Shaun Marsh is 32 and still averages less than 40 at shield level. Why they keep picking him is beyond me. He will score five ducks, then hit a hundred, then hit another five ducks. Always caught in the slips. He should never be picked again.

I rate Joe Burns, Khawaja and Wade as batsmen. They aren't perfect but they are the next best.

Joe Burns needs to be given another chance. Still needs to work on consistency though.
Bancroft has potential but not ready yet, although if he starts next shield season strong I can see him getting a crack. Could be a bolter for the Bangladesh tour actually.

Shaun Marsh should never play test cricket again. Will never understand why he keeps getting picked. (well, except for his last name I guess)

Edited by JayEss: 8/8/2015 11:29:15 AM

Gosh go to sleep at none for a 100 odd and wake up and we lost seven wickets for not much

shaun marsh isnt good enough play someone who averages 40 plus at sheild level

Personally id wait for clarke to come good
we have seen this many times
players at this age have a temporary form slump but bound back

Wade's keeping is not that good, according to the cricketers in the members.

Pain is apparently better as a keeper than Haddin, who is a better keeper than Wade, but Manou was better as a keeper than any of them.r.

Nevill should probably be given a extended run being 8 years younger than Haddin.

Edited by Decentric: 8/8/2015 01:06:54 PM

Amazing!

Marsh at his age, still doesn't average 40 in Shield cricket.:roll:

Wade is a terrible keeper, but I think he's good enough to play as a specialist batsman. I saw him score a hundred against Sri Lanka at the SCG and he was batting at number six. It wasn't a great attack but he looked very good.

Forgot to add - he has already scored two test hundreds and his FC average is 39.

Edited by lastbroadcast: 8/8/2015 02:52:20 PM

Reports that Clarke is set to retire at the end of the series.

You've gotta look at these conditions (swinging and seaming) and ask yourself if the player would be any better.

Based on what we've seen from Maxwell, would be do any better? I sincerely doubt it.

The problem for Australia (aside from mental things) has been that the batsmen haven't had good enough technique. Maxwell is notorious for not having the technique to bat at Test level. Or to bowl. He almost bowls front on.

The fella is designed for T20 cricket. This series has made it 100% clear that T20 cricket is seriously corrupting our Test cricketers.

If Maxwell can get his technical game right and graft out big innings in the Sheffield Shield, then fine. Otherwise let's go with batsmen like Bancroft, Harris, Silk, Burns, Lynn and Handscomb. Those kind of batsmen seem to want to play Test cricket and are focusing on the longer forms of the game.

Thank you Pup. Now for one last century to draw level with Bradman.

Obviously some amazing on-field performances, but absolutely nothing will compare to how he handled the passing of Phil Hughes.

I'm glad the timing of his retirement announcement has taken the gloss of the pom's celebrations. The commentators are, and should be, talking about Clarke and not England's win.

EADCs.

The fact that almost none of the players can leave a delivery without waving a bat at it is proof of that.

As for Clarke what a shame he wasn't loved/admired/respected by a significant portion of cricket fans in Australia.

The bloke could have cured cancer and still peanuts wouldn't have rated him.

I rated Clarke. Some people in the media were unnecessarily critical of him as they thought he was a bit of a pretty boy, but to be honest, he didn't do much wrong.

The worst thing he did was date a trainwreck of a self absorbed woman and we've all been there.

Ashes is an now in interesting point and Australia getting all out at 60.

saying the short forms are ruining our players doesnt make sense to me
its not as though australia is the only nation to play the short form or even play it the most

there is definitely a problem with our talent

hard to believe its caused by short forms of cricket or over aggression

Clarke is a great batsman. I was lucky enough to see the entirety of his 329 at the SCG - his batting was godlike on those two days. Amazing knock.

I also think he was an underrated captain. He never had the "gravitas" of Taylor, Waugh or Ponting, and didn't inspire his team like they could, but he was a thinking captain. The way he rotated bowlers and used Johnson and Lyon in particular during his reign was excellent. hopefully he can smash a hundred in his last game.

Alright folks - what's' your next test XI for the Bangladesh tour?

Pup=d> One of the best batsmen I've seen in my lifetime. That Adelaide century after Hughes' death was immense, but the century where he broke his arm in South Africa will be talked about forever. With Harris' retirement it means in just over a month we've lost the ashes as well as our best batsmen and bowler.

I know the next captain will be Smith, but to be honest I'm not sure about it. You look at Border, Taylor, Waugh, Ponting and Clarke as the previous captains and smith is nothing like them. He's a good batsmen but I haven't seen anything from him yet that screams leader or tough like the others.

:lol: Deflection level: Expert

But even Warner's not actually that good, tbh. Don't get me wrong. He has as much natural talent as any player in the world. He's phenomenal in Australia. But as soon as the wicket starts to do something, he's in trouble. To be fair to him, he's more of a thinker than I realised (based on his interviews). He is trying to adapt his game to English conditions. And he has had a bit of success.

We should persevere with him because he's our best opener (once Rogers retires), is phenomenal in Australia and because there isn't much in the way of alternatives.

But put it this way. Between now and the next Ashes on English soil, if Warner carries on as usual, Bancroft makes the Test side and prosper and if Harris starts knocking on the door with hundred after hundred in the Shield, I'd be inclined to open with Bancroft and Harris and either leave Warner out of the XI or push him down the order.

Way too many variables to say any of that. I'm merely pointing out that Warner seems to get found out a lot away from home.

The problem for Australia is batsmen can't graft an innings.

The thing is that England don't really take T20 cricket as seriously as Aus do. They don't have players wasting time in the IPL and they don't have a Big Bash League.

Their batsmen seem temperamentally far better suited to Test cricket.

If you want to see how T20 cricket is corrupting Australian batsmen's technique don't look so much at who is there. Warner and Smith are unusual types of players. There have always been interesting characters who have had successful Test careers.

Look at who's not there.

Look at Nic Maddinson and Jordan Silk. I wager that without a diet of T20 cricket, these fellas would have built up really good form in the Shield a few years ago and would be knocking down the door for Test selection now (or earlier). There's a reason why Rogers and Voges (who are in their mid-late 30s) were knocking down the door and no younger players were. The younger players have been corrupted. Maddinson's head is all over the place. He'll hit a bowler out of the ground. Then the next delivery, rather than look for a single (which you've said, correctly, is how to prosper at the crease) he'll try and hit the bowler even further. His head is fucked. And it has probably had really adverse effects on his technique too.

When Alastair Cook was playing a lot of T20 and ODI cricket, his Test batting really suffered. He had all these technical issues. He was a walking wicket. When he stopped playing those forms of the game, he became excellent again. This is a bloke who grew up playing cricket the old fashioned way. The short-form of the game only did damage to him when he was a developed, successful Test cricketer. Imagine the damage it can do to players who actually grow up with T20 cricket.

Maddinson and Silk have the talent to be Test cricketers. But, I think because of T20, they just can't sustain a long period of good form in the Sheffield Shield.

A while back, a sympathetic English cricket correspondent suggested to me that Australia (then) needed to do what England did around 1999.

England was in a really bad place, particularly with batsmen. So what they did was they took a step back and decided to find a core group of batsmen who they could really invest a lot of time in who they thought could become really high quality Test batsmen. They were smart enough to realise that some of the players mightn't have the grandest county records, but could probably take big strides at Test level. So they didn't just look at f/c averages. They looked at the stats through the prism of context. The context being talent, technique and temperament.

As we know, some players have a great average at f/c level, but they get lack the technique or the mental fortitude to be able to replicate their f/c form at Test level. Quite a few names spring to mind. Likewise, others are reasonable at f/c level without being outstanding. But they have excellent technique or they really, really try to graft an innings.

Michael Vaughan was such a player. England invested a lot of time in him and others. What happened? They ended up beating the best sporting side (not just cricketing side) in the world in the 2005 Ashes.

Kane Williamson didn't use to have the greatest f/c average. But he plays the ball so late and with such soft hands and he tries to occupy the crease. Now he's one of the best young batsmen in the world.

With this in mind, Cricket Australia need to identify the right type of players. Luckily Bancroft, Burns and Lynn are on the right track. But I'm convinced that Marcus Harris and Jordan Silk are also huge talents. They just need a hand getting into the right headspace to score hundred after hundred after hundred.

At Johnson's age, he realistically has few cricketing days ahead of him, being a fast bowler.


Hazlewood/Starc/Pattinson/Cummins may be the most talented bowlers in history as a group, but must also be the most injury prone.](*,)

Ben Stokes' swing bowling in this test was simply astonishing.

Last night, for about 25 minus, Oz could barely lay bat on ball.=d>

We have to credit him , and England, with playing some superb cricket.

Unfortunately a mate of mine, who will be staying with some of my English cousins later this month in the Old Dart, will be copping it over there at the end of this month. There is a tendency for the Poms to gloat.:roll:

Interesting.

I have to disagree.

We have to credit England for outplaying us.

Interesting proactivity by English cricket.

England most definitely do have a domestic T20 competiton and have had one since 2003.

Edited by sydneycroatia58: 9/8/2015 11:55:47 AM

Serious question - were you trying to build a T20 side or a test side? Because if its the latter that's atrocious.

quickflix:
SA and india have more players in the ipl than Australia

England also have a flourishing 20 20 comp

if anything I think Australia don't take 20 20 as seriously as other nations

we certainly aren't the best in the world at it and we have had notable players skip ipl contracts to focus on test

iirc there was a similar panic when one day internationals came in. We had a poor decade or so sometime after that. in the 90s we then produced arguably our greatest generation and also our most aggressive (though bradmans invincibles were aggressive) showing that 1 day didn't stop us producing good players

I would look to changes in our development

What I am hearing is a win at all costs attitude making young captains reluctant to play leg spinners and a reduction in the practice of playing kids In lower mens grades making us mentally soft

as for who to select
just be boring and selct the players with the best first class averages
no matter what the style a player with whatever first class average will eventually have a very similar test average if they play enough tests
stick with them for 10 tests to see if they can get at least one score of a hundred or a couple of 50s
then stick with them for 20 tests to see if they can get their average over thirty
then they can sink or swim
we have many players who averaged 30 odd after 20 tests and went on to become great players yet we drop kwahaja and burns!

Maxwells average is 40 which is a couple runs too low but I would keep an eye on him
given our dearth of talent he might be an option

if he can improve his bowling slightly he would make a fierce all rounder