titan_uranus

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.

Good cricket results worldwide. Steyn and Morkel did everyone a favour by putting England back in their box. Can someone tell me why Onions was dropped? As for us, I'm bitterly disappointed with our batting. Clarke should have hung around a little longer. 2 more runs and they would have had the highest ever partnership in Australia, 50 odd more runs would have made it the highest 4th wicket partnership for Australia, and 80 odd runs would have broken the record for highest 4th wicket partnership ever. Seriously, though, those two weren't in good batting form, so it was good for them to get some runs. North, on the other hand, did nothing to improve his standing. Haddin, Johnson and Hauritz managed to come in and start hitting the ball straight away. North took 46 balls for his 21. Too slow given the circumstances. And then he went out to another waft outside off stump. Also, good to see Siddle grab 2 wickets. He's bowled better than his figures suggest, but he needs wickets to keep his spot anyway.

So long as Serena Williams or Justine Henin don't win, I don't care who wins the women's draw. Clijsters preferably. I'd say Stosur, but she's in such bad form right now I dobut she'll make the 3rd round. As for the men, Federer isn't in great form either. It seems quite open to me. Any of Federer, Nadal, Murray, Roddick, Del Potro, Davydenko or Djokovic seem capable. Should make for some classic matches.

^ I don't get it...

I reckon they always planned to play him in Hobart, but I reckon now they'll be considering a replacement for the NZ tour. Next test after Hobart is on March 19.

Oh. My. God. I hate England so much. Another last-gasp draw. That man Onions saves the day again. Bloody Collingwood drops the anchor again. South Africa fail to get the last wicket again. In other news, we've named an unchanged line-up for Hobart. As I suspected would be the case since it is a dead rubber, North gets one final chance. I suspect if he fails again he won't be on the plane to NZ. If Katich is fit, though, it's possible North could be dropped, but the likelihood is that Katich won't be fit and Hughes will open again. The lack of wickets is troubling, but most commentators thought he was our best bowler in the first innings in Melbourne. Possibly the unluckiest bowling innings I've ever seen. But of course, as you say, close enough is not always good enough, and with Ben Hilfenhaus eventually coming back Siddle's going to need some wickets soon.

Amazing Test. It seems that Sydney brings the best out of both teams and makes for an exciting finish. Maybe a tied Test next year? Nonetheless, we still have problems that need addressing. North is at the top of the list, but Ponting and Clarke are in form ruts and Siddle has 6 wickets in 4 Tests (but we can excuse him thanks to his batting). As for Pakistan, well, one of their bowlers is going to be hard done by when Aamer comes back. I think it will be Sami, who only got 3, 2 of which were bat shots (Hughes and Ponting). But he still bowled well. And Kamran has brought back all the negativity surrounding his keeping. Since he's not giving anything with the bat, he mightn't be around when we play the return series in June (in England).

If anyone out there needs convincing that Test cricket is the premier form of the game look no further than this match. One team chooses to bat in iffy conditions and gets rolled by a team supposedly a lot worse than it. That team then fights back, first with the ball, then with the bat, only to slip away again. But just when the Test looked gone, a fighting 9th wicket partnership provides hope, and 3 wickets before tea leaves the contest even. Great stuff. My view on this is that whoever we bring in couldn't do any worse than North. White's had a taste of Test cricket (and tough cricket it was too, in India in 2008) and is in good form for Victoria. He is a natural leader, possibly could develop into an Australian captain. He's also only 26. Furthermore, he fields at slip, and he can bowl part time wrist spin (which at the moment couldn't be that far behind Stephen Smith's). He's the best option at the moment, and he should take North's spot in Hobart. Siddle needs a few wickets in this innings, just to keep his place secure. He's bowling just OK at the moment, very unlucky in the 1st innings in Sydney, but only 6 wickets in 4 Tests this summer. Not enough. With Hilfenhaus probably back for the NZ tour, he needs to improve.

Gonna need this last wicket real quick this morning. Then Watson and Hughes will have to set a massive platform. Watson is the only member of our top 7 that is in any sort of form. This could be a defining innings for Hughes, Ponting, Hussey and North.

Time to drop North. Not good enough. His big scores come only when he comes in with runs on the board. When he comes in with the team in trouble he invariably does nothing. We can't keep someone like him at 6 when he isn't contributing. Hughes was dropped in better form that North is in right now. I mean, that shot he played to get out yesterday, just hanging the bat well, well outside off stump, was atrocious. Time to go. Replace with Cameron White, George Bailey, maybe Andrew McDonald, promote Brad Haddin, maybe drop Watson down the order (prefer not to though). Maybe even drop Hughes down the order (his style might suit lower order batting more than opening, but I highly doubt that would ever happen). And he just dropped an absolute sitter. This is Ponting's second bad read of a pitch in 6 months (the first being the Oval in the Ashes). I think he's the only person in the world that would have batted yesterday. These days, Test cricket is more about taking 20 wickets than making lots of runs. IMO, the captain at the toss should be thinking, 'when is it going to be best to bowl on this pitch', rather than bat. Everyone else knew that Day 1 was going to be the best time to bowl. Bad call, Punter. Also, Mohammad Asif = world's best pace bowler. No question. Also, Chris Rogers should have opened, not Hughes. Current form puts Rogers above Hughes.

Think of it as this: Ponting is declared unfit. Hughes is brought in, and it's close to certain that he will open. The choice is clear: Katich or Watson moves. By sending Watson to 6, the selectors IMO send a message to Watson, along the lines of 'yes, we could have left you at the top, or moved you to 3, but we choose to move you to 6'. That's what I meant by punishment.

Hilfenhaus looks set to miss the rest of the summer now. Not good. But at least that keeps Siddle in the team... OK, but then you say: So you're OK with Watson being moved down the order... If Ponting doesn't come up (which I think he will), then Hughes comes in. Unless the selectors want to try something drastic, they're going to move either Watson or Katich out of the opening positions and play Hughes as an opener. I would have thought that Watson, to ease the load on him with his bowling, would be a prime candidate to move down the order. Incorporated into that is a bit of punishment for his antics.

Good article from Ian Chappell about the current standings in Test cricket: http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/440349.html

I reckon a good way to punish Watson would be to demote him down the order in the event that Ponting can't play. Drop Watson to 6, bring Hughes in. And there's going to be a massive decision with regards to the pace bowling line up. It seems that Hilfenhaus and Siddle will be fit for Boxing Day. But Bollinger was almost man of the match in Perth. I'd play Siddle and Bollinger, and ensure that Hilfenhaus gets properly fit and plays some cricket for Tasmania.

51 runs with 1 wicket remaining. Should be an interesting session. You'd think we'd take the wicket pretty quickly, especially if Johnson and Hauritz have gotten better. Johnson especially. As for Boxing Day, there are a number of possibilities. One is to bring in Hughes, and drop Watson down to 6, pushing North to 5 and Clarke to 3. I think this might be the outcome. Another option is to play Hughes and drop Katich to 3. Unlikely I would have thought. We could also bring in George Bailey or Cameron White to 6, North to 5 and Clarke to 3.

7/520 declared. 5 runs short of breaking the record for highest score with no century. Still, it's the biggest Australian score ever without someone making a century. Haddin played beautifully. The only bad shot he played was the one he went out to. It will be interesting to see how we bowl to Gayle after Adelaide. Hopefully McKay gets some success.

This continual failure of our batsmen to make centuries is becoming a bit worrying to me. Not because I'm desperate to see 100s, but it shows a lack of concentration or application, and it robs the team of momentum and the chance to dominate even further. However, Katich's dismissal just lenghtens the list of near-misses in Test cricket over the last month. Some of the cricket recently has been amazing. The NZ-Pakistan series was close, and thus exciting, the India-SL ODI was amazing, the Windies have put up more fight than most imagined possible, and the first day of the RSA-England Test was a close battle. Agree. Smith is not even close to being a Test-quality bowler. He's a batting all-rounder at the moment. Krejza and McGain are well in front of him. If we want a leg-spinning all-rounder we should pick Cameron White. 3 bowlers? They've got Anderson, Broad, Onions and Swann. That's 4... However, Anderson's got a knee problem, Onions has pulled his calf, and Broad was seen doing a lot of stretching in the field. We may well see Collingwood and Trott continue bowling their part-time nothings if those injuries are serious.