Decentric

It's interesting, some folk find cricket a cinch but can't do anything in football. Not that I was great at football, but I usually felt reasonably comfortable playing it and, when in form, could do a range of reasonably technical things and play passes well.

But cricket, well. Maybe I didn't focus hard enough. I'll just always remember when I was in Yr 9, one of the fellas from school asked if he could bowl at me in the nets. He had started off at another campus so I had no idea who he was. He walked in (because he was injured) and bowled it fairly short. It went somewhere near my collarbone but I could barely see the ball and certainly didn't pick up its line or length. I was staggered that somebody could bowl so quickly without a run up.

To be fair, he was a seriously talented fast bowler. He was in the First XI the following year (I think), had probably been in the Vic state side and went to Surrey (or Sussex or somewhere) and played Second XI county cricket I think.

But it dawned upon me how tough cricket can be. It must be a brilliant sport to be very gifted at.

I always tried really hard to play cricket well and practiced all summer but still find batting is really hard against fast bowling. I still don't know how they face 140km/hr and drive it for 4. Watching test match cricket live and looking at the reflexes is actually quite amazing.

So we need one new bowler one new all rounder one new keeper and 5 new batsmen

what are your picks

im going bird or pattinson for the bowler
not sure about the allrounder
wade to join neville
and for batsmen
burns lynne kwahaja maxwell and hmmm need one more with a fc average over 40 and an age under 30....perhaps choose a promising u22 player...

Got excited about maddisons bowling average then saw he only has 4 wickets

he is pretty young though so who knows what he could become

Here goes for the final Test.:)

hate to be a broken record but I'm really looking at the innings management

quick singles, not playing at anything you dont have to at the start
trying to get your feet moving

I thought I saw comments from Clarke that he thought it would a 3 day test, so good luck with that.

good start
Warner needs to accelerate to take the pressure off Rogers

nothing silly though

good thing is that I think if we can get the third session with wickets in hand I think Englands attack might wilt

starting to rotate the strike nicely. Its been slow going but the bowling quality should decline soon

drinks break is always dangerous. There is a spike in the number of wickets straight after a drinks break

LoLots of rotation of strike during tough periods and after hitting a four
Good leaving too
Would have won the series if we played all games like this

A bit of luck went our way too.

its true but tactics helped englands good bowling into great bowling
Even when the got 14 off 9 overs i dont recall too many back to back maidens
If u can get a back to back maiden a wicket isnt far away

We did a good job interupting their rhythm

Also, good to have the right hand/ left hand combination batting in Smith and Warner.



Edited by Decentric: 21/8/2015 12:02:54 AM

Warner has had a good series in tough conditions

Finally some patient batting has set the tone for the innings.

I missed the play yesterday but caught the highlights. What is the pitch like? lots of swing or not as much as the last test?

Pitch is green again so batting will get easier. There was still swing and seam but not as much as the last test.

This time we just saw off the new ball well by batting very conservatively for the first hour.

At one stage I think we were 0-15 of about 12 overs and Rogers was still only on 1. Very patient batting. After the new ball was seen off Warner in particular opened up.

I can't bring myself to watch the last test. Just an embarrassment. I am angry.

Bit of tennis ball bounce and the ball has swung and seemed the entire 80 overs so oz have done well

in the first test only 8 balls were hitting the stumps! Also we had a higher percentage of control iirc (this match we have controlled about 80 percent of deliveries)

We also have a healthy run rate in this innings and should accelerate. 3.6ish despite going at 1 an over for the first hour

shows the power of innings management

in truth the coach should impart this information si perhaps questions should be asked of leighman

having said that all the problems i addressed earlier have been addressed so credit to leighman

On ya Aussies!

One thing that has interested me is the practice of deadening your hands when you are beaten so that nicks go to ground

I recall this being discouraged in Australia as it was called "a getting out shot". In Australia (as well as WI and SA) this is more difficult to do and the ball is likely to carry sometimes even with dead hands. Im not the biggest fan of playing a shot just for one type of conditions in case you get a bad habit

In Australia it is better to be decisive. Leave it or go hard and hope that it goes over the slips if you nick (our conditions help that)

I reckon Warner wouldn't find it too tough to get a County contract (hopefully Div 1). Might be harder for

He seems to be trying much harder to adapt his game to English conditions.

He seems fairly contrite about this Ashes debacle. He hasn't played terribly, and he has tried to adapt his game, but he hasn't scored enough runs in the first innings and he has struggled against swing and seam a lot.

If he is legit about wanting to win in England, I hope he doesn't bother with the IPL next year. When he's not on tour with Australia, he should just play County cricket.

He'll benefit immeasurably from it.

I reckon you can have soft (as opposed to dead) hands and be decisive. Same with your footwork. You need decisive footwork which should really create the positivity in the stroke play (even if it's a block). And then your hands give you control. But only soft hands will give true control.

I don't think it pays to be indecisive. Bit different to what you're talking about but did you see some of Warner's shots that got him out in the previous Tests? He wanted to play a pull shot, then got edgy about it (in case he couldn't control it) and he sort played something halfway between a pull shot and a flick off the pads. It was abysmal and it dismissed him a couple of times.

But I'm not so much talking about deadening your hands, I'm talking about softening them. When you try to catch the ball, you don't do so with dead hands but you don't have hard hands. You have soft hands. It's all about control.

A week ago you mentioned (correctly) that because it was early in the innings, Australia's batsmen were wanting in technique. This is true. But I still think when all the batsmen are flashing at the ball with no footwork and hard hands, that signals greater technical problems.

In terms of batting, just playing the ball under the eyeline without gripping the bat too firmly. Let the ball come onto the bat. This is what Rogers, Root, Cook, Mark Waugh, Damien Martyn all did beautifully.

It's all in the mindset (particularly the T20 mindset) that you need to flash hard at the ball. You can just wait for it, time it with soft hands. If you have soft, supple hands and you play the ball out of the middle of the bat, that's perfectly decisive.

Why learn to play well in one set of conditions? Why not send players to play first class in south Africa? Or India? It weakens our first class and players who play well in the shield can play anywhere anyway. Also why weaken one form of the game (oz's 20/20 side) to arguably strengthen another. I'm skeptical this would be achieved anyway

Warners scores this season:

80
0 64
2 77
38 83
17 52
for an average of about 46 often batting under pressure in difficult and unfamiliar conditions. Its been a class performance from him

Some of our players have had poor innings management and a few of our selections over the last couple of years have been poor

of the Australian players the averages are

44, 42 and 46

all decent players for us but our best players have been pretty heavy hitters

my squad for the next series

warner smith vogues lynne , burns, Maxwell, Khawaja, Cowan

all rounders
Marsh, Agar

wks Neville, wade

bowlers pattinson, bird, cummins, starc, Johnson, hazelwood, lyon, Ahmed

All batters average over 40 at FC
All all rounders have shown something with the bat and ball
All bowlers look fierce

We should have a makings of a top 2 test team but sadly are short of dominance for now

It's possible to be a heavy hitter and to have great technique/soft hands. Joe Root is such an example. Granted, you'll play with softer hands when you block than when you drive through cover. But still there's a difference between hitting it firmly and trying to hit it like there's no tomorrow (which is what too many of our players try to do).

Your point about heavy hitters is correlation not causation. It's not because Rogers, Mark Waugh and Damien Martyn weren't heavy hitters that they weren't our best players. Rogers is unusual because he, effectively, started playing Test cricket at 35. Mark Waugh just wasn't mentally tough enough. He just lost his nerve. That's why he never racked up really big scores. Mark Waugh was, purely in terms of technique and talent, one of the best batsmen in history. If he was as mentally tough as Steve, he probably would have been the best Australian batsman since Bradman. Damien Martyn, I'm not sure about. Maybe he wasn't mentally tough enough.

In any event, I'm not sure I agree with your suggestion that our best players have been heavy hitters in the sense of Dave Warner, Matthew Hayden.

Looking purely at Australian players, I gather Bradman and Ponsford were sweet timers of the ball. Greg Chappell, Allan Border and Steve Waugh (although they could hit it hard) also timed the ball. Think of how many runs Steve Waugh scored behind square. I'm told Allan Border did similar.