Rogue

Who cares whether WCE name their second pick at a function? It makes no difference to the MFC. Exactly.

No doubt he will. IIRC Hohns said that we'd like a spinner in our team but the state of the Gabba pitch made us readjust our plans.

How? Massive positive publicity and exposure for our Club before the draft wraps, when the public are inundated with draft news and views on each Club (with positive hype for all). Other recruiters will have a ranking of all players in the draft and will choose their highest-ranking player that's still available so I don't see that it'd make much difference. I certainly don't see that we'd lose much competitive advantage in naming the pick a little early. This'd be the tricky bit.

The darker one. Blue rather than the almost-purple it is now.

Cricinfo > *

lol.

I think that was mentioned on here a fair while ago, wasn't it?

We're lucky NZ has brought over a pretty weak and inexperienced batting side. I'm keen to see how Ryder plays - he reminds me a little of SA's Cosgrove, but NZ haven't had any choice but to draft him in.

I really like the look of Martin. I think Martin will continue to develop but think it's likely he may not keep a spot throughout the season. I'm not sure about Spencer - probably still a fair way off but we should know more at the end of the year.

I just hope we get Rich if we don't take Watts.

Yep. Seems we agree on this one

Fwiw, apparently it's six players.

If you're batting at six and only average in the 20's you're always going to be under some pressure. Watson might be saved by the Gabba pitch though.

Next.

I think they're both in their early 30's.

These things are all good but they're not very news-worthy.

It's disappointing that Bond has been banned by NZ cricket because he'd make the series watchable. I fear it will be pretty one-sided, but I'm looking forward to seeing SA tour. While you deride this as 'speculation' you've asserted that S.A. weren't going to chase down the 400+ target whether it was 420 or 490. If this is so - and Test cricket history suggets they weren't going to chase down such a score - we wasted time batting out those extra overs. It doesn't matter what your score is if you can't take 20 wickets, so if we made more runs than we needed we should have declared earlier. More time = more opportunity to take wickets. Anyhow, as I said many posts back, I believe we'll need to agree to disagree. Indeed! Regardless of whether SA chased us more balls bowled = more chances for a wicket, even if it's simply down to a break in concentration on the batsman's behalf. I find RR's argument bizarre when he admits that we had more than enough runs at 490 - if we were okay with less we should have declared for less, given the aim of the game is to take 20 wickets - but I don't think he's not going to budge

So we took it from SA needing to break the record for the highest successful fourth innings run chase in Test history to...even more. There's overkill and then there's overkill - and then there's that declaration Pollock's been gone a while and Ntini is on his last legs. They generally play an average spinner now (Harris) and have some decent young quicks. Gibbs looks to be finished and McKenzie has returned. Amla's doing okay as a middle-order batsman. Boucher still plays.

The aim of cricket is to bowl the other team out twice. History has shown that a team won't chase down anywhere near 490 in a successful fourth innings run chase. The fact we only got 5 wickets after setting 70+ more than the highest ever fourth-innings run chase in Test history, and with Sth Africa still ~200 behind, shows we need not have batted so long! We were one wicket away from breaking into the tail and there are numerous examples of a team's tail crumbling on the last day of a Test match. First, I thought we batted too long at the time. Second, add the fact that we set them 70+ more runs than anyone had ever scored to win a fourth innings run chase.

We'll have to agree to disagree. The way I see declarations is that you try and give yourself as much time as possible while also ensuring enough runs. Obviously there are times where you need to make a sporting declaration in order to make a game of it or need to declare with less runs than you'd like because you're running out of time. However, if you have set the opposition 70+ runs more than the highest ever successful chase in Test cricket history and subsequently run out time in your quest for 10 wickets that suggests you batted too long*... * unless you're from the RR school of declarations

We had more runs than we needed and didn't end up bowling them out. Enough said. As I said, at the time I felt we were batting too long. As H_T has pointed out this wasn't exactly a left-field opinion at the time. So we agree that providing you've closed the game out it doesn't matter about the runs too much - it's about giving yourself enough time to take the 10 wickets. Need I present my comment about the highest successful fourth-innings chases in Test cricket history again? As you've pointed out there was no need to keep batting as long as we did. More time can only have increased our chance of taking the ten wickets, and given we were so far ahead the runs didn't really matter (as you said). So we agree that Australia didn't need to bat as long as they did. Jolly good. PS. Hi, I'm brick. Try and get some blood out of me :D

What sort of evidence is there to support the assertion that because we're realistic about where we're at off-field (we're not a powerhouse like Collingwood) and on-field (we're a long way off teams like Geelong and Hawthorn) it means that we will not strive to do our very best very day? If anything it's just as likely to have the opposite impact - we know we're a long way off the pace and we have to work very hard to get where we want to be.

Cost/benefit analysis I guess. Remember we're in dire financial straits and even small things can add up. Perhaps it's possible the Pres had the same memory 'slippage'? Regardless, the core of the idea's solid - talk to the kids about what kids want. Certainly a left-field idea ;> That's a fairly involved and resource hungry concept that needs to be done fairly well to be worth anything at all. Morphing the idea into a web production would be the way to go.

Exactly. I had a quick look and we set a target that was 72 runs more than the highest successful fourth innings chase in Test cricket! I struggle to see how you could have argued against an earlier declaration at the time (unless you're Hodge's Mum), let alone with the benefit of hindsight. God forbid we give someone an 'outside sniff' by setting them a few runs off the second-highest successful chase in Test history, RR!