titan_uranus

Let's be honest about what's happened at Lord's. Mohammad Amir is 18. He earns something like $35,000, where for any other country he'd earn in the hundreds of thousands. A man offers him money to do nothing other than bowl a few no-balls. Not to deliberately drop a catch, or give a wicket away, or try not to take wickets. Just to bowl 2 or 3 no-balls. Sure, it's the wrong thing, and it's corrupt, but in my mind it's not match-fixing per se. Outside of those no-balls he did what he was expected to do, which was to take wickets. He did take 6 of them. Match-fixing is one thing. Bowling no-balls is another, and whilst it's corrupt and wrong, and he should be punished, I see the kid's reasoning. Hopefully we don't over-react to this if this is all he is guilty of, and he can learn from this mistake and continue what will be a fine career. This is, of course, separate to the possible (and likely) rigging of the Sydney test. Amir didn't play in that Test, but I would be fairly confident that the Pakistanis threw that match for money. Possibly Salman Butt fixed the Hobart match, too. But I want to defend Amir until I'm proven wrong, I think he is just too young to fully understand what he did and he is poor enough to do what is asked of him for extra cash.

Read this: 184, 169, 26, 22, 21, 13, 13, 10, 10, 10, 6, 6, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 The scores of all the dismissed batsmen in this test. It's really hard to work out exactly how Broad and Trott managed to make those scores, when in every other partnership the ball has dominated.

One of, if not the, best ball I've seen since the Gatting ball was from Swann to Farhat in the recent Test. You can see it in the video in this article: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/the-english-ball-of-the-century-20100810-11wcb.html?autostart=1 The two can't really be compared as the bowling styles and circumstances were quite different but Swann's is still a beauty.

Averages since the end of the Ashes (thus the series against the West Indies and Pakistan at home, New Zealand away, and Pakistan in England): Katich - 61.93 Clarke - 57.46 Watson - 46.87 Hussey - 44.26 Ponting - 40.05 North - 30.26

On the whole not a bad post, and I agree with your team. I'd be shifting Watson down the order for the Ashes and playing Hughes. Yes, he struggled in last year's Ashes against the short stuff, but surely he's worked on that by now. Too talented not to be in the side. Watson's batting is OK, his bowling is now a lot better, and if he's going to be bowling considerable amounts of overs he shouldn't be opening the batting, it's a bit too taxing for someone with his history of injuries. I'd look to dropping North, who just doesn't stand up when the team needs him. As replacements for Hussey and Ponting I can think of no better pair than White and Ferguson.

If this doesn't shut JJC and WYL up nothing will. You've got to say Ponting's haunted by Edgbaston of 2005. How much more do the conditions need to be tailored to bowling for him to bowl first? It's 27 tosses in a row now that Ponting's batted first. Pakistan's bowling unit is the best in the world, bar none. Asif, Aamer and Gul together work wonders with the ball, and Kaneria's not hopeless as a leggie. Beats ours by a long way. They'd be a top 2 or 3 team if they could find some decent batsmen. Salman Butt's OK, Umar Akmal is good, but the rest are fragile at best (of course, they're batting fine now...). Johnson's fallen a long way from South Africa last year. With Siddle on the way back, he's the one that needs to start taking wickets IMO. Hilfenhaus is a genuine swing bowler who's at least taking wickets, and Bollinger at the moment is bowling a much tigher line and length. Johnson eases the pressure with too many loose deliveries. I'd have Siddle back in the side (as soon as he's fit), so someone has to go. Edit: A good article: http://www.cricinfo.com/pakistan-v-australia-2010/content/current/story/468343.html

Well maybe if some other people cared to contribute to the discussion... I'm also quite bored without uni. It's amazing how during the exam period I can find a million different ways to procrastinate but as soon as the exams are over there seems to be nothing to do except post repeatedly about cricket. Meanwhile, North's taken 6 wickets. He's on the Lord's honour board. How odd. 11 of the 20 wickets we took went to Watson and North, so there's still work to be done with our bowlers. Johnson and Bollinger were largely ineffective.

Pakistan 1/114 chasing 440 for victory. We were bowled out for 334 with Hilfenhaus (yes, Hilfenhaus) making 56 not out (quite unbelievable really) and Bollinger making 24 (his highest score as well). You'd think that 440 is too much for Pakistan but they've got a good platform, and when the sun comes out at Lord's and the ball stops swinging it's a good batting track. Steven Smith will need to add to his tally of 1 wicket if the swing isn't there. Since the start of the Australian summer Katich has made 8 scores between 79 and 99, with two centuries. That's both a model of consistency and a frustratingly poor conversion rate.

We're now 4/100, after bowling Pakistan out for 148, after they bowled us out for 253. We were 2/97 but Gul got Clarke and Hussey in consecutive balls. Watson took 5 wickets. Ponting made a duck in what will likely be his last innings at Lord's, so he never made it to 50 at that ground. Provided we get something from North, Paine, Smith and Johnson, as well as Katich who's 49 not out, we should be able to get the lead up around 350 which should be too much for Pakistan.

9/229 at stumps on Day 1 at Lord's. An OK total given the tough batting conditions, but we were at one stage 2/171 with Katich and Clarke batting well. But Asif got Clarke off the last ball before tea and we lost 6/58 in the third session, North making another duck, Paine 7, Smith 1 and Johnson 3. Johnson's batting has fallen apart since the tour of South Africa last year. Hussey's still there, and we saw in Sydney that even with a tailender he can forge out a decent innings so if Bollinger hangs around we could push past 250. Either way it's not a great total but Pakistan's batting line-up is fragile at best and we have Hilfenhaus back who should thrive in these conditions. An interesting stat I saw in the cricinfo commentary is that, in a combined 11 Tests, Ponting, Tendulkar and Lara have a highest score of 54 at Lord's.

Bangladesh beat England! Yay for Bangladesh!

Not really, commentators can be pretty slack when it comes to English... lol just messing around. This match is seriously one of the most unbelievable sporting occurances I can think of.

Would have been great if they'd kept going till the end last night. Isner wanted to. Of course light and the time of night played a factor, but I wonder whether the overnight rest will refresh them and the break will come really early.

In the entire game Mahut's only had 3 break points, and converted 1 of them. Isner's had 12, and also only converted 1. Both have broken Ivo Karlovic's record for number of aces in a match, with Isner on 98 and Mahut on 95. Winners: Isner 218, Mahut 215 (includes aces). The fifth set has been going for 424 minutes

Unbelievable match. Mahut's saved 4 match points in the fifth set already, including one at 59-58, right before the end of play. Apparently someone was there watching it, left at 7-8 to go watch England vs Slovenia, when that was over he came back and re-commenced the tennis at 28-27. I wonder how the umpire's back's feeling?

Also, Tim Paine has been called up to replace Haddin in the 14 man squad for the Tests against Pakistan. I reckon that's a bit of a slap in the face to Chris Hartley from Queensland and Wade from Victoria. Both of them seem to be better first-class batsmen than Paine.

Josh Hazlewood debuted for Australia last night at the age of 19. Youngest ever player to debut in an ODI for Australia. Took a wicket, too, but we lost to England.

And she's out in the first round. 6-4 6-4 to Kaia Kanepi. Schiavone lost yesterday as well. So both the French Open finalists are out.

A fit Hewitt at his best is good enough to beat anyone on grass. That's only Federer's second loss on grass since 2003, his first ever loss in Halle. He might be on the wane slightly but you've still got to produce good tennis to knock him off on grass, so well done Hewitt. He has to hope he gets a half-decent draw this year. How many times does he end up with Federer in the third or fourth round?

Nadal back to world number 1 after smashing Soderling 6-4 6-2 6-4. Second year in a row Soderling's beaten the world no. 1 and defending champion then lost the final.

I didn't think she'd be able to beat Serena. Now I have confidence. I mean, Jankovic should be relatively easy compared to Serena and Henin. Wow. Who knows, maybe she might go all the way...

And Federer's lost in the Quarter-finals, which is the first time he hasn't made it to the semi-finals or beyond since 2004. 23 consecutive grand slams he'd made it to the semis. But Soderling got him in 4 sets.

Stosur beat Henin at the French Open! Now for Serena...

An issue that has to be dealt with: http://www.cricinfo.com/srilanka/content/current/story/460510.html Mahela Jayawardene, in his 12 years of Test cricket, has played a total of 4 Tests in Australia. Sri Lanka haven't played a Test outside of the subcontinent since they were here in 2007, they haven't been to South Africa in 8 years and they haven't been to England in 5. It's ridiculous how cricket is dominated by Australia, England, South Africa and India. There should be a minimum number of Tests for each nation, and the new system, which should preferably be a Test Championship of some sort, should ensure that touring is fair and spread out. If there was a Test Championship then Tests between Australia and teams like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and West Indies would have more meaning, which would make it less of a pain to schedule in our summer.

Clarke has to go. Anyone could lead the team we've got to the record he's led it to. Let's not forget who we played in that time: Pakistan, West Indies, New Zealand and then the World Cup. A good leader, clearly, and will definitely be the next captain of the Test side, but he is the clear weak link in the batting line up of the T20 side. Furthermore I'd be looking at removing Haddin from the T20 side too. He isn't the prolific run scorer he should be in that form of the game, and Tim Paine does it much better. Plus it gives him more time off to keep himself right for the Test and ODI teams. Kieswetter for England is a good example. Prior's been dropped from the T20 side. Finally, I'm not convinced in Mitchell Johnson at T20 level. Especially when Doug Bollinger can't get a game. Bollinger tore it up for Chennai in the IPL. Johnson, like Haddin, should probably make way which will give him more time to focus on Test and ODI cricket.