Cricket......

[Slave]

Out and out pace is good, but it doesn't help if you can't bowl a decent line and length.

 

Polly wasn't the fastest bowler around and neither was Craig Matthews (in the days of Hansie and Woolmot) and yet they both took loads of sticks. Polly was able to get good line and length very quickly.

 

I think our boys today bowl far too many short pitched deliveries. It's good sometime, but too predictable, and too regular. The trick is to beguile the batsmen into playing a false stroke.

[GLuvsMtb]

Lets look at the stats a little differently shall we:

Difference between no1 batsman and no 10 batsman is 137 and no 10 got 84% of the points that no 1 currently has

Difference between no1 bowler and no 10 bowler is 131 and no 10 got 84% of the points that no 1 currently has

Difference between no1 all rounder and no 10 all rounder is 226 and no 10 got 46% of the points that no1 currently has.

 

Things are a lot closer in the batting and bowling departments than on the all rounder list.

['Dale]

Bring on the 3rd test already!!!!!

 

Gonna be good.

[Raab]

Out and out pace is good, but it doesn't help if you can't bowl a decent line and length.

 

Polly wasn't the fastest bowler around and neither was Craig Matthews (in the days of Hansie and Woolmot) and yet they both took loads of sticks. Polly was able to get good line and length very quickly.

 

I think our boys today bowl far too many short pitched deliveries. It's good sometime, but too predictable, and too regular. The trick is to beguile the batsmen into playing a false stroke.

 

Agreed we are not forcing batsmen to play every ball early in their innings and thus allow them to get their eyes in

[Shebeen]

and that boils down to his $h1t attitude - it almost like he suddenly realises his position is in jeopardy and he focuses on the task at hand and produces a gem...and then sits back and relaxes - he lacks some passion in my opinion

Biff lacks passion....are you for real?

 

 

AB wants to be a batsman. Why coerce him to do something he doesn't really want to be doing?

 

I think they should find a keeper.( Pun intended). And let AB get on with what he is really good at. Batting (and being a very useful fielder.)

I agree, but it's actually AB's decision. He wants to try and be a Gilchrist type in the team, it does give us options. Didn't work for sangakara and probably not working for us.

In the shorter format it allows you to play another bowler batsman, but ideally a permanent keeper will be found in all forms of the game. AB keeping is a short term sollution that does not seem to be working too well at the moment

currently there are 4 keepers in the top 8 of the Sunfoil series(5 if you include puttick, who has kept in ODIs). And this excludes tsolekile, who has improved his batting big time recently.

Tsolekile is not too old, for reference gilchrist was 28 on test debut and played till he was 38. Tsolekile is 32. There are a lot of 'good' options for test keeper, they need to find a way to manage it well. (don't forget that prior, kieswetter and that guy from new zealand are all sa born too!)

I agree if Watson comes in for Quiney (who had a most forgettable test), we could be in trouble

they've done it, no spare batsmen there.Although watson is going to be short of match practice, and is ...injury prone they might not bowl him.

think they'll go with siddle, hilf, lyons and starc anyway. johnson is too big a gamble

AUSTRALIAN SQUAD: Michael Clarke (capt), Shane Watson, David Warner, Ed Cowan, Ricky Ponting, Mike Hussey, Matthew Wade, Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hastings, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Johnson

 

If we look at Bouch, he was a fine keeper. He had the passion to get all the records and I think he got most, if not all of them. Made him one of the most passionate and best keepers around. Sadly, his career was ended by a freak accident. As a batsman though, he was mediocre. He hadn't made a test 100 for quite a while when he was forced to stop playing.

tice to the team.

he has so many records his nickname is guinness. His career wasn't quite ended by the accident, he only had three tests left anyway as he had announced that the tour would be his last..

[Slave]

cut, cut....

he has so many records his nickname is guinness. His career wasn't quite ended by the accident, he only had three tests left anyway as he had announced that the tour would be his last..

 

He could still have played in ODI's for a few years to come. Unless I missed his announcement of retiring from all forms of the game.

 

Whatever the reasons and result, I think we need to give AB a break. He hasn't really wanted to be the "keeper" anyway. Is it worth the risk that it may impact on his batting?

 

Hell, the top order haven't zachery covered themselves in glory this test series. At least not like one MJ Clarke.

 

Took Kalis years to finally get his double ton. Clarke sommer got two in consecutive tests against 4 of the worlds top rated bowlers.

 

Makes you laugh, doesn't it?

[GLuvsMtb]

...

Makes you laugh, doesn't it?

Not quite. Perhaps you should apply your AB argument to JK as well. How many double tons would he perhaps have scored if he was not required to open the bowling (at the start of his career), bowl first change (for most of his career) and now bowl second change and get through 15 overs a day minimum and often had to come in batting 3 or 4 almost straight after finishing a spell of bowling. (Clarke bowls a few dobbies now and again so please don't compare his bowling to JK's)

[Slave]

Clarke isn't even in the same league as a bowler.

 

Kalis is probably one of the finest batsmen I have seen, with huge powers of concentration. Perhaps my jibe was misunderstood. It wasn't aimed at Kalis, but the rather dismal performance of some of the worlds finest bowlers who allowed another superb batsman (One Mj Clarke) to score freely.

 

Kalis is the MAN and in my opinion, always has been THE man. He isn't the top ranked all rounder for nothing.

 

The point is rather that he is now er, advanced in age, and perhaps should be relived of bowling duties so he can at least bat us out of the $h!t that the likes of Fatty drop us into too many times. I didn't watch the test series so far, but I recall that he sustained his hammy injury while bowling.

 

Somehow bowlers seem to have a shorter cricketing career than batmen.

 

It also illustrates the other point I was making of team selection. That I feel AB should be allowed to bat. He is good enough.

[Stretch]

Biff lacks passion....are you for real?

 

 

yes, if you compare his attitude when he first came on the test cricket arena compared to now. It is the same reason why he never praises other teams. Is he a good player? Yes - do i like him? not really

[GLuvsMtb]

Clarke isn't even in the same league as a bowler.

 

Kalis is probably one of the finest batsmen I have seen, with huge powers of concentration. Perhaps my jibe was misunderstood. It wasn't aimed at Kalis, but the rather dismal performance of some of the worlds finest bowlers who allowed another superb batsman (One Mj Clarke) to score freely.

 

Kalis is the MAN and in my opinion, always has been THE man. He isn't the top ranked all rounder for nothing.

 

The point is rather that he is now er, advanced in age, and perhaps should be relived of bowling duties so he can at least bat us out of the $h!t that the likes of Fatty drop us into too many times. I didn't watch the test series so far, but I recall that he sustained his hammy injury while bowling.

 

Somehow bowlers seem to have a shorter cricketing career than batmen.

 

It also illustrates the other point I was making of team selection. That I feel AB should be allowed to bat. He is good enough.

We require 5 quality batsmen (that can hold their place in the side as pure batsmen)

We also require 5 quality bowlers (that can hold their place in the side as pure bowlers)

With Kallis we had a player that can fulfill both roles equally well. When we loose him eventually we are not likely to replace him with someone who can keep his place in the side as either a batsman or as a bowler. This naturally affects the balance of the side in future. The logical thing to do would be to search somewhere else for that true all rounder. Picking AB as keeper seems to me to be the likely answer, provided that it does not affect his batting too severely (a penalty of 10 runs on his average would still rate him much higher than any other wicketkeeper/batsman around and more capable than most number 6 batsmen to ever play the game). It is still early days to definately state that keeping has affected his batting (5 tests, and lets be honest, the England situation was borne out of pure desperation with Boucher's freak accident). We have plenty of young number 4 and 5 batsmen that shows promise (Quintin de Kock for one may be there in a year or 2's time, possibly at the exact time JK would retire from test cricket). With AB keeping we may have found a solution to the eventual Kallis question once he retires.

[RockCoach]

 

 

yes, if you compare his attitude when he first came on the test cricket arena compared to now. It is the same reason why he never praises other teams. Is he a good player? Yes - do i like him? not really

 

You obviously didn't watch the post match interviews.

['Dale]

Wow!:

 

The match also produced yet another statistical landmark for Jacques Kallis, who has now scored 50 or more runs in a test innings on 100 occasions.

[Stretch]

You obviously didn't watch the post match interviews.

 

no i didnt - though he normally does not...maybe he is turning a leaf

[Raab]

Wow!:

 

The match also produced yet another statistical landmark for Jacques Kallis, who has now scored 50 or more runs in a test innings on 100 occasions.

 

King Kallis is by far the best cricket to ever represent South Africa and it really annoys me when people question his selection. Even worse when the Poms rate Ian Botham higher than Kallis

[Shebeen]

Somehow bowlers seem to have a shorter cricketing career than batmen.

but what about Robin Petersen, he's an allrounder?

 

He could still have played in ODI's for a few years to come. Unless I missed his announcement of retiring from all forms of the game.

That you did. He actually got dropped from the ODI squad quite a while ago, and AB has been keeper/batsman/captain since the world cup

[Slave]

'k, now this wanting AB to "keep" makes sense to me that it didn't before.

 

Yeah, it's going to be very tough to fill JK's shooz. He is not just an exceptional batsman, he is a damn good bowlers as well.

 

A few years ago, I was listening to some cricket analyst on the radio and they drew a parallel between the careers of one Jakes Kallis and one Ricky Ponting.

 

Ponting had a good record and when he was appointed captain, his run scoring went nto another dimension and he went on to eclipse JK in the number of runs scored (I think they were both around 9000 test runs at that point.)

 

Something about this didn't compute until now. (YEah, I know, I am old a slow with a capital F. Even on my bike. Think it's time I retired from all forms of the game......)

 

Kallis is an all rounder. Ponting is a batsman. And his form of late is great for us..... (Both of them. I love it when we can Ponting out cheap, and he went dirt cheap in this series.)

Edited November 26, 2012 by Slave