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Cricket
- Thread starter mb64
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One innings, please LD. Yeh he did well. But his other 3 as opener have been poor. And those conditions were perfectly fine for batting.
He's in decline. Superstar in his prime. No one has argued he is not a champion of the game. Arguably second best ever batsman in history.
Judgements to be made about his success as an opener in a couple of years time.
The difference is Head would have won the game. Smith mucked around far too long and exposed Hazlewood too much!
Khawaja plays like an old fashioned cricketer. Slowly slowly.
The batsmen mostly suffer short game
itis.
Luckily all batsmen from all countries are the same.
Having said that there was good fast bowling from both teams.
I've been bed ridden, so I watched more than I normally would.
Tried watching BBL too. But the 2 Melbourne teams are crap. I caught one great Glenn Maxy innings.
Pale imitation of what cricket is about. Horrible to me.
Does anyone go?
Hazelwood and Joseph bowling unplayable balls.
Batsmen giving up their wickets.
Modern test matches rarely go over 3 days.
How sad that west indies can't afford a test team.
What's it cost to run a national cricket team?
Get commercial sponsorship?
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Reminded me a little bit of a test at the ‘G in the mid to late 90’s against the poms. Steve Waugh kept exposing the tailenders in a match that could have been won, but he seemed more interested in protecting his average rather than the tailenders. The poms won that match and I think Waugh ended up being not out. Difference between the two though was smith only did it to just hazlewood rather than a number of tailenders and did try to make the runs
I'm concerned how our players not only have big issues with seam and swing but soon as well.
What was poor about his 12 not out in the second innings of the first Test?
Conditions were tough on the third evening, as they always are under lights with the pink ball. He looked to have corrected what undid him in the first innings - getting too far across and eyes outside the line of the ball.
Time will ultimately tell how successful or otherwise the move to the top of the order is, but one thing it will do for him is give him the chance to score more freely, especially early, when the field is up and so is the ball. For the last four years bowlers have been bowling at either his sixth stump or his left armpit.
My view only (from a pom0 but the jury is out on Smith as an opener (way too few innings to make a call either way, but for me the more pertinent question is why did they move him?
The questions that should be asked are:
Is Green a 4? IMO he isn't, he's a 5 or 6 so why swing the batting order around to accomodate him when long term he's unlikely to fall into that position?
Who is the best opening batsman in the Sheffield Shield? Surely a Windies home series was the perfect opportunity to blood someone new.
My view is the Australian team is getting old, and they absolutely need to start bringing players through BUT in the position they are likely to hold long term. Surely with series like this against the Windies, bringing in a young paceman should have been an option. The bowling attack has been very good for a long time, but needs freshing up, maybe not every test but younger players need to be being given a chance to experience tests as the future is with those younger players.
Average age of the Australia team yesterday was 32, only 2 players under 30 selected (Green at 24 and Labuschagne at 29).
The questions that should be asked are:
Is Green a 4? IMO he isn't, he's a 5 or 6 so why swing the batting order around to accomodate him when long term he's unlikely to fall into that position?
Who is the best opening batsman in the Sheffield Shield? Surely a Windies home series was the perfect opportunity to blood someone new.
My view is the Australian team is getting old, and they absolutely need to start bringing players through BUT in the position they are likely to hold long term. Surely with series like this against the Windies, bringing in a young paceman should have been an option. The bowling attack has been very good for a long time, but needs freshing up, maybe not every test but younger players need to be being given a chance to experience tests as the future is with those younger players.
Average age of the Australia team yesterday was 32, only 2 players under 30 selected (Green at 24 and Labuschagne at 29).
Hadn't thought about the scoring opportunities for him, that's a good point. His strike rate has suffered in recent years with the defensive tactics.
Brisbane received a deluge in a short amount of time on Sunday morning i think, in all 61mm of rain fell so you could be forgiven for not turning up.
Other days were great crowds.
Disagree on the bowlers. The amount of assistance they get nowadays with recovery etc will extend their careers. Just keep the amount of pointless inane 20/20 and one-day games they play down. The bowlers don't look like they are struggling physically at all. And Green/Marsh can take up some slack (esp Green)
The batting lineup is the worry.
LOL. Travis averaged 25 for the summer and only passed 17 runs twice and faced two balls in the test.
On any metric he is still nowhere near the Test player Smith is.
If he is the senior batsman in the team he should be stepping up the order instead of hiding at 5.
Unfortunately his technique is too loose early in his innings to do so.
He did get a couple of rippers this test! Yeh he's not a technician but is a matchwinner. Smith shouldn't have put Hazlewood on strike against Joseph for 2 balls. I don't think he really wanted to face him.
Was great seeing a fast bowler targetting the stumps at high speed though. Top of off he said. A bit to take from that.
Not sure what anyone would be apologising for, I haven't seen anyone predict Smith's demise but I have seen plenty say he is not the player he was.
He isn't and to pretend otherwise is just putting our heads in the sand.
He made 314 runs across the 5 tests of the summer in 10 innings with 3 not outs. Compared to previous years he has had a vulnerability that he hasn't had before, although we have seen in creeping in over time imo.
He is still a good test batter, great in some circumstances as we saw yesterday, but he is very far from the Steve Smith of old.
