That makes it a bit easier lol (won't happen though).

Our selectors might have to start giving more consideration to fielding standards when picking players. We have been fielding like a weekend club side for much of the series. Easy to have an off day, but generally fielding should be very good and there's no excuse for professional cricketers to be this iffy.

I think our batting could be fragile.

Mike, you seriously have to be winding all and sundry up!

I've looked up Hazlewood's figures for the Ashes.

4 Tests............20 wickets..........21.85 bowling average................48 strike rate.

These are fantastic figures in any era.

If you are trolling, I appreciate your sense  of humour. It appeals to mine.

Ha ha!

If you are serious it means it discredits all your other posts using data to substantiate your views.


Next you will be trying to argue Smith's batting has been an abject failure! 

Fair comments.

Interesting comment, Grazor.

Very impressive figures in the first dig.

Man of the Series was shared between Smith and Stokes. I think that is fair, when you consider Smith only played 3.5 tests. That is just how dominant Smith is. 7 innings only, over 700 runs. 

Now my Black Caps have to try and come up with a plan for him. Given he averages 68 against us, I am not holding my breath of one. 

there was 1 ball in particular which wade faced where a yorker at blistering speed from archer surprised him. He had taken a big step toward off and readjusted against a 93mph yorker tailing on leg stump line to get bat on the ball across his body.

He has better reflexes than ponting and can use it to negate conditions and lateral movement. Makes up for sound but not great technique. 35ish average is excellent in England

footnote for a certain someone. When it comes to bowling figures the end result is the main criteria. That is what stats experts use to make their ratings.

There is one aspect I find pleasing about Hazlewood's bowling in this Ashes as it shows a maturity not seen from him in the past. It is his productivity and impact in the first innings. This is an aspect of his performance that appears to have been missed by some other posters.
Lords: 22 - 6 - 3/58.
Leeds: 12.5 - 2 - 5/30.
Manchester: 25 - 6 - 4/74. 
Almost all these wickets were top order bats secured in either his opening or second spells.
These figures show he was pivotal in getting Australia off to a good start in 3 of his 4 matches. and for a man that is not "an opening bowler" according to a certain someone, he and his fellow Blue Pat Cummins formed a lethal partnership.
His only failure to make an impact was in the last Test.. tho he did have Denly (94) dropped ..was it for a duck?.. Just reiterating that JH's figures were spectacular before this game.averaging @18.. the lowest of all bowlers. Also the lowest s/r and betting the lowest e/r too. The only two times in the series he was not in control of his game was when Stokes and Buttler took the T20 like heavy handle to him.

You can keep him as captain, but not have him read the pitches. Just have someone tell him what to do. Same with DRS, Stokes seems in more control of DRS than Root for England. Captain doesn't mean you have to do all the deciding yourself, just sign off on some areas that aren't your best.

You really think Kohli has ever set a field or made a bowling change call when Dhoni is on the field in limited overs? Even once? Heck - when Dhoni isn't around - he asks Sharma what to do... Kohli led IPL teams have NEVER won despite ABDV. Gayle, Watson, Rahul... but Sharma's MI and Dhoni's CSK win a lot. They're the captains calling the shots on the field. And everyone knows it. 

Doesn't mean Kohli is not the lead selector from the squad. Cos he is. 

Langer is very hands on, like NZ's Hesson was, Paine just needs to lead the men, not make critical tactical decisions all the time. 

Gday Paddles,
jaszyjim - Then as I keep saying, why is he captain.
Smith serves out his ban end of March next year.
So does CA keep Paine till then and he retires. This would also open the way for Carey.
CA has made themselves a huge problem over captaincy & keeper, as if they do want Smith to regain
captaincy what do they do until he is eligible? 
I think Paine will stay as any other option is not practical & we will just have to suffer bad captaincy
till Smith takes over.

Hmmm, its an opportunity for this current crop to claim they are as good if not better than the 1985 mob. 

No - it was going to be Woakes. I would have dropped Broad, but the selectors said it was going to be Woakes.

But the Anderson thing is also they were a bowler down in the first test. He had no replacement at all. England just lost a bowler, altogether and after 7 overs of a  game were down to 10 men. This hurt them later when they gave up a huge first innings lead to lose as Aus smashed the bowler short England team in the 3rd innings..

Injuries happens in sports. But its better to have them happen to the opposition than your own team. I wonder if cricket needs to catch up to soccer and rugby and allow substitutions for injury.

You're talking test championship? Doesn't hold for the ICC Mace Race that NZ is in with India (had we not choked the first test in SL or had that shooter in ChCh cause a Bangla test get cancelled - we would have got it for a few weeks!).  NZ is currently in 2nd and Aus 5th, so even a series draw in Australia hurts NZ on the rankings, it doesn't help us. We have 2 tests vs England before we goto Australia as well. I'm expecting the Black Caps to thrash England tbh. They have no batting, and even with Anderson and Archer both, they don't have a Dukes ball to play with. Despite Archer, England was outplayed here in 2014 and 2018, and I think they are weaker team now. NZ is arguably stronger. We outplayed them there in 2015 too, but Stokes did a job on us too to snatch a bs win for them that McCullum never went into draw mode on like the over aggressive player he often was.

I am far more worried about Australia than India. Australia concerns me cos of the heat, the crowds, but more importantly, the flat bouncy pitches. Kane, Ross, shouldn't be too worried about them given their pedigree, displayed in 2015 with a ton of runs, but our swing attack all too often looks popgun in Australia where there just is no swing until the lights come on with a pink ball - which is one test, and while I hope Sommerville is now our lead spinner, I don't think he is needed. I just have nightmares of Warner, Head combined with Smith scoring endless runs all summer. Even Wade could be a problem against a Kookaburra on a road. If NZ gets batted out, we will collapse in at least one test which was the Gabba test last tour for us. But away teams always do collapse at least once when batted out in two matches.

NZ's fortunes come down to Wagner having success with his short stuff, and getting Ferg in the team as a successful debutant. He is 150 clicks, and starred at the World Cup in case you don't know who I mean. Problem is Boult, Southee and Henry are all ranked ahead of him, and often we stupidly play a spinner, when we're better off getting CdG to bowl the low time overs with his seam up and batting. 

England won't tour Australia until after the Test Championship final.
The advantage NZ has heading to Australia, is we know our squad, 1 Rava;/Young, 2 Latham, 3 KW, 4 Taylor,5  Nicholls, 6 Watling +, 7 CdG, is the batting core, Boult, Southee, Wagner, the first three seamers, then Henry and Fergo, the spinners will be from Astle, Santner and Patel, but I suspect that Sommerville given his Aus experience, his fighting batting in SL, and his excellent results, with his height and bounce, will be the lead spinner. I wouldnt play a single spinner bar the SCG in Aus. I would just have CdG bowl a few overs. I'd go 8 Southee 9 Wagner 10 Ferg 11 Boult. Rotate the worst performing seamer not named Boult for the SCG test with Sommerville.

The overlooked thing about Anderson is that Broad was going to get dropped to fit him in. Similarly, imagine if Smith didnt miss 1.5 games for Australia (and again the argument to that is Labuschagne may not have played). 

Gday DC,
jaszyjim - To me there is something overlooked in this whole Paine saga & people sticking up for him
based on how he became captain.
To me it is quite simple - CA offered Paine the captaincy and a large remuneration to go with it.
In accepting this role he also had to accept everything that goes with the job & do what he is being paid to do.
If he did not think he could do it, then don't accept the position.
Everything else is just bull dust - Do the job you are being paid for or get out

Its worse, he is quoted on cricinfo as saying he doesn't read pitches well, and accordingly is often 50:50 what to do when he wins the toss.

Great that he's honest, but why not let Smith, Langer, Steve Waugh or someone else decide then?

That's how I rate him too grazor.

Looking forward to the Baggy Greens/Black Caps this summer Paddles.

I think that is what Australia is counting on. They don't have too much coming up, sorry to say and no offence to NZ, but if NZ do manage maybe 1 win it helps NZ and damages Australia points. NZ have a tough run in this series only 2 home games this year that being India good luck there. I think it will be a different story with Smith in the side when India tour next year and as you said SA has no batting line up currently. But it will be the next series that will be interesting. Australia will be against India away, South Africa at home where SA have performed well, plenty of time to address batting, but England will tour Australia, they'll probably push for a WI and Sri Lanka series, but it's not so much on the up and up through solely ability with the exception of Smith and Cummins more the luck of the draw and where they play. The draw will play a part in who plays the final, India and ???? South Africa haven't started their campaign yet, I'm looking forward to The India V SA series in 2-3 weeks should be good. I did find the international area on this site, probably see you there in a couple of weeks Paddles.

Would largely agree. Maybe Warner 2, Wade 6 (good hundred but his numbers before were pretty average). Paine I think overall led very well (despite the DRS issues and bad toss decision for the last test).

You can be a leader of the team and not be a captain, i just hate how negative we are when he captains. Also his useless reviews don't help, he has the worst success rate out of all the captains in that regard.

This series could have been a disaster for Langer and Australia had Anderson not pulled his hamstring after 4 overs. I think the critical thing after the India series loss, was for the Australian cricket fan to see their team compete. And Aus had a great World Cup, and Aus retained the Ashes. Now the team can just move on to strength to strength. Pakistan are weak tourists, with  a very young team right now, so they should be easy to beat at home for Aus.

Then you have NZ - who know what our batting line up will be more or less with one caveat over possibly dropping Raval for Will Young, but has many selection headaches over the bowling. If NZ get those selections wrong, then your batsmen will have an easy time of it. We have some pace in Ferg, and bash in Wag, and we don't need a spinner bar SCG. But the selectors could easily send out Southee, Henry and Santner :(. Then Aus heads to Bangladesh who just lost to AFG and has Shakib wanting to quit test cricket. Aus has every opportunity to back to 3rd or 2nd by the end of the summer.

SA will struggle to humiliate anyone right now with a very weak batting line up, Amla and ABDV are not replaced overnight.. India despite their lack of opening batsmen, have a pretty strong team. They will be number 1 for a while yet, as they are coming into a lot of home tests now. They do have a series away in NZ in March though, that should be very interesting given the current Indian seamer strength. 

But I think Aus definitely back on the up and up. The team has had the worst of it. Deinitely on the mend with Smith back. 

Series report card:
Warner 3.. - 95 @9.5. (extra point for fielding)
Harris 3-    58 @9.6   
Bancroft 3 -   44 @11
Khawaja 4 - 122 @20.4
Labuchagne  8  - 353  @54.4
Smith 10-  774 @110.5
Head 5-  191 @27.2
Wade 7 -  337 @33.7
Paine 6  - 180 @20 (no keeping stats)
Cummins 9 - 29 @19.6 - 71 runs.
Hazlewood 8   - 20 @21.6 -
Lyon 7  - 20 @33.4 - 80 runs
Siddle 6 - 7@42- 84 runs
Pattinson 6 - 5 @33 - 69 runs
Marsh 7 -  7 @12 - 40 runs.

Trouble was they were unable to. Leach is an under rated tweaker. Looks far more likely than Lyon.
Same old story.. one gets the bulk of the runs the rest are passengers. Has Wade saved his recall with his gutsy knock.

What is amazing DC is which test have you forgotten in such a short time, for the 20 wickets from 3 tests. was it the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th test? (seems to be 4 tests but maybe I don't know numbers as well as I think I do) which makes it 5 wickets per test (20 wickets to fall per test 4 bowlers just doing his job) Don't worry with him bowling it just monotony that you can easily forget a particular one, don't go running off to the Doctor.

With the post I pointed out which was more about that fact that some said 20 wickets @ 18 is spectacular (which was the stat at the time I posted) and Hazlewood is part of the best bowling attack in the world, which it may appear on paper, but when you break it down 1 test was 9/115 which we lost, the other 3 tests were 11/322 so nearly 30 average. 30 average across 3 tests is not spectacular and definitely shows inconsistent bowling, considering the other bowlers were consistent with their performances. This is England, this should be Hazlewood's playground. I've already done Archer and Cummins in the previous post but look at Broad
23 wickets @ 26.65 BBM 6/177 so other 4 tests 17/436 av 25.6 seem to show me fairly consistent bowling across all tests same as Archer same as Cummins. So whilst Cummins consistently bowled at 20 Archer was consistently bowling at 21 and Broad consistently at 25 Hazlewood bowled at 30 for 3 out of his 4 tests (definitely not at his 22 average as his overall series would suggest, but which the other 3 actually did.) They were the opening bowlers for 4 tests, and the end result for those 4 tests England 2 Australia 1 1 draw. Do you see a problem in this line of thought?

Read what you must into it just putting it out there. So if you want to continue with a player, who appears to be an automatic selection, that is bowling with an average 30+,  75% of the time (Look at India av 34 Look at SA av 40 so it's not just a one off occurrence) hoping that those one off tests may actually achieve a win, which it didn't in this Ashes series, that is you're opinion which you are entitled to have. I just differ in my point of view, but I can back up how I come to that conclusion. Look at Australia's Win loss ratio with Hazlewood last 12 tests he has played 3 wins (there's that 25 % again) 7 losses 2 draws, can you see a correlation??

You can put the blinkers on and ignore it. that is your prerogative, you can look at other reasons such as batsmen, which Paddles and myself have shown is not as big a problem as some would suggest, it is existent but not the sole reason, but ultimately we are all wanting the same thing, we want the best players on the field to win matches against the best in the world. The Ashes was 4th against 5th and finished in a draw no changes to their positions, they truly are 4th and 5th, and Australia is 5th. We are 3 points ahead of 6th placed Sri Lanka who the ICC in all their wisdom only gave 13 matches in the 2 year ICC test championships, the lowest number alongside Pakistan, so they obviously aren't respected as a test playing nation. We have the No 1 batsman, we have the No 1 bowler you explain it.

Now you can say it is Hazlewood bashing, you can tell me to give it a rest, that also is your prerogative, but this is an obvious problem that I would say has been existent for 2-3 years now with no sign of improvement in any aspect, it is there look for it yourselves, you appear to be well knowledge cricket followers. How about the Ashes in Australia which we won 4-0
Hazlewood 21 wickets @ 25 BBM 8/140 other 4 matches 13/404 average 31 (there's that 30+ average again over 4 tests this time) it is consistently there, it is not imagination. And that is against a very poor team with regards to batting on home ground, and you wonder why we are being humiliated by South Africa and India, whose bowlers are bowling around those 20 averages, not just against us, but against the world.

Now Hazlewood is out and it is all over for another 4 years. 

game over oz lose by 135

still glad we retained the ashes. Warner will be back but is unfortunately a bit underdone. If he averages 35 this series we win 4-0 but he'll be back. At home our batting will be formidable. Not sure how you fit khawaja, smith, wade, warner, burns, patterson, head and labu into the top 6 but its good to see options

think head was ok too

Warner will be back but terrible series from him

wade has such good reflexes he can adjust when beaten and looks better playing an odi style innings rather than a test style innings, even when the ball is doing something

bit like butler I suppose