Nasher

AoB, obviously it's a very difficult concept to grasp.... Bob: Johnson adds batting depth to our lineup Demonland: But Johnson has been bowling woefully for ages! Bob: Okay, forget naming names, our tail is long because none of our bowlers can bat. Demonland: But Johnson has been bowling woefully for ages! Frustrating stuff.

I've deleted all the politics related posts in this thread. Choko's reference to Rudd was an anecdotal throwaway, please treat it as such and don't use it to hijack footy related threads. Thanks.

Tasmanian* Ed Cowan is surely ahead of all those other openers (Jaques, Rogers at al). That said, I think it's all a moot point arguing over which almost good enough opener might almost deserve a spot. Warner is powering ahead of them all at this stage. *State of birth doesn't mean a thing, unless I'm talking about Matty Wade in which case I, as a Tasmanian, feel compelled to take all the credit for.

Nearly :-) It pissed down with rain here for about 5 minutes then passed. Hot (relative to recent weather) and humid and yucky.

It's a pointless gimmick, why does it matter?

Really pleased to see everyone is labouring on the Strauss point and paying no attention whatsoever to the real meat of this topic.

No it isn't. It's 11 months out and the list is rubbery, my mind will change 100 times between now and then. As UTAH has clearly pointed out, the six have got to come from somewhere.

Too bloody right RR, couldn't agree more. What about the Jon Ralph generation of getting their news off twitter and BigFooty? Or Kimbo Hagdorn making stuff up completely? I've said a few times on here that there's a market niche out there for genuine quality sports journalism. No news flashes, no big scoops, just good quality, in depth articles. I loved the Martin Flanagan articles when he spent time with the club, but sadly there's just not enough of that type of stuff around.

I'm in your corner too Macca. No science behind it, just think that his rate of progression in the long form of the game has been pretty good, remembering that he wasn't a professional cricketer when he was catapulted in to the Australian T20 side. He's obviously got all the shots - I think in time the temperament and concentration will come. I liked this article - seems to reaffirm what I'm saying: What Sehwag saw in Warner

I don't know that that washes - Glenn McGrath's improvement had no effect on the longevity or effectiveness of his career because ultimately it was still his bowling that did the talking. It was just an added bonus, and probably a testimony to his work ethic and desire to do the right thing for his team. Those other old guys came from a different era and probably spent 0% of the time working on their batting, in the era of professional cricket I'd expect better. Then again, maybe Martin is considered a lost cause, but I find that hard to believe that nobody could teach him how to get forward and block the ball properly when it's on the stumps.

No, don't think I'll be going. I think if I was going to wag work, my wife (who has pregnancy related pelvis issues) would prefer that I stay at home and help look after the kids, and they're too little to enjoy watching hours of Test cricket at a time. There was an article a while ago about Chris Martin being statisically the worst Test batsman of all time, outdoing the likes of Courtney Walsh etc. He's also one of two Test cricketers (30+ matches) to have more wickets than runs scored. I thought that was pretty funny :-) I like his cricinfo bio: "Hardworking with the ball and outrageously feeble with the bat" and "by the end of the decade Martin was New Zealand's fourth highest Test wicket taker of all time but he was equally well known for his comically inept batting. Getting Martin out is as difficult as making a cup of tea and often takes less time. " The guy's nearly 37 years old too, it's amazing that he's managed to forge such a successful Test career as a bowler without making some inroads in to at least being able to stick the bat in front of the ball occasionally. Look at Glenn McGrath's improvement with the bat as his career progressed.

I struggle with having to choose between Siddle and Pattinson. Siddle is currently our best bowler and Pattinson was hot in that second innings; it'd be a momentum sapper to drop him now. Does Harris have to come straight in to the side if fit? I'm assuming he won't be anyway, so it's a bit of a moot point. Everyone seems to be an expert on Hughes' technique. Not saying I disagree with your assessment t_u, but I cringe a little when armchair experts comment on "technique" of professional batsmen.

I used to think it was silly to talk about delistings this soon, but in the last couple of years I've done a full 180 and decided it's actually very important, because it effects the list management decisions we make in the short term. Harrington and co would already have had a conversation like this one months ago. I wonder whether this impacted on the decision retain Joel Macdonald and to a lesser degree contracted players like Dunn and Bate; moving them on this year would've meant we had another kid from a very low draft pick on a two year contract next year when we need to clear spaces. I'd be looking to set aside two spots for rookie promotion - in this early forecast Nicholson has got to be a certainty and it's not unreasonable to expect we might want to promote one of Evans or Lawrence depending on how the year pans out. As RL said we've got two compo picks plus Viney coming in, and no doubt we'll want to use our second round pick as well (assuming Viney consumes our first rounder) - that's a total of six players we need to clear out. These are my six as of now: Macdonald Dunn Bate Jetta Spencer Strauss Obviously this is the very early forecast and there's a whole season to play out, so there's a lot of scope for changing my mind, though I'm not expecting my mind to change on the first three. I struggled with number six - I chopped and changed with Strauss and Bartram in my mind in particular, but I think it's far enough out that it doesn't matter yet anyway. So long as we keep in mind that we need to clear six players out.

You guys aren't suggesting that it's important to train well and play well as well as interviewing well are you? What an amazing revelation.

174cm is awfully small though - that's smaller than Aussie was, and smaller than Milne just as a point of reference. It's cliche a bit now, but players need to be exceptional to make it at that size.

Out for 96 - disappointed for him. I was thinking after he punished Lyon for two fours that he might do something silly in the last ball of the over, and he did. Deserved the 100.

In Vettori's last 50 or so Test innings he's averaged around the 40.00 mark. Over his career he's transformed himself from a handy defensive lower order "end occupier" to a bona fide middle order batsman. What an amazing story about what hard work and a good temperament (not to mention sheer necessity) can do - some of the more talented batsmen on their list should look at him and feel embarrassed at themselves. Can't think of too many players in Test cricket that I respect more than Vettori.

As I said in my previous post in this thread, it's all just the psychology of the supporter, so I wouldn't take it too personally on Liam's behalf RudeBoy. It's just because people raised the bar ridiculously (impossibly) high in their minds. As Liam continues to improve and supporters' expectations come back to sensible levels I think people's feelings for him as a player will balance out.

But old, don't you realise? The cost of taking him in the rookie draft would be next to nothing.

Kirstie Alley has a history of losing weight and stacking it all back on I believe.

Thanks for the link. Not much news there really - we'd already established that he's here to play in the back half. I'm looking forward to seeing what he can produce. In a way I feel like we can't lose with this choice - he either proves to be useful and we scored a bargain, or he busts but costed us little.

That's almost musical poetry if you use just the first names. (Beat boxing) Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, James, James, Jordie. Jordan, Jeremy, Jake, Jared, Joel, Josh, Jamie.

As old alluded to already, the cost isn't necessarily nothing. Price paid up front is only the initial cost, doesn't factor in the ongoings at all.

I agree. Both have a place in our midfield - the issue is that they're currently our best midfielders. It's the same old issue of posters not being able to see that there's some middle ground between stardom and hackdom - and these guys both live there.

This might be equal to what you're saying, but I think the realisation of his weaknesses have caused people to only see his weaknesses and forget about his strengths. The suggestion from some that he "won't make it" is completely outrageous - he kicked 40 goals in a year where he demonstrated that he's got a way to go to reaching his ceiling. Surely the absolute worst case is that he plateaus from where he is now - even if that happens, 40 goals a year is good output. Reality is he's a couple of years in to his career; he's got a tonne of time to work on those weaknesses. I'm still very optimistic.