Nasher

Pretty crap 100, really.

Australia have chosen to bowl first. Mark this one down as a loss already.

That is an unbelievable display of poor judgement. Mind boggling stuff.

He was? I was a teenager when Dale was at his peak, and spent more time playing cricket than watching it. My only memory of him in the field was that catch, so I'd always just assumed he was a reasonable fielder.

I did a dive catch like that Adam Dale one when I knocked one of my wife's vases off the mantle piece when I may or may not have been kicking a ball around inside (my mother always told me not to do that - could never figure out why!). Of course, nobody saw it, and even if anyone (my wife) had, I doubt I'd have been getting props for it.

Wasn't it! I missed the first innings, but saw the chase put on by Birt and Shah, and there was some seriously good hitting in that. To me Owais Shah has always just been that forgettable guy that played for England when they were shit in the mid-00s, but he's been a great pickup by the Hurricanes so far and was desperately unlucky not to take the chocolates in the end there.

I already explained my take on it. Let's move on.

I just don't see the point in harping on about a comment when the words he said were clearly not the words he meant. It's just nitpicking.

It wasn't a great choice of words, but his point was that their aim is to go out and win the Test match.

It sounds bad when you quote that one line out of context. I don't think he's said anything too outrageous there.

Nonetheless, I had the same impression as you: that he's a staunch defender of his stumps, and historically he's been very bloody hard to get out. I didn't see the ball today but his bowleds (inc. the no-ball) in Melbourne were embarrassingly poor. I wonder what's wrong. Technique? +1.

Hope the walls in my house are stronger than that one. His stumps seem to have been awfully easy to break this series.

There isn't, really.

It'd be a shame. That make what should be a milestone to be celebrated completely hollow. As a lover of the game I want him to score it in a meaningful match so that he and the crowd can enjoy it.

I find the nobility of declaring while short of personal milestones just as pleasing as I would've if he'd passed them.

I'm no captain of any sort of cricket side, but surely there's absolutely no danger of losing this test now, so would we not want to force them to bat for as long as necessary? An Australia win or a draw are the only outcomes available now, so no matter what happens India will surely just be batting for the draw. The longer they have to bat for, the greater the chance of them not managing to bat for long enough. I'd have already declared by now.

Did anyone notice that Hussey scored a century? :-) I reckon Hussey's knock will sadly be forgotten with the passing of time, as the Punter and obviously Clarke knocks register so much more significance in people's minds.

*blink*

Sometimes I get the impression some (older types) rag on Clarke just because they can't relate to his personality type, and as a result are blinded to his actual performance. The fact is that in recent months he's been excellent with the bat and exceptional as captain; today's effort is just the pinnacle. Well done.

It's not about getting it wrong, it's how you go about communicating your opinion. When you slam a player (as distinct from respectfully disagreeing with his selection) when you haven't seen him play in ages, you're asking for a bollocking I reckon. FWIW I didn't agree with Hilfenhaus' selection either - and said as much - and clearly got that one wrong, but the reason nobody is throwing it in my face is because I wasn't nasty about it. Actually, now that I think of it, I was in the "our tail sucks" camp, too. Backed both the wrong horses there!

Good post Macca - I agree with you. My interest in T20 isn't as strong as it is in Test cricket, but it does have appeal to me. There seems to be this elitist view that you can only enjoy one or the other, and the people who are "purists" in their own minds need to prove that they're true hard core Test cricket lovers by ragging on T20 at every opportunity. I'd challenge anyone to watch Chris Gayle's century the other night with an open mind and tell me that wasn't exciting. Another good analogy would be Volleyball in the Olympics - there's the court variety in which the serious players of the sport compete in, and the beach variety where the competition really just an excuse for the spectacle (though there's fewer women in bikinis in T20 cricket ).

I'd never heard of Watkins before, so I've just done a bit of reading. Makes for an interesting tale: From this article: And his cricinfo profile: Jeez. I can only imagine what a humiliating and degrading experience that must've been. We've all had those "I clearly don't belong here" moments in life, but in the spotlight on an international stage with some of cricket's greats within spitting distance would be horrifying. I'd be scarred for life. Sounds a lot like me when I played cricket through high school - I bowled leggies too. When the confidence was down or I just wasn't feeling the best, I'd have almost no control over the ball whatsoever. On a good day, most of my deliveries landed on the pitch

I pushed for Faulkner a while ago, but gave up when it seemed nobody else had heard of him. In time I expect he could bat at 6 as well.

How come Clarke himself rarely bowls? He's just let Warner toss a few down, given Hussey several overs this game and occasionally calls on Ponting to bowl; why not himself? He's a better bowler than all four of those blokes.

Pattinson just demonstrated how to get around that problem :-) As my colleague at work noted, "can't drop that one"!