Cheers for that. What sort of bowler is he? is he a McGrath type or is he more likely to try things to get wickets (this is no slight against McGrath incidentally - being accurate and consistent in difficult areas is no mean feat).
Agreed that, were Harris fit, they’d be happy enough with Harris, (presumably) Cummins, Siddle and Watson as the seam up attack - at least until such time as they can get a decent handle on some of your younger cricketers. My (limited) understanding is that the current crop of Australia under 21s has quite a lot of potential.
There are a whole bunch of pacemen performing well at domestic level. Starc and Pattinson are the names I’ve seen mentioned most, but Aussie fast-bowling stocks are at a very high level at the moment. A lot of very promising youngsters around, at least when talking about potential. Whether any of them are good enough to cut it at international level is another story. I’m a bit envious of England in that regard. Guys like Bresnan and Tremlett seem to slot into the England side almost seamlessly. And if those two get injured then I believe they’ve still got the option of bringing back Onions, who I rate very highly. Quite remarkable depth.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Aussie batting and wicket-keeping. Tim Paine did well when he got a chance and possibly would have already replaced Haddin as wicket-keeper, but he’s got a long-term injury. Khawaja aside, the potential batting replacements are absolutely hopeless. David Warner has been doing well in T20, but T20 is pointless garbage.
Don’t even get me started on the spinners. Steve O’Keefe has a very good bowling average (and he also bats well enough to be considered a genuine all-rounder), but I think he must have dishonoured one of the selector’s daughters, or something. He’s not even considered. Mind you, he’s a lefty finger-spinner, and Australia has always preferred leg-spinners, or offies if a leggie wasn’t available.
Also, I was previously one of Mitchell Johnson’s biggest fans, but like most Aussie fans I feel that it’s time for him to go. Three years ago he obliterated SA and could bowl an inswinger. Nowadays he can’t even bowl with an upright seam. The guy is the very definition of inconsistent, and apparently uncoachable.
I’ve seen Starc and Pattinson mentioned in dispatches but we generally have to rely on second hand reports of how good these guys are up here - there is not much Australian cricket on UK TV outside the international side, so you tend to only get to see these blokes when they arrive, with no real idea as to what they can do or what they bowl like. Interesting that you don’t hold out much hope for the bats - maybe a few of them could do with coming and playing some country cricket in the off season and broaden their palette a bit, rather than playing T20.
I think spinner is a problematic position worldwide at the minute - I don’t see many decent spinners knocking about. Swann is alright but it says something to the average quality of spinner in world cricket that he is the #1. SA have had to go to Imran Tahir - a good bowler in some respects but the very definition of a journeyman in others (check how many sides he’s played for - if he were that good surely he’d have caught on at one of them?) Maybe we’ve just been spoiled with Warne, Murali and Kumble, plus the other guys on the second tier around that time (if Saqlain were 23 now, he’d rule the spinners at test cricket for the next 15 years).
I have some sympathy for Johnson in one respect - Troy Cooley has previous in knackering bowlers. He put Anderson backwards by about 3 years in trying to correct his action, trying to see greater consistency. He achieved consistency with Anderson - but only by making him consistently crap. When Anderson went back to what felt comfortable, he started to get better results - I think, up here, we’re resigned to the fact that some days Anderson will be “Bad Jimmy” but, on average, he’s better off having ultimately ignored Cooley. I think it might be that Johnson is in a similar position, where the attempt is to coach his unorthodoxy out of him - with negative results. He should probably have been left well alone.
I haven’t seen either of them bowl either. I only got to see Cummins bowl for the first time when he debuted for Australia yesterday. It was the same with Merv Hughes and Kasprowicz back in the day. I used to follow their progress in the small print section of the sports section in the newspaper before I ever saw them bowl in person. My understanding is that the hardcore cricket fans in England follow the county scene far more closely than anyone follows the Shield scene in Australia.
Hughes gone for 88. Good innings, even though he did get a let-off at one stage. Come on Ussie, come on.
We’ve been helped in our appreciation of county cricket by two things. First, 20 years of terrible performances mean that we’re always on the look out for better players! So if you’re into cricket, you tend to look at the averages and start playing games with yourself wondering just how good a bowler X is - and whether it means we can get rid of Y (where Y is Ian Salisbury or Peter Such or Alan Mullally or…or…or - the list really was endless). Second, in the last few years, The Guardian has upped it’s coverage of the county game quite a lot - and Sky have followed suit. Most of the county game on TV is the limited overs game but every so often you’ll get a 4 dayer being put on, especially if Sky have time that needs filling on the schedule - so you just get exposed to it more and have a forum for talking to other people about it (The Guardian’s cricket threads are generally pretty decent, with lots of people who watch a lot of country cricket getting involved).
Maybe the current, relative, low point for the Aussies will rejuvenate interest in Sheffield Shield performance. I actually quite enjoy poking around country cricket blogs, figures and watching the games - I think I’d be quite up for it, if I lived in Aus.
Yeah, in over 25 years of following cricket in Australia the only time I’ve ever seen Sheffield Shield cricket on TV was back in the '80s when Dirk Wellham, disgruntled about being given out, took a swipe at the picket fence with his bat as he was coming off the ground. The bat deflected off the fence and hit an elderly female spectator in the face. That got a lot of coverage on the nightly news.
And just as with my last post I have to add that a wicket has fallen. Watson also gone for 88.
Jesus - a lead of only 30 on first innings from where they were is pretty horrendous. The highlights tonight are going to be interesting. Any idea whether this is just a better SA bowling display post lunch or idiot shots?
Once again, I managed to follow just about nothing of the game (seriously, just because these people pay me a salary…) but according to the (South African) commentary team it was simply a very good bowling performance. You can’t judge much from the highlights - there were no shocking dismissals, a couple of good catches, some absolute jaffas from Dale Steyn and the leg spinner mopping up the tail - but the session stats were revealing: Australia were 169/0 in the first session and then 50-odd/4 and 80-odd/6 in the last two. Makes you wonder what they served for lunch!!
I watched a bitand agree with Grim about the highlights being just about useless. You won’t see a bowler tying a batsman up for over after over before giving him the dolly ball.
Not that that happened here.
Before lunch we had a RSA attack which bowled within itself for whatever reason. After lunch they bowled a hell of a lot better although there was nothing in the wicket- it was another horrible batting performance from Australia after lunch. Although we have reasonable bowling stocks, the batting prospects look pretty thin (It is okay for Waugh to say they need time- if you give a player 30 Tests to prove themselves you get to ditch a dud after 30 Tests rather than 5).
All that being said, I think RSA have a pretty good attack when they have their mind to it.
I liked the comment on Cricinfo “Is this a battle of the chokers?”
With that hard-won 50, he’s earned his place in at least the two upcoming Tests against NZ, even if Australia loses this match. My feeling about the four Tests against India that come after that is that it really amuses me the way that many Indian fans basically see Ponting as the anti-christ, so personally I’d be picking him for those matches as well.
Ideal situation: Ponting scores runs at will over the southern summer before retiring, and Tendulkar never gets that 100th century
