titan_uranus

Disappointing for Cameron White I reckon. Beaten to the squad by Steven Smith, as well as North who holds his place. Likely starting team: Watson Katich Ponting Hussey Clarke North Haddin Johnson Hauritz McKay Bollinger Same team we played in Perth. I can't see Smith taking North's spot (though it wouldn't be such a bad thing), and there would be doubts about Hughes batting at 6.

I agree too. Clarke is employed by Cricket Australia to play cricket. How many other employers would allow you to quit for an indefinite time because your idiot girlfriend can't control her own life? He shouldn't have left NZ. We have phones and the internet now.

With Clarke returning home, and thus uncertain to be a part of the Test squad, Marcus North's chances of going to NZ are probably strengthened. But I like Peter Roebuck's squad, which has Steven Smith and Cameron White in place of North: Watson, Katich, Ponting, Clarke, Hussey, Smith, White, Haddin, Hauritz, Johnson, Bollinger, Cutting, McKay. With Copeland on standby I'd be starting with the same XI from the Australian summer, but switching North for White and Siddle for McKay. If Clarke is unavailable North will keep his spot.

Not exactly sure how my post was 'carp'. When you lose your 5th wicket, and you lead by just 50 runs, that's not a good position to be in. Considering our last two innings have been for scores of 199 and 104, things weren't looking good. Wade and Wright obviously fixed things for us, and brilliant they were. To get to 378 after being 5/111 was a sterling effort. Pity neither got to 100 though.

We're in massive trouble now. 5/133, a lead of only 58 runs. Losing Hussey to the third ball of the day hurt. Losing Jewell and McDonald as well has basically killed us. We desperately need Quiney, Wade and Hastings (very much an improved all rounder who may find himself playing for Australia soon) to get our lead to 200. Hopefully our bowlers can make some inroads, because we need the 6 points from this match.

And here we were thinking that the West Indies were on the path to improvement... They've just been beaten by Zimbabwe. Yes, Zimbabwe. A team that plays the majority of its cricket against Bangladesh. Not to mention having no functioning home, and very few international-quality players. And the Windies had Benn, Chanderpaul and Gayle back in their team. Hopefully in the Test arena they remain competitive, but their recent ODI and T20 matches have been abysmal.

What a T20! First there was McCullum's 116*, second highest score ever and only the second century in T20s. Some of those 'Dilscoops' he played were phenomenal, some came of Tait bowling at 155km/h! Then we had White hit 64* off just 26, as we chased down 214. And then we had Southee bowl yorker after yorker, first in the regular game, then in the super-over.

Points Table: Victoria 8 4 1 0 3 0 30 Queensland 8 4 1 0 3 0 26 Tasmania 8 2 2 0 4 0 17 South Australia 8 2 3 0 3 0 16 New South Wales 8 2 3 0 3 0 14 1 Western Australia 8 1 5 0 2 0 12 So whilst we're already guaranteed to make the final (Tasmania can only get 12 points max from their last 2 games), we could well end up second, and thus playing the final in Brisbane. Last 2 games are vs Western Australia at the WACA and Tasmania at the MCG. We're going to be down on numbers for both matches, but you'd still back us in to win both. Edit: This is our first loss in a 4-day game since the 3-6 March 2008 vs Western Australia.

Sorry to ruin it for you 45. You following on Cricinfo? For some reason they don't do Shield matches, so they take scores off cricket.com.au

Unbelievable stuff from Tendulkar. The man knows no limits. Queensland 9/209. Hartley's out, but we've only got 42 runs to play with, so we need to wrap this up quickly. This Swan guy seems to be pretty capable with the bat. Gotta win this. Edit: Not good. 9/226. 32 run partnership already. Ach, this is going to be close... Edit: Rain delay now! 9/231, this is going to go down to the wire. Edit: This is over now I feel: 9/241 Edit: It's over! 9/252. A 58 10th wicket partnership between their number 10 and 11s gets them the win, our first outright Shield loss in a couple of years, and they close the gap. Bad loss, really. Why McDonald didn't bowl himself I'll never know.

Oh dear God... Victoria, recommencing on 1/4 with a lead of 150, are currently 9/89. Yes, 9 down. At one stage it was 7/33. To think that if we'd bowled Queensland out for just 4 runs less we could (and probably would) have enforced the follow on. This is such an important match, and we may have blown it. The lead is currently 235. 70 short of what we need, but some disciplined bowling should hopefully give us a chance. A massive 10th wicket partnership would help.

Only player worthy of getting dropped at the moment is North. So unless either Hughes is willing to bat at 6, or the selectors wish to risk a lot by splitting the highly successful opening pair of Katich and Watson, Hughes isn't getting back in any time soon.

Bad start for Victoria with Hopes getting Rogers and Mash out early, but Jewell and Finch are rebuilding. 2/115 South Africa's team seems unbalanced. Not enough batsmen. Like Duminy, Albie Morkel's not playing anywhere near as well as he did against us.

Argh! Hashim Amla bats for almost 500 minutes for his 3rd consecutive century, and Morne Morkel at 11 bats for 22.4 overs, only for Harbhajan Singh to take his 5th wicket with 9 balls remaining to win the Test and retain India's No. 1 ranking. Frustrating! Meanwhile, decent off-spinners have shown that JP Duminy is not the indestructible superstar we thought he was when we were playing them. First Graeme Swann, now Harbhajan have shown that a decent off-spinner can make the difference.

It's hard to care about cricket given that, as I type, we're playing our intraclub match, but I saw this on Cricinfo: New Zealand and Sri Lanka are going to play ODIs in Florida. Also, Afghanistan is playing well in the World Twenty20 qualifiers. It'd be pretty cool if they could qualify.

Immensely looking forward to the Ashes. But following the Tests there are 7 ODIs. Too many. Seems to me that CA is either contractually or otherwise bound to have 10 ODIs per season (there are another 3 before the Ashes vs Sri Lanka) or they don't get it. 3 would have been plenty. Warne can get stuffed. We're the Bushrangers. Show some respect to your heritage I say.

No way the triangular series is coming back. It was scrapped because of the boring and unattended neutral matches every week. I mean, who wants West Indies v Pakistan in Hobart? We can't play England, South Africa and India exclusively. Every so often we play lesser teams, like these two, and this is what happens. But one day the Windies will be strong again, and maybe it will be England who will attract complaints. Who knows. Meanwhile, I'm loving the India-South Africa Test in Nagpur. India have been forced to follow on after Dale Steyn ripped through their batting order, taking 7. And in the follow on they've already lost Gambhir and Sehwag. Hopefully the Proteas have enough in the tank to get Tendulkar out early, and the match will be theirs.

I reckon Sunday games generally draw lower crowds than Fridays, for starters. So let's compare ODIs with ODIs, and wait until the Friday ODI vs the West Indies next week. I'm tipping the crowd will be higher on the Friday. Although, there's a NAB cup game between Collingwood and St Kilda that day at Etihad. That could impact on the crowd. But having and ODI 2 days after a T20, when the T20 leads into a weekend and the ODI leads into a work/school day, clearly the T20 is going to rate higher. Was a good game to be at, though. Except for the damn cold wind.

Don't like the news of Siddle's stress fractures. Not good. However, it opens the door for the likes of Clint McKay and Ryan Harris to get on the plane to NZ and play Test cricket. It also gives Brett Lee some hope, if he's fit for the tour of England. But by then I think Hilfenhaus will be fit again, and he'll come in straight away.

Phew... Mitchell Marsh is going to be a star. Should force his way into the Australian team in the next 12-24 months.

Tsonga-Almagro. What I saw of that match was awesome. Or, in the words of Henri Laconte, UNBELIEVABLE!

Henin-Dementieva = best 2nd round match in tennis history? And it didn't even go for 3 sets. Would have been immensely epic if it had. Unfortunately, Henin won though. I still don't like her, but I'm softening I think.

Good to see the Vics make the Champions League again. But winning the Big Bash is going to be pretty difficult, with no White, McKay, Siddle, Bravo, or Taylor. Will be interesting to see what Taylor and Bravo do come the Champions League if Trinidad and Tobago, or Central Districts (Taylor's NZ team), or the Royal Challengers Bangalore qualify. I would assume that they signed their Victorian contracts with a clause that allows them to play for their home teams if they qualify. IMO, it's more important, in any form of the game, to have a bowling line-up that can take 20 wickets. Most batsmen can make runs against poor bowlers or flat pitches. Obviously you need competent batsmen who can put together decent length innings (Pakistan doesn't have these, neither does Bangladesh), but bowlers are more important than batsmen who average 50+. On a related note, has there ever been an XI in which 10 of the 11 have taken a Test wicket? Our team in Hobart was just that, with only Haddin not having ever taken a Test wicket.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/peter-si...f-1225821044172 Dwayne Bravo out of our line-up with a hand injury. Not good. Lose a bowler and a batsman. Katich didn't bowl before because of his shoulder. Before he bowled in Hobart he had a saline injection into his shoulder to free it up and allow him to bowl. And I didn't get around to bagging England. Seriously, Morkel highlighted a weakness in Strauss' game (angled in from round the wicket), Cook is still susceptible, Trott's no good, Pietersen's out of form, Prior's no good, Broad and Anderson weren't that good either. If not for some luck and some defiant batting from Collingwood and Onions England would have lost 3-1. Agree there. North isn't good enough, and should be replaced for the NZ and Pakistan tests, even though they're not the best practice. I still think Hussey should be batting at 5 and Clarke at 4. He bats further down in ODIs, where he is indisputably one of the world's best, and he always bats well with the tail.

Pretty fair analysis, RR, except I disagree with the final statement. I believe we can (and will) win the Ashes this year. We now have a world-class opening pair again. Katich and Watson are high class batsmen who complement each other well. And they both bowl, which is nice. Agree re: Hauritz. The figures flatter him immensely, and Yousuf said as much after the match. A lot of his wickets were the batsman playing a woeful shot. I'd hazard a guess that less than half Hauritz' wickets were on account of good bowling (though he got Manzoor yesterday with some smart pace variation). Graeme Swann is well, well in front of him. Good to see Siddle back in the wickets. IMO he's better than Bollinger, but didn't get the results to show it. Consequently, he's going to need to really out-bowl Bollinger in NZ to keep his spot when Hilfenhaus returns (and Hilfenhaus goes straight into the team, no questions. He swings it. Enough said). Siddle swung it both ways yesterday, though. If he keeps doing that hopefully he can get a ton of NZ wickets. It has to be, doesn't it? I mean, Ross Taylor comes in tonight, so someone has to go from the team that beat Tasmania. Won't be Hodge or Finch, they batted well at 1 and 2. 3-7 are Hussey, White, Bravo, McDonald, Wade. Won't be Bravo, Wade or White. Could be McDonald, but he's in better form than Hussey. So I reckon Hussey gets the chop.