As those knowledgeable in the game would know, cricket Test matches are internationals played over 5 days. Australia is currently hosting India in a four Test series. At the start of the 3rd day of the 3rd Test, India resumed their first innings chasing Australia’s substantial total of 530.
The Australian wicket keeper, the equivalent of a baseball catcher is Brad Haddin.
For most of the rest of the day India batted superbly with a 262 run partnership between Kohli and Rahane a real highlight and their partnership got their teams total to within reach of Australia.
So the first catch was taken at 10:05 am, the second was taken at 5:54pm. Deduct the lunch and tea breaks and Haddin and the rest of the Australian team had been in the field for 6hrs 45min with Haddin keeping for 534 deliveries/pitches.
A cricket team being in the field for a whole day isn’t particularly unusual, but being so demonstrably being able to keep your concentration up for for each delivery for that long is rather remarkable.
To give some crude context, I believe for the the MLB in 2014 the average pitches per innings was a fraction under 16. So Haddin has been the equivalent of a MLB catcher for 33 consequential innings, during which time only the harshest marker would say he made a single mistake, with two stunning catches to book-end the day.
They are both absolute belters but I would say the first one is better in total. He might be at full stretch on the second one, but first slip probably catches that if he doesn’t move at all - so the initial impulse to go for it is possibly a bit shaky; no marks off for the catch though - superb once he’s committed to it. The first one is being put down by 1st slip if he doesn’t move (given the position of 1st slip’s hands - apart and one up by his face, he looks like he’s more interested in protecting himself/parrying it), so the decision to go for it is better for me than in the second one.
Incidentally, I am looking forward to seeing Oz this UK summer. I suspect that we’re going to get thoroughly hammered if Harris and Johnson are fit and firing for the Test series.
IMHO it’s quite possible we’ll see not see Clarke play Test cricket again, and if he did he’d be one of the boys not skipper.
He only played the 1st Test because of the loss of Hughes. He ricked his back again avoiding an innocuous short ball way down leg side. Then in the field he tore his good hamstring simply moving at half pace in a straight line. As good as he is, the team doesn’t have sufficient batting strength to risk going in one bat short.
Clarke was very pessimistic about his outlook initially but is now talking himself up to the extent that he would be right to play in the upcoming ODI World Cup. If he does it’s odds on he’ll get hurt again and that will be curtains in all forms. If he doesn’t play the World Cup then I think they’ll pick him to tour and whether he makes it into the first Test will depend on him regaining form whilst batting in cotton wool.
The mantle passed to Smith rather than Haddin because it’s a rusted on credo here that a wicketkeeper is the best person to have as primary advisor to the captain. To further tilt the scales it isn’t anything close to a certainty that Haddin’s form with bat and body will get him to England next year.
That’s our Watto for you. Plenty of learned scrutiny of that reaction going on here. Goes along the lines of “If he wasn’t ready to catch the second ball of the day’s play, when will he be ready?”
I reckon Haddin went for the second catch (which was going just to Watson’s right) because he didn’t trust that Watto was going to switched on sufficiently to grap it.
It’s certainly not good fielding by Watson. If he’s doing that sort of thing regularly, I guess it is understandable that Haddin went for that second one - though it rather raises the question of why Watson is standing at 1st slip in the first place if he can’t keep his mind on the game.
In related news to this game, Dhoni retires from Test Cricket with immediate effect.
You guys are kidding aren’t you. Watson’s movement toward the ball for the first catch is pretty good, two handed and all. I think he would probably have taken it. I think he saw the ball just barely in the webbing of Haddin’s glove and thought it was being deflected towards his head. Watch the slow motion, Watson is doing everything perfectly at the point Haddin grabs the ball.
Johnson is off the pace from his stellar efforts of last year, though his combination with the wholehearted bowling tourniquet that is Harris are as good as anything going around. But they haven’t been ripping through the Indian line-up. Nathan Lyon is the series leading wicket taker by a fair way. They and whichever third seamer is picked still struggle to get either the new or old ball to bend.
Conversely the batting as a unit is crap.
5 down for 200 seems to constitutes a sound platform at the moment (on average over the past 2 years the 5th wicket falls at 186). So this requires the bottom of the order to score 150 to post a be in the game or 250 to get the advantage.
Sure, the bottom of the order has delivered with stunning consistency over that time. In the past 2 years there have been 90 50 run partnerships and over 1/3rd of them have been amongst the last 5 wickets. On average the “tail” score 120 runs including declarations and incomplete innings.
How often can you go to the well?
A team with a couple of handy swing bowlers will take this mob to the cleaners. (Jeez is Cricinfo’s Statguru not a marvellous resource!)
Surely Mitchell Johnson’s most amazing claim to to fame is that he was the ICC Cricketer of the Year in 2009 and the* ICC Cricketer of the Year in 2014* but between those years most Aussie fans wanted hin dropped.
True enough,
At his best he’s better than Alan Davidson with bat and ball, and that about as close to cricket royalty as you can go.
When his confidence is down and his bowling arm drops so as the pace, the bounce and the swing disappears his Grade club would farm him out to the Shires.