titan_uranus

Absolutely friggin fantastic bowling. The way he set up Morne Morkel, two consecutive bouncers, then, when everyone expected a full, 150 km/h + yorker, he gets the slower ball which he duly messes up. Brilliant. 8/250 odd is not good for Sth A. Provided we finish the job without conceding too many, then we'll be batting from 0/100 odd. That's the kind of situation that Hayden needs. Credit also to Krejza. Bowling Amla (who I consider the best batsman out of the two teams, and is a delight to watch) like he did was superb. If he can tame the long-hops then we might have a future spinner. Australia's tail must surely be the best in the world. No bunnies at all.

I'm basically with you on all those points 45. If the selectors recognise we need another paceman, then Siddle should be playing. I thought he was quite good in Mohali. If Krejza's fit, though, I think he should play. With Lee, Johnson and Clark, I think we can afford a spinner. For mine, Stuart Clark's spot in the team should be brought into harsher consideration. If he doesn't do something on the WACA pitch, I'd look to swapping him out for Siddle/Watson. At 33, there isn't much of a future in him.

Seems as though the NZ selectors have recognised that the team they used here won't cut it, as there have been many changes made to their team for the upcoming series they have against West Indies. Chris Martin, Tim Southee, Grant Elliot, Aaron Redmond and Peter Fulton were all dropped from the squad. Firstly, let's not forget that they didn't have Jacob Oram (who returns to the team). With Oram, they could have batted McCullum at 5. There's talk on cricinfo that Ryder will be either dropped or moved from no. 3, and Flynn will play at 3. IMO, Ryder at 3 doesn't work. His style isn't suited to situations where NZ is 1/not much, with the ball only 5-10 over old. Ryder I think would do better down the order. So maybe it will be Flynn at 3, Taylor at 4, McCullum at 5, Ryder 6, Oram 7. I think the NZ team does have some good players looking to the future. Taylor has no. 4 down solid. Flynn will make a good batsman with time, McCullum and Vettori are world-class, Oram not too far behind. It's all a matter of getting a settled team with the right batsmen in the right posiitions.

All over. NZ all out for 203, we win by an innings and 62 runs. McCullum not out 84. Lee bowled brilliantly today, it's a pity he didn't get 6-for to make it 10 for the match. But he ripped their top order apart. Hauritz was pretty good actually, but he's not anywhere near as dangerous as Krejza was. I guess Krejza and Watson will have to come into consideration for the Perth match. Clark was underwhelming in Adelaide, so maybe Watson will come in for him as the 3rd seamer, and Krejza for Hauritz. Probably just Krejza for Hauritz.

We're wrapping up the tail nicely. NZ 9/270. O'Brien caught behind off Lee for 0, Southee caught by Katich off Johnson for 2, McCullum caught behind off Lee for 30. Lee has 3/66 off 25 overs. Not bad. Edit: All out 270. Lost 4 for 8 in 40 minutes. Vettori left stranded on 18*, Lee gets 4-for. 270's not a good total first up in Adelaide. And they were 3/194 at one stage.

I had thoughts similar to those above, but now Lee has hit back well I think. The way he set up Flynn, with outswingers before an inswinger, was well thought out and executed. And he bowled something like 6 overs for 3 runs at one stage in that third spell. And now he's got McCullum with a slower ball. He's getting variation in his bowling now. NZ 7/269

Good to see pace coming in, sure as hell need it.

They've also got Ryan Sidebottom, who's in the top 5 Test bowlers rankings. But yeah, they're a bit devoid of talent after that. Pietersen as captain doesn't strike me as right either. And how about Nathan Hauritz? Can't get a game for NSW, but it seems as though Hilditch and co. prefer finger spinners to wrist spinners (or so I read in one of the papers), and so they went with Hauritz. Casson does only have 1 wicket in 3 matches for NSW this season, but I can't believe they've gone for a hack like Hauritz before him.

Definitely. I still rate Lee as a bowler. He has that knack of dismissing top order batsmen on Australian soil. And he's still something like the 6th best bowler according to ICC rankings. I just don't think he will be around for too many more seasons. Speaking of the Ashes, how do people rate our chances? I've heard plenty of commentators suggest that England will go into the series favourites if we don't crush the South Africans, which seems a bit odd to me, given England's current Test squad. I think the upcoming England v India series will give a good indication of where England's at.

Of Johnson's 9 wickets, 5 of them were bowlers (batting positions 8-11). IMO, scoring an unbeaten 131 on a batting deck that undoubtedly was tougher to bat on than bowl on deserves more credit than taking 9 NZ wickets. Oh well. Agree re: Lee. He's down something like 5 to 10 km/h on average compared to last summer. I wonder how he'll go against the South African batsmen.

All over red rover. Australia win by 149 runs. How's this for injustice: Johnson gets man of the match for taking 9 wickets on a bowler's pitch. How about Katich's match defining 131 not out? Not only was Katich clearly man of the match, but I'd have had Clarke and Clark above Johnson: Clarke for his 98 which saved our first innings, Clark for the important wickets that he took. Johnson was good, but not that good. Krejza should come in for Watson. He took 2 wickets in the first innings, didn't really get a bowl in the second, and failed with the bat both times. Adelaide should be more conducive to spin as well.

We've had the best and worst of Rudi. That decision on Taylor was a gem, but giving Hussey out was poor. Mind you, Hussey shouldn't have had his bat in a position that would allow for the umpire to consider a snick. Lunch on day 3. 8/220, Katich 113 not out, Johnson doing well on 18 not out. Lead of 278. That's a good lead, should be enough IMO. Katich was dropped early on by O'Brien as a return catch.

This is the session we needed. 4 wickets, not a drastic amount of runs (but still alright given the 214 we made) and some good bowling. All the bowlers have a wicket as well. Edit: Hmm. Almost 100 runs so far this session, with 10 minutes to go. Taylor's 36 from 39. With only 214 to defend we've got to tighten up a bit.

Well we did what was needed. Redmond out first ball. But a bit unlucky since then. A couple of very close LBW decisions that might have gone our way on other days. Haddin did nothing to help his cause by dropping Ryder. He flew in front of Hayden: it would have been an easy catch for Hayden at 1st slip.

So much depends on how we bowl in the first session today. We have to take 3 or 4 wickets, if only for a psychological boost. NZ doesn't have a strong batting line up, so there's no excuse for not taking wickets.

Vettori will be glad he sent us in: 6/147. Clarke's still there at least. Watson managed just 1. Symonds 26.

We were in trouble at 3/23, but Clarke and Hussey look settled now. I'm surprised Vettori hasn't bowled himself yet.

Michael Clarke has just said that Watson is playing and Krejza is 12th man. Delayed start to the test because of the storms up there.

Agreed. On this pitch, which got rained on last night again, Watson will do better than Krejza.

The fact that they bowl left arm orthodox does not mean they're not front line spinners. But I guess you're right in that Australia doesn't bode well for them. Kallis has taken 240 Test wickets at 31.22, and took 10 wickets in the 4 test series against England earlier this year. He can bowl.

They do have a spinner: Paul Harris. And some other guy called Botha is vying for his spot, so I guess maybe he's a spinner as well. The South African team to play Bangladesh in the 1st of two tests today is: 1. Smith 2. McKenzie 3. Amla 4. Kallis 5. De Villiers 6. Prince 7. Boucher 8. Harris 9. Morkel 10. Steyn 11. Ntini Similar to India in that they play 6 batsmen and 4 bowlers. Kallis will bowl as well. But to me Boucher looks older. Plus I'd thought he'd retired already...

I can't believe Boucher is still playing. How old is he? Amla, McKenzie, De Villiers, Kallis, Prince and Smith are all doing very nicely. Last time we played them Prince was Warne's bunny. He couldn't get a start. Now he's arguably their best or second best bastman. Moving De Villiers down the order has seen him flourish. Usually one of those 6 fires in a match. As for their bowlers, Ntini, while old, is still effective, Dale Steyn, when not injured, bowls faster than Lee. They've got Morkel and Nel as well. So overall I think they'll provide more than a decent challenge. Expect at least one loss over the 6 tests we play home and away.

Once again, Daniel Vettori plays a lone hand for NZ. He's their best bowler, and frighteningly enough he's their most consistent batsman as well. You would think they wouldn't stand a chance against us at the Gabba. With a 490 target, what chance did we leave the South Africans? Not much, which meant they were content to bat out a draw rather than go for the win. If we'd declared a little earlier, then maybe, with a lower target, they might have gone a bit harder for it. However, you're right in that, in 127 overs, and with Warne, we should have taken more than 5 wickets.

He made 203* at the WACA in 2005 vs Sth Africa. Letting him get to 200 meant we declared too late, and Sth Africa were able to draw the test match. That was the match before we began our 15 match winning streak that didn't end until India earlier this year. If Clarke's unwell, Hodge is the obvious replacement. I'm just unsure if the selectors want to pick another 33 year old.

It was the decision to use Hussey that got to me. Obviously he should have used Lee or Watson, who were reversing it for the first time in 4 tests, but if he was under orders to use part-timers, why not use Katich? He at least has taken wickets at test level, and is certainly more likely than Hussey to take a wicket. But putting on Hussey was not only wrong, it was stupid.