Lee's average gets blown out by his economy rate. His strike rate was excellent.

Never taking more than 5 in an innings says something about the way that he bowled. Certainly not a great of the game and his total wickets taken seems a little misleading. He was certainly a very good bowler who enjoyed a wonderful Australian career. Having him bat at number 9 was pretty handy, too.

When speaking of batting greats, Kumar Sangakkara is not out of place, he is now one of only 5 to have scored more than 12000 test runs.

His current hundred v NZ has given the Sri Lankans a first innings lead after being in all sorts of trouble early.

Wonderful, wonderful cricketer and, by all accounts, person.

11 test double centuries!

  On 04/01/2015 at 02:31, gsmith12 said:

When speaking of batting greats, Kumar Sangakkara is not out of place, he is now one of only 5 to have scored more than 12000 test runs.

His current hundred v NZ has given the Sri Lankans a first innings lead after being in all sorts of trouble early.

Yep, went on to make the double, the 11th time he's done so. Second only to the Don on 12.

Was having a look at some of the test batting stats and didn't realise how similar the numbers are for Ponting, Dravid and Kallis - they are separated by just 7 innings and fewer than 100 runs.

Ponting: 287 innings for 13,378 runs

Kallis: 280 innings for 13,289 runs

Dravid: 286 innings for 13,288 runs

Shame big Mitch is out of the 4th test, will it be Siddle, Starc or Agar to come in? He has given us enough in the past but don't see us winning with Sids or any of those in and no MJ.

  On 04/01/2015 at 10:19, Cards13 said:

Shame big Mitch is out of the 4th test, will it be Siddle, Starc or Agar to come in? He has given us enough in the past but don't see us winning with Sids or any of those in and no MJ.

Starc a lefty to replace a lefty ?

Yeah that papers are going with Starc in to replace Johnson and fair enough to.

Would imagine Harris & Hazlewood will share the new ball and that Starc will be first change. Will be a real glimpse into the future with no Johnson or Clarke playing.

Also saw in The Age today Chris Rogers has come out and all but said this will be his last test in Australia. Will be likely to walk away at the end of The Ashes.

In fact looking at the future tours fixture, it'd almost be a chance for all of Rogers, Haddin, Harris & Watson to be walking after the Ashes. From there our next 14 Tests are against Bangladesh (2 away), New Zealand (3 home), West Indies (3 home), New Zealand again (3 away) & Sri Lanka (3 away) all of whom are on the weaker side of the ledger.

It would provide some of our new/younger players to gain some experience against weaker sides before being exposed to the likes of South Africa, India in India and an Ashes Series. Will be interesting to see how they handle this next generational shift.

0/123 at lunch, could be a massacre here, the Indian fielding has been very poor with young Rahul the worst offender allowing 2 chances to go begging.

Aussies have made the most of their chances as well as receiving the rub of the green.

Was all just a little too easy for the Aussies, a combination of poor fielding, loose bowling and a pretty flat track.

The missed chance off Watson in the last over pretty much summed up the day.

Shame for Rogers, he's had a good series and deserved a ton.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia-v-india-2014-15/content/story/817143.html

Great article from Jarrod Kimber.

  On 01/01/2015 at 02:17, gsmith12 said:

Tweeted by Rodney Hogg and food for thought !

Fawad 18 wickets @ 30

Boyce 8 wickets @ 35

Agar 7 wickets @ 45

Watching the t20 tonight. I know it's not the full picture and I doubt Hogg was suggesting was suggesting picking Boyce, but he was bowling complete rubbish. If he ever gets picked, expect Jason Krezja like figures.

Ahmed on the other hand looks very sharp. I haven't seen much of him bowl before, but he hits the spot and spins it. I'm very impressed and if Boyce and Agar are the level of competition he's up against then it's only a matter of time before he's in.

What's Ahmed's fielding like?

  On 07/01/2015 at 10:26, Nasher said:

What's Ahmed's fielding like?

Can't be worse than his batting...

He's come along way in a very short space of time ...

Steve Smith scores fourth century of series, could bat No. 3 in Ashes series

  Quote

“The higher up the order the better at times I think,” said Smith in an interview with News Corp earlier this week.

“You get a bigger opportunity to score more runs, which is always nice.

  On 07/01/2015 at 21:25, Macca said:

He's come along way in a very short space of time ...

Steve Smith scores fourth century of series, could bat No. 3 in Ashes series

Very unusual for a skipper to elevate himself up the order.?

Road of a pitch, game going nowhere, Lyon gets rid of Rohit and next ball not only does Haddin drop Kohli but we miss a blatant run out opportunity to get rid of Rahul. Wickets aren't easy to come by, especially without Johnson, and there's still Rahane to come. Draw looks quite likely right about now.

  On 08/01/2015 at 00:24, jazza said:

Very unusual for a skipper to elevate himself up the order.?

The captain picks the batting order but I'm assuming on this occasion he'd be consulting the selectors and Coach.

A no-brainer for mine anyway ... I reckon he can handle the no.3 spot with relative ease

So did the ball hit the wire of Channel 9's spider-cam?

It's an f-ing disgrace if it did, and the Aussies should formally complain. Smith must be spewing!

  On 08/01/2015 at 02:12, Grapeviney said:

So did the ball hit the wire of Channel 9's spider-cam?

It's an f-ing disgrace if it did, and the Aussies should formally complain. Smith must be spewing!

It may not have hit it, but it certainly interfered; you can read Smith's lips as he looks skyward.

Twitter's in a fizz over it, as are most of the media outlets covering the match, but Channel 9 seem to have moved on...

Elephant. In. Room.

  On 08/01/2015 at 02:48, Grapeviney said:

It may not have hit it, but it certainly interfered; you can read Smith's lips as he looks skyward.

Twitter's in a fizz over it, as are most of the media outlets covering the match, but Channel 9 seem to have moved on...

Elephant. In. Room.

The footage doesn't show whether it hit it or not, zooms in right before it passes the wire.

I'm with you though - it's it shouldn't come to this, ever.

Well, apparently it didn't hit the wire - it just distracted Smith's view.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia-v-india-2014-15/content/story/817967.html

Michael Clarke is more of a smug bogan off the field than he ever was on it .

God FFS shut up.

Brayshaw needs to stop pretending he knows anything useful at all and stab himself in the foot with a dagger every time he thinks he should speak .

The game I grew up

Loving is a chicken marketing exercise now ,with just a group of matey boneheads to detract from the match.

They add absolutely nothing to the spectacle and they anger me to the point of disgust.

I want to vomit in JBs car on a hot day and wind the window up to give him an equally disgusting experience.

Oh yeah the cricket- well that was hardly mentioned as all the matey ness overshadowed it.

There was one comment that Michael Clark made about pink ribbon day to the tune of " everybody from all over the world gets behind this great cause that our big pidge began so long ago no matter where they are from"

Whilst it is a worthy cause I am certain that the virtual non existence of any medical treatment whatsoever for most of the populace in India,Pakistan,the West Indians,the Sri Lankans leaves them slightly underwhelmed about our pressing need for breast care nurses .

Cricket is so cheesy and corporatised they may as well just put the ads on at the same time.

I'm really starting to struggle to GAF.

  On 08/01/2015 at 10:22, Biffen said:

There was one comment that Michael Clark made about pink ribbon day to the tune of " everybody from all over the world gets behind this great cause that our big pidge began so long ago no matter where they are from"

Brett Lee went one better the other day when he said that 63 was becoming the most important number in cricket. Emotional hyperbole.

This one has been really hard to watch, glad in back at work. Big Mitch is very hard to replace as a spectacle. Flat tracks, yawn.

  On 08/01/2015 at 11:03, Cards13 said:

This one has been really hard to watch, glad in back at work. Big Mitch is very hard to replace as a spectacle. Flat tracks, yawn.

Couldn't agree more.

What's up with our curators preparing roads, especially when a side like India is out here who bat on them all the time??????

... drop in pitches, I suspect/wonder if they are too shallow; so the moisture must be ideal, but maybe not for traditional cricket??? maybe they need to be deeper, so the roots are longer, & the surface moisture loss is more noticeable, as the test match days pass by.