Axis of Bob

Nuggets, you are arguing against your own points. The Ashes team was a young team, and it was thrashed. The team is still young, yet you want to throw more young players into the mix? Hussey had a bad game, but is still batting very well. The only 'old' batsman that you could be looking to replace is Ponting, but I don't think he's yet ready to be dumped. He's still got a few more credits in the bank. You said that Khawaja should never have been dropped .... but the player he was replaced with was Shaun Marsh, who has since averaged nearly 60 in tests. So list your team, as you would want it now, Nuggets. What is your Australian XI. Also, it's Alex Keath. He's not playing because he can't make runs at district level at the moment. He will, but these things take time. You can't just throw kids in and expect them to perform. He needs development and he'll do that through the Futures league until he starts putting it together.

Australia are in a position of rebuilding but, like the Dees, you can't just cast off every experienced player and play kids. If you do then they will get smashed and that may be worse for their development than not playing at all. Cummins looks are real talent but the next top line young fast bowler, in my opinion, is Josh Hazelwood. Very tall, quick enough (mid 130s), consistent and has a great seam that can move the ball in the air or off the deck. Quality prospect. Australia is lucky that we actually have a very strong group of young quicks coming through. Hazelwood, Cummins, Pattinson, Starc (although others rate him higher than I do at the moment). The bowlers we have at the moment, Harris aside, are pretty average. Siddle is honest, Copeland has faults, Johnson has even more (but lots of talent), Lyon and Beer are inexperienced. Our future batsmen don't look quite as strong at the moment, with the leading players probably being Khawaja, Maddinson, Marsh x 2 (Mitch is super talented, but doesn't seem to know how to build an innings yet - but should be very good), Paine/Wade, Smith, Warner (probably better than is given credit for), Hughes ..... but the quality doesn't seem to be as high. Nor the output yet. I think we'll need some older heads to stay around, especially in the batting, to help shelter the youngsters from the heat a bit.

They have a whole new selection committee. What exactly did you want to do to fix up CA? Also, just to annoy you, are you aware that the probably next 3 test debutantes are going to be from NSW? Nothing to do with state bias, but rather because they are the best players in the pipeline

Well Clarke's innings in the first dig was a thing of beauty. When the pitch flattened out a bit batting became quite easy. Unfortunately it was the 4th innings by then! We had a lot of players that didn't adjust to the seaming pitch. Haddin was the most susceptible. I dare say he is close to the end than the beginning. Especially with Paine as the heir apparent. But he's luck Paine isn't fit yet. Ponting hare earned chances. He certainly hasn't used them up yet. As for Hughes, I think he'll be a good player. But not yet. It depends if we stick with him because he's the future, or whether we flick him because he is struggling. Inverarity said something about investing games in those that we should be investing games into. Hughes is probably one we should be investing games into. Khawaja is a great looking batsman though. Watson opening is a bit of a worry on a seaming deck, though. Interesting decision if Marsh doesn't play. Play Watson at 6 and open with Ussie? 6 probably suits the counterattacking style of Watson more in the longer format.

This has been some innings by Clarke.

Pretty much because he was playing as an undersized ruckman in a TAC team, I would assume. Not many of them get drafted. He's also not the world's silkiest kick, but he's got a big tank and a good head on his shoulders.

Oh, and Katich must be some sort of tool. It was interesting to hear the response from Clarke. He said all the right things, but he also mentioned the dressing room harmony being important. Don't need to read very far between the lines there.

I was watching the game. It was a game decided by the toss and the first 10 overs of Victoria's innings. Starc and Hazelwood bowled brilliantly early and Victoria was lucky to only be one down. The ball was swinging around and batting was tough going. The Victorian openers had to do their best to survive and we lost 4 early wickets before the pitch settled down. Once the pitch settled down it was a batting paradise. Hodge and Quiney did as they pleased on the postage stamp of a ground and a pitch that may as well have had lane markings. The NSW innings was just more of the same and bowling was near impossible. Hazelwood (especially) and Starc are very promising young bowlers. Starc has all the tools to be really good, but sprays it around at the moment. Hopefully with maturity he can get more consistency. Hazelwood will be a star. Giant of a kid, bowls mid-130s and hits the seam regularly. He is as close to Glenn McGrath as you could get. He'll be a regular national bowler if he stays fit. For the Vics it was only Herrick that looked to have any penetration, although he tends to spray it around a bit.

I don't think he has been underrated. I think he's where he should be ... as one of the 10 best cricketers this country has ever produced. I think Border was better, IMO, because he was a class above his team mates and faced some of the best bowling there has ever been. Ponting is better than Border. Gilchrist I think is over rated, but he did change the way the game is played. Miller I would love to have seen, and it's hard to argue with his selection. I believe that bowlers win matches once you get to the very top level. When the best teams play each other they can both bat well and deep - it's the bowlers that set them apart. With that in mind I'm happy with McGrath above Ponting. That said, the Don is still number 1. When you are twice as good as any batsman in history then I think you've earned it! Benaud I think might be a little high, but it's hard when I didn't see him play.

Certainly since I've been around. Being one strike away from losing the series ..... twice ...... and getting crucial hits to stay in the game. Cruz should really have gone harder at that fly ball. If he takes it the Rangers win the whole thing and he can spend the whole winter getting a bruised arm better. As it is, he squibbed it and now they have to face Carpenter in game 7 with a depleted bullpen, away to a team than now has all the momentum. Sometimes you just have to go when it's your turn. He didn't and it could cost them the whole thing. Great game. It had everything.

World Series. Game 6. Just sayin' ......

Yep, it's been a good day of cricket, Jack. We bowled very well. Same as the first match, where we have been relentless in our bowling discipline. Just over 2 and a half an over during the Sri Lankan innings. As for Lyon, I think he has a lot of promise. I like the way he is able to drop the ball on the batsmen. Probably needs to develop a bit of variation, but his stock ball shows good signs. I also thought that Hughes looked very good in the time he and Watson batted before stumps. Very composed against both pace and spin.

That stage was incredible. Evans' chase down on Galibier, both days, may win him the tour. He did it completely by himself from both sides of the Galibier and took 2 minutes the first day and 1.5 the second. Simply incredible stuff. Cadel deserves to win this. He's now in a great spot, but there is a lot of hard, hard work to do.

I don't like people practically giving Evans the Tour already. There are 3 big mountain stages including a mountain top finish at the Alp d'Huez leading into the time trial and the race could be turned on its head on any one of the next 3 days before the time trial. At their best, all of Contador, Andy and Frank Schleck could outclimb Evans. With three big mountain stages, Evans could be knocked out at any stage. That said, Evans' climbing form looks really good. Evans' big weapon is, of course, the time trial. He should beat all of th GC contenders pretty easily, especially Frank Schleck and Voekler. If he is behind any of them by less than about 45 secs going into the TT then he should win, but Contador is probably the best of the rest of the time trialists. That first day crash on an innocuous stage could well be decisive.

Please tell me that 'something' is ' how to spell'.

At least we aren't South Africa! I usually think Peter Roebuck writes shallow emotional rubbish, but he made a good point today in his article. We simply weren't good enough but other teams still feared us. Not because we could bat or bowl, because we couldn't, but because we were Australia and teams knew that we would fight and fight. We fought, but it wasn't enough because we just weren't good enough. Not being good enough is not a problem South Africa has. But they still can't win.

But they didn't need to constrict them, they needed wickets. Last two recognised batsmen at the crease so we needed to break that partnership quickly.

That's what Tait is there for. Picking up a well set Tendulkar who is on 50 during the middle overs. Sure, he's spraying it, but it's tough to find someone that can do that.

If you look at how the team is selected it sends out a very clear message: "We aren't good enough to win the World Cup so we're going to have to fluke it" If we picked a team that had our most solid, effective bowlers and our most clinical batsmen, then we still wouldn't be good enough to beat South Africa. By picking Tait, White, Smith, Krezja etc, we are still unlikely, but if one of them comes off then we are a real chance. Given that, White stays in the team no matter how badly he's hitting it. Why? Because if he does rediscover form in a game then he can single handedly win us a game a la Symonds in 2003. We won't drop Tait for Hastings, (or Bollinger when he was there) because Tait could possibly single handedly win us a game against South Africa if he clicks. Basically we aren't good enough, but if we throw a Hail Mary or two then our chances increase from 0% to something above 0%. Albeit not far above 0%!!

Well done Jack - they're now 2/16. Also, none of the commentators said anything, but I am almost 100% sure that the the opener hit the ball with the first lbw. There was a clear deflection, two noises and the batsman went off holding is bat at the toe end. They barely looked at that when doing the replay, which was the only reason it wasn't given in the first place. Wouldn't have minded the ICC to have included hot spot in the UDRS for the World Cup. Canada would probably be 1 for.

Clarke was unlucky that he got one that didn't bounce and chopped it on. White's was a brain fade. The best news was the form of Ponting. Looked a bit average early but really started looking good for most of his innings. Will be a tough World Cup if they keep producing bunsen burners like that one, though. India were able to play about 10 spinners because of the 11 bat/11 bowl format of the practice matches, so they could play 3 specialist spinners + Yuvraj Singh. They only bowled 9 overs of pace (combining for 1 for 55 at over 6 an over).

I'd laugh pretty hard if Clarke won ODI player of the year. He has averaged over 50 in the past 12 months, so he's a chance.

I would say that Johnson went in because Yardy had come on to bowl and had 1 for 9 in his 3rd over. It only would have been right handers coming in to face the left arm spinner would turned the ball away, so by bringing in Johnson he was able to turn that left arm spinner into a weakness for England rather than a strength. Especially during the Power Play, since Johnson is notoriously harsh on left arm finger spinners with his power to mid wicket. It didn't necessarily pan out that way, but Johnson was there to hit Yardy. Plus Clarke knew that his strength didn't lie in the Power Play overs when he first gets in, so he sent in a hitter. Why not White, Smith or Hussey? Probably because the experiment was for 5 overs, rather than 40 overs. He did't expect Johnson to still be there later when Clarke would be better off knocking the ball around, and he'd rather have his best power batsmen available for the last 10 overs when the foot really needed to go down. I doubt the Johnson decision was inteded for any more than the next 5 overs. Any more than that would have been a bonus.

Really good innings from Clarke. Shows that you don't need to be a massive power hitter to chase down big scores in one day cricket. He was just so intelligent the way he went about the chase - scoring off nearly every ball and then pushing hard for twos. He ran the Poms ragged in the same way that Bevan used to. Just goes to show that you need to give your best players time when they aren't playing well. Clarke is a class batsman who has shown he is good enough over several years. He's still only 29 and has many years of good cricket left in him. Interesting to note that Clarke is the 3rd highest run scorer in this ODI series (behind Trott and Watson). Even when he's out of form, he's still one of the best (if not the best) batsmen in Australia. Hopefully now the cringeworthy media witch hunt can end and we can concentrate the World Cup.

Well, going by your 5 consecutive matches of failures (ie, scores < 20) Michael Clarke would never have been dropped from the one day team. Not a single time. In Tests he would not have been dropped either. Hussey would not have been dropped from Tests (although he'd have gone close a few times, with a few well placed scores between 20 and 30!). You'd have dropped Hussey from ODIs in March 2007 as the only time. Ponting would have been dropped from Tests in 2001 half way through the Ashes. He had 10 scores under 20 in a row. Curiously, he then finished off the series by scoring 144, 72 and then 62. This is our best batsman for some time, and currently 3rd on the overall Test run scorers list. You'd have dropped him from the ODI team in February 2009, June 2008 and October 2006. So, overall, the total ratio of matches per 'WYL dropping' for each of the batsman would be: Mike Hussey (Test average 51, ODI average 52): 210 matches per dropping Ricky Ponting (Test average 54, ODI average 43): 126 matches per dropping Michael Clarke (Test average 46, ODI average 43): never dropped in 254 matches Any further requests? Also, Clarke won't get to play 4 day cricket if he plays club cricket. He'll get one 2 day match a week (possibly just a one dayer or T20). If he stays in the side then he'll get a 4 matches in the next 2 weeks! Just because you use throwaway labels like 'marketeers' to try to personalise your arguments, it doesn't stop your arguments being awful. Each action has a consequence. A one day series that is basically a World Cup tune up is the perfect time for Clarke to try to find some form. I do get it: You don't like Clarke. Probably based on some misguided notion that because he isn't Allan Border he that he doesn't deserve to be captain. Well times are changing and you'd better get used to it otherwise you'll be a very frustrated grumpy old man.