong batting. Probably the only team that would look back on this era as one of their peaks in bowling was Sri Lanka, but even then, Vaas was good but no great.

Geez the Kiwis love the name Mark; makes it feel like a 17th Century English village when everyone was called John.

I don’t think that’s right on Hayden.

I’ll preface my point by saying that I don’t put Hayden in the same pantheon as Waugh, Smith, Chappell and Ponting, guys who dominated multiple overseas series and thus are in the top echelon.

But Hayden had some very good tours overseas. That India tour was obviously the outstanding once (his version of Smith’s 2019 Ashes), but he also 61 in South Africa in 2001-2 across three tests with a century and two fifties. Opening in RSA against Donald, Pollock and Ntini is no joke. He then averaged 61 again against Pakistan in 2002 in Sri Lanka-UAE, this time with a century and a fifty. Again, this was a good Pakistani team and this was away from home.

Not that this was much of an achievement at the time, but he also smacked two centuries in 2003 away against the Windies. He also averaged 47 touring South Africa later that year, against with an away century.

The reason why Hayden’s record has something of an * next is because:

1. He really only emerged after the best fast bowlers were either retired or wound down. The Windies fast bowlers were gone, and Donald, Akram and Younis were winding down at the end of their careers. In other words, Hayden’s great years basically coincided with every other batsman’s best years, because bowling seemed to drop away (except Australia’s line up);

2. He had a modest record in England and since the Windies declined, that has generally been the marker of an Australian great (probably being usurped by India these days);

3. He played on too long. After his peak years ended with the tour of Sri Lanka in 2004, there was a lot of mediocrity with the occasional smacking of weak opposition. After that tour, he only averaged above 50 in a series again against a weak Windies in 05-06, against the South Africans touring right after and against India in ’07-08. So that means in twelve other series he averaged under 50… an almost half decade long decline unfortunately.

It’s because he didn’t debut for England until he was 25 (which is ‘old’ for a quick) and initially he played little due to injuries etc. And to be fair to England, his speed wasn’t really needed in England – they had pretty successful bowlers for the conditions in Anderson, Broad, Woakes etc.

Honestly, Wood is one of these guys that Australian fans have an inflated opinion of because of certain spells (kinda like Flintoff). He was no use in India recently, averaged 77 and went at 4 an over. He’s done well against Australia in his last two series and he was good in Pakistan in 2022, but honestly, before that he wasn’t much chop.

It’s actually hard to assess his stats because until touring Australia in 2021, the only other series he’d played more than two tests in was against us way back in 2015.

His ODI record is actually awful, so I won’t even bother commenting on it.

He may go down as their fastest bowler ever, but he he’s not on track to crack even their top twenty quicks. Again, it reminds me of Flintoff, people think he was some titan of the game, yet he averaged 31 with the bat and 32 with the ball over 79 tests. A totally overrated player. Compared to Watto, he looks bog average. Of course this is where statistics don’t tell the whole story; Flintoff had match winning moments, in big games, which Watto didn’t have (in tests). Freddie also batted down the order, so his batting average was less important.

Wood will be 35, turning 36, during the next Ashes. Considering his injury issues to date, I can’t see him playing much.

Too much time has passed for Archer to be one of England’s modern greats. Lots of fast bowlers have injury troubles in the early to mid-20s, but by this stage they should be on their peak years (see Cummins as an example). Even if he’s back to his best by tue time he’s 30, that’s maybe five years of cricket, at best.

I agree that no matter what the circumstances, the powers of concentration and fitness to score a 300 is incredible, so from an athletic/sporting perspective I agree.

But from a ‘cricket’ perspective – as in whether this means he deserves to be spoken of in the same breadth as names like Ponsford or Bradman, I don’t think so personally.

Honestly, I’ve always found these sorts of scores to be ridiculous. The goal of most games, except in certain circumstances, should be to win and that means these types of scores make that impossible; either the batting is too easy (like in this case) or the end result is not enough time to get a result.

When both teams make 600, you know it’s a complete joke.

This bowling line up needs to assistance, it’s out of this world.

Fascinating mate, thanks for the further info!

I’m just not knowledgeable enough about keeping, and never saw Knott live, to make a call, but it seems the side would have been stronger with Vengsarkar in there… but I’ll defer to the expert!

Seriously strong team. I appreciate you don’t have the space to set this out, and cricket nuffies who are likely the only ones that read these articles probably already know this, but averaging 35 in a career entirely before 1900 is seriously good.

Was there another world class bat that you could have fitted in if you wanted to put Flower as ‘keeper?

What exactly is the purpose of the Central Contracts? Isn’t it so that Cricket Australia has full control over a players movements? So for example, they’ve been able to cut short Lyon’s County stint to keep him fresh etc?

If that’s the purpose, then there’s no point having Harris on the list, as he’s not some ‘in demand’ batters on the T20 circuit who they need to have the power to pull from tournaments. If they need Harris, or Bancroft, or Renshaw, they can just call these guys up, because they don’t have international contracts other than maybe a bit of County.

Stoinis presumably reflects that he’s no longer needed in the ODI side (probably never was…) so again, no point paying him extra money when they don’t need to pull him out of T20 tournaments any more to play ODI series…

I agree that Pakistan has more revenue potential than Zimbabwe or Afghanistan, but there are other options; New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa (not England as they’re coming next summer and not Windies, as they came the summer before).

It’s particularly frustrating that we don’t bring out Bangladesh; you can’t build a rivalry/interest if you never do anything.

I don’t like it at all.

Firstly, I really don’t like how we have multiple teams touring now. I wish we played tests and white ball stuff against the same opponent. Just as you’re getting to know the team, they head off… it takes away from the ‘story’ of the stars.

Also, we had Pakistan this summer, why are they coming out again this summer? Why not someone different? Frustrating.

I also hate that the white ball stuff is before the tests. You can already see what’s going to happen, key guys like Smith, Head, Marsh, Cummins, plus some fringe guys like Hardie, will be pulled from the Shield to play meaningless white ball games against Pakistan.

There shouldn’t be any international cricket before the tests, just red ball stuff to prepare for the biggest test series on the calendar. It’s just dumb.

The final kicker is no international cricket after January 8. As someone who has almost no interest in the BBL, this is just terrible. So my home summer ends the day I go back to work…

You think two Victorians and a Tasmanian are ignoring a WA (Bancroft) because he’s WA?

Even though what they did do most recently was bring in a WA (Green).

Paranoia…

Thanks BBOB for clarifying that it’s nationwide.

I obviously get what it means, but it’s still odd – you can’t reverse something that hasn’t actually been decided yet. Yes they would win if the first innings are the only completed full innings, but until that’s known, it’s not a reverse, it’s just an outright win.

But thank you for the full details!

Still a bizarre way to refer to it… if you didn’t get the result, then it hasn’t been ‘reversed’, it’s just a come from behind win… blo0dy Victorians 😂

‘reverse-outright’ after a completed second innings for both teams.

What does this mean? Doesn’t this just mean, the team can only win if they… win…? I don’t understand.

This just seems like an amazing, come from behind win with limited overs, but why is it ‘reverse’?

The production line helps too… that’s the key difference between domestic, non-franchise and national set up. WA obviously has a fantastic production line at present, so the domestic front must be amazing.

Inglis misses very few catches , lets a minimum of leg byes and byes through and gives the rotating cohort of fast bowlers confidence in their attack. Certainly good enough for the Australian side, if necessity calls.

Surely everyone already thought Inglis was the most likely to step into Carey’s role if he broke a leg the day before a test? I like Inglis, but his two failures with the bat here show that he is no better with the blade than Carey over an extended period of time (which is not a slight to either player; they’re both fine players).

Amazing to think that WA didn’t need him…

Testament to their depth, the form of his opening partner and that although he’s batted well again this season, his performance wasn’t so head and shoulders above his peers that his runs were indispensable. I’m crush for the bloke that he missed out on this though, probably the career highlight for some of these guys (and a damn good one too).