titan_uranus

They have managed to ditch the unpredictable, wildly swinging form of the 2000s and for the last 12-18 months they've been quite solid. They've had their current top 6 settled for about a year now, which is highly unlike Pakistan.

I haven't been checking this thread all season. I've jumped on the 49ers bandwagon so it's good to see us make the Championship game (that game against New Orleans was amazingly good. Amazingly). Can't believe NYG beat Green Bay. Like WJ, I hate the Giants (don't know why, I just do. Hate Tom Coughlin, for one), but more than that, I just didn't see a side beating the Packers any time soon. Good on them, but I sure hope we cream them this week. As for the AFC, whilst Baltimore's defence is strong, their offence was pretty poor against the Texans, and I don't think they'll score enough points to rival the Pats, who will score against the Raven defence anyway. Brady's in good form.

Pakistan are quite underrated in world cricket. They've got some damaging bowlers (Saeed Ajmal may be the world's best spinner, Umar Gul is still a good pace bowler) and their top 6 is, for once, at least stable. They're a good side and it's good to see them playing, and beating, the stronger sides. England has been playing on South African, English and Australian pitches for most of the last 2 years. It'll be interesting to see how they adapt in the second test.

I think this is exactly how the selectors see things. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can see the argument. It's a great shame Paine's not fit right now, as surely he'd be putting enormous pressure on Haddin. Imagine if England's top order hadn't gifted their wickets away. They'd have made 100 more runs, at least.

I'll pay 'credible'. Nothing special, and out-performed by all of our bowlers. But life would be easier for them for sure if they had support from the batsmen.

That's giving the Indian bowlers too much credit. They haven't been as bad as the batsmen, but they haven't been 'very good' at all. They've been OK.

Not sure the distance the game travels is that relevant to the underlying problem of captains being too lax about over rates. Whether a game goes for 1 day or 5, you need to ensure that across the board, captains are getting their overs out in reasonable time. Really? I still rate Hilfenhaus' ball well above Starc's. Oh well.

I get your sentiment, but it's not even close to Hilfenhaus' ball in the second innings in Sydney which bowled Laxman.

Yeh me too. Let it function. Our first 200 run partnership in almost 4 years (not that you need a 200 run partnership to validate a pair, but still). I think the solidity of Cowan and the hitting of Warner work well together. Let Watson work his way into the middle order.

Dearie me, for a little part there a 2-day test was in the offing. Luckily sanity returned and Kohli and Dravid batted rather well. India should be commended for not swapping Kohli for Sharma. That would achieve little. They should drop Laxman for Sharma for Adelaide, however. They need to get their youth in their side and just stick with them. All four pacemen have bowled well in parts of this Test. Starc's been impressive, which just adds to the bottleneck of fast bowlers and spots in the side. Siddle's been the pick of the bunch for mine, again, even if his wickets column is a bit less than Hilfenhaus.

Still haven't managed to fix our problematic batting collapses. 10/155 today, 7/67 after Warner went out. It's not all there just yet. Marsh is horrendously out of form. When he went out I didn't think he'd get another chance to prove himself before Adelaide but now there's a pretty strong chance we'll bat again so maybe he can make some runs and hold his spot. He's in prime position to make way for Watson when Watson comes back though. Haddin also is struggling with the bat. When your openers make 214 it never looks like a problem of course but he can't keep making low scores at 7. India's last chance to stand up and be counted with the bat. Those cracks on the pitch are tough, though, and our bowlers do seem to be diligent and hard-working, if anything, so we should be able to exploit those cracks. I'm wary of Sehwag though, I feel he's due for a decent innings.

Mark Neeld was interviewed this morning on SEN. He was asked what his view was on the playing list when he was considering the position and he said he never once did an analysis on the players 2011. He presented to the board his vision for how he would coach our list and what he would do 'going forward'. No looking back. It was the board's job to look at how Neeld wanted to take the MFC forward. Asked about what surprised him, if anything, about our list, Neeld said he was most pleased with our work ethic and the players' passion for the MFC. He said he was surprised with 'not a lot' about our playing group. He thinks he will be able to answer that once we've played a game, but for now, he's just about teaching the players and working with a new coaching group, so he won't be surprised until we start playing. On captaincy, Neeld was asked about his opinion on putting a young player in as captain (e.g. Trengove). Neeld said we've come up with an 'Excel spreadsheet' with all the characteristics that we want to see in our leadership group. The coaches are rating every player on our list out of 10 with regards to these traits, and this will help us determine who is best suited to the leadership group. Age is totally irrelevant to this rating. There will be input from the players but the final decision is Neeld's. Co-captains is something he would consider, but he said 'we'd consider everything, so I won't close the door on anything'. Neeld said that Grimes and Trengove, in particular, are mature and held in great esteem at our club. Then on Brad Green, Dr Turf said it was a sticky situation in that we really had no one else to captain us in 2011 except him, and the situation was forced on him a bit. Neeld agreed. Green's indicated to the club that he will be totally fine if he isn't captain in 2012. Neeld said Gawn's injury hasn't changed our thoughts for Clark. For rucks we have Jamar, Martin and Sellar (they were the three he mentioned). Clark may have to go in the ruck but Gawn's injury hasn't changed our plans. Asked about our level of fitness and our footy smarts, Neeld said he was 'quite pleased' with the fitness when we came back after 8 weeks off. Also mentioned that we were teaching the players a 'new game style'. Lastly Hutchy asked what a good season looks like for Jack Watts. Neeld said 'consistency'. He wants to see Watts cement his spot in the side, because according to him, no one has really cemented their spot. He's going to ask a few new things of Watts this year. Neeld said he sees Watts as still being in a development stage of his career, and that if he gets to play 20 or so games that's a great step in his development. Dr Turf asked if playing APS and not TAC Cup held back his development. Neeld said he had an opinion on that but said he couldn't share it. Then he said he was involved with the TAC Cup and said that some players aren't suited to that route. And he left it at that.

I managed to miss the entire third session yesterday, such is my luck. It really amazes me to see us bowl a side out in a day for 161 and then make 0/149 in a session. It feel so eerily similar to how England were rolling over us last year. Agreed. Nothing is ever their fault. Look at Kohli's comments from the press conference yesterday. He essentially said that India was unlucky and that things just weren't working out for them. Just glossing over the real problems underpinning Indian cricket (e.g. an ageing batting line up and no real promising young batsmen coming through, a lack of technique to deal with pitches outside the subcontinent, overall crap pace bowling, and no spine to fight back when the chips are down).

Bail. Love the guy.

Agreed. Pattinson's injury does two things. It settles the debate over who will bowl in Perth (at least you'd think so, I can't imagine them making two changes to a bowling line up that has taken 40 Indian wickets in 8 days. Lyon will actually bowl well in Perth I think, he does well with bounce), and it also re-hashes the debate over how we as a cricketing body deal with our fast bowlers. I have no idea if this is a poor management thing or a lack of fitness thing or just an inherent part of being a pace bowler. But I wish it didn't happen.

Umpires have always been able to ask the third umpire for clarification on bump balls or if a catch was clean. That has stood for years and isn't a part of the DRS. Whether or not this suggests that umpires should have the ability to go to the third umpire for any decision, such as lbw or caught, is another question.

Laxman could easily have been out a couple of times in his innings but he's still there and he and SRT are forming a dangerous partnership. It's always a dangerous partnership on a dead pitch like this. We need to stay positive with our bowling and field settings and keep plugging away. We've done well to prise 3 wickets out already and there are encouraging signs every now and again. As I write SRT has just inside-edged one so things can happen. Diligence and persistence will get wickets on this track, even if SRT gets that 100th 100 before we get him.

It'll be a trivia question in a few years. 'Who else scored a century when Clarke scored 329*?' Fantastic innings from Clarke, and equally good work from Ponting and Hussey. Put us in a position where we can't lose from here (unless we do a Cape Town and get bowled out in the final session on Day 5 for 47...) +2. That catch was simple. On this track, opportunities will be few and far between. Dropping catches is a cardinal sin for a keeper and it's only worse on a pitch like this. You have to feel for Pattinson for persisting all afternoon and working Gambhir over to the point where he flirted at one. It's going to be a long couple of days. Gambhir is good in these situations, Tendulkar is Tendulkar, and Laxman is due for an Australian-frustrating innings.

Pretty sure that's correct, I don't think they've ever won a series here. I remember last year England had a tour game in Perth, which would help adjust to the bounce. It's also easier for them coming from England than India. But India's tour games were at Allan Border Oval, which doesn't help much being a road of a pitch. I don't know who's decision that was. If it was ours, sneaky haha. Point is, their batsman are just too accustomed to subcontinental pitches and their bowlers have never been that good. That's why they struggle to win away from home but they dominate at home. They could have had more warm up games but I don't know how much that would help them.

Read an interesting stat on Cricinfo yesterday. After 150 Tests (Kallis is playing his 150th now), Ponting had the most runs, with Kallis second and Tendulkar third. Moreover, at the 150-Test mark, Kallis has made 41 100s to Ponting and Tendulkar's 39. Add into the mix the fact that Kallis averages more than Tendulkar, and you end up seeing that Kallis really doesn't get the credit he deserves. If he ends up playing as many Tests as SRT (this is of course unlikely, given age), then who knows how well he could go. (And let's not forget Kallis also has 271 Test wickets at a tick over 32). I'm thinking we'll bat till Tea if possible, and declare with a lead on or around 450 (which would require another 140 runs from now). We need to remember that this is India, they do have Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman, and this pitch isn't doing a hell of a lot. Don't want to get ahead of ourselves, especially if there's any showers coming up. Although there is a hell of a lot of time left in the match. That'll do me fine haha.

I don't have any more desire to continue this back-and-forth crap. I've admitted I was OTT. I'll just say this: calling me arrogant for a poorly worded sentence or two is, I think, unfair. And if I were you, based on your comments, I wouldn't be calling anyone arrogant...

I am aware I was hyperbolic, I think that's clear. But regardless of my OTT wording, my point was clear, in that I didn't think Hilfenhaus was a step forward and I didn't think he'd be any good. Doesn't matter now because I've been shown wrong. Essentially, you have had the same problem, minus the hyperbole.

I reckon he probably is our best batsman now. Ponting is also in some semblance of form, with 4 50s from his last 6 innings, and currently 37*. But Clarke's our best batsman, surely. This Ponting-Clarke partnership has helped us immensely. Feels like the second innings of Melbourne, with Ponting and Hussey. Good recovery.

He's definitely different. For one he's faster than before, pushing regularly up to 145. Before, he was rarely above 140. That's one difference. It took him a while in Melbourne but he's also using the width of the crease more than he used to. He's also varying his length. Previously he was a stock, good length, stump to stump kind of bowler. Now he's working in fuller deliveries and bouncers too. He bounced out the Indian tail today. Not something he used to be good at. Haha thanks Rogue.

Yes I did. He was. He's improved now. One swallow doesn't make a summer of course, but he's already done far better than I would ever have expected of him.