Your @27 av means nothing if you do not complete the season. I explained why that was. He was selected in his first Aussie team on the back of a strong 2010 WC. Like so many of our cricketers are.

So U19 WC gets you in the Australian side......B.S. Baggers. A F***ing One Day meaningless tournament that is so bias in it's selection process, gets a player selected to wear the baggy green. AND YOU WONDER WHY WE'RE LOSING.

How did he go in the round robin stage of that tournament 
Against USA Hazlewood 3/46 Alister McDermott took 4/29 (Don't see McDermott in the Australian side)
Against Ireland Hazlewood 0/11 Kane Richardson 3/23 (Don't see Richardson playing test matches) McDermott DNP
Against South Africa Hazlewood 0/58 Kane Richardson 3/49 McDermott 1/49 (Still don't see Richardson nor McDermott  in the Australian side) SURPRISE SURPRISE HAZLEWOOD COULDN'T TAKE A WICKET AGAINST SA EVEN BACK THEN!!!!!!
So 3/115, sees you progress to the U19 finals and ultimately wearing a baggy green, whilst McDermott and Richardson were in and out of the U19 side. BIAS, BIAS,BIAS. Hazlewood wasn't consistent then, not consistent now.

Baggers Australia have just been pants and spanked by SA and India's bowlers and Hazlewood's performance is pathetic, but hey keep picking him in the hope he may come good, which has been your story for the last 3 years. Just to refresh your memory with no more tests this year

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/records/bowling/most_wickets_career.html?class=1;id=2018;type=year

Worst bowler this year, when Australia was pants and spanked, is Josh "GLOW WORM" Hazlewood. Forget Tremain, Josh is the man, let him keep earning his millions, whilst Tremain just gets the crusts of bread that Josh leaves behind. Tremain's performances mean nothing he didn't play the U19 tournament. Other bowlers in Australia, give up and play T20 get some money there, Josh is going nowhere, regardless of his performances at sheffield shield level, his poor showing in test matches over the last year, no, last 32 tests he's played, he played U19 tournament. 

And that people is typical of how CA work, they have their pets who get the contracts, and people wonder why players search for the dollars in T20 and people call them sell outs. They have families to house and feed and CA aren't rewarding true performances. I for one don't blame them and that is why Australia is losing, players are searching for the dollars elsewhere.

Australian fans may not realize how sever this loss is if it occurs...

Because not the Aus media is talking India up as a superpower away. LOL! ROFL.

India lost away to SA this year

It lost away to Eng this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously think about this....

It drew in Bangladesh last time away.

It lost to Pak last time away

It lost to NZ away last time

This is putting Aus on WI and SL levels.

But Aus lost in SL - so SENA sees the problem...

That is the level...

Please tell me more about this world class Aus bowling attack :-) Noone's buying it... No matter how much you sell it...

Abbas, Philander, Ali, Rabada, Steyn, Ngidi, Anderson, Woakes, Broad, Gabriel, Holder, Boult, Southee all called and lol'd...

Why cannot Aussies swing a ball - you hold it down the seam... its not that hard...

CA needs to wake up. Its fans need to wake up.

This is a long summer. If Lakmal bowls under lights at the Gabba - CA could be the biggest joke in the cricket world right now...

its a grim loss but i think dropping 100 runs and scoring 150 at home on a batting paradise was more pivotal to the loss

Shami and Sharma are outbowling Haze and Starc... look at their past India tours...

I know how good Bumrah is --- I told everyone on here before the tour started....

Mike knows it... Baggers knows it... and I can paste it...

I follow world cricket - not just in Aus cricket... 


:P

My posts is just a "I told you so to Baggers" - its not mean to inflame anyone else - and I like him too - but we debated fiercely - Im just doing an I told you so dance :-)

The real issue is CA is falling behind the rest of the world in a big way after leading with its academies... a huge problem right now that Aus has is the BBL is during the test home season - India was far too smart to do that with the IPL.....

India brains 1 Aus - silly :)

Cricket isn't AFL - you have roofed stadiums - there was an easy fix....

bumruh was bowling at batters with first class averages in the mid 30s not kohli/pujara and their supporting caste

You may be right in some regards but they were also playing away from home and Bumruh has never played on these grounds before. He adapted very quickly, something that Hazlewood can't do, Baggers says Hazlewood needs more games than his 8 tests so far to adapt to Asian conditions. Meanwhile Starc has adapted very well to Asian conditions averages 27 there in 10 matches.

Once India take the last 2 wickets it will be the first time India has won 2 tests in Australia since 1978.

Now explain to me how they bowled in South Africa. We had Smith FC av 57 and Warner FC av 49 playing and the best SA have is AB DeVilliers and Amla. FC 49

Rabada 4 matches 23 wickets av 19
Cummins 4 matches 22 wickets av 21
Philander 4 matches 16 wickets av 17
Morkel 3 matches 15 wickets av 20

Big Gap between those 4 and our two OPENING BOWLERS.
Starc 3 matches 12 wickets av 34
Hazlewood 4 matches 12 wickets av 39

So using your theory are Starc's and Hazlewood performances worse because they had a worse batting line up to bowl at and they had Morkel Batting av 12, Maharaj batting av 14 and Rabada batting av 12 compared to our tail, so they had a longer tail, should be some easy wickets there.

And for the record Bumrah base salary is $300K if lucky, and the South Africans $360K if lucky. Compare those to our bowlers and work out how much they are paid per wicket this year.

South Africa's batting is still a lot better than ours but yes Starc and Hazelwood have been out of form of late. Form fluctuates but their career averages are decent

having said that I'm for squad rotation in the quicks

Won't work, think of it this way, this current test could have been Cummins rotation out of the side. No the only answer is if there is an obvious "out of form" player, send them back to shield level to work out their form problems, persistence in hope of a turn around at an international level leads to losses.

Hazlewood in particular should never have been chosen for this series following his performance in SA. His performance this series (honestly 2 wickets for him this match were just prior to declaration as India swung the bat big time, but they all count) has been nothing spectacular. Very poor SR of 64, a lot of poor deliveries in there. His overall performance in 2018 is a big failure, if he was to be marked out of 10 it is seriously a 2. All his stats are in the bottom 20% of bowlers in the world. Bumrah SR 41 and though Cummins was poor in the first 2 tests his overall SR is 50. But Starc isn't far behind him in being shown the door.

Just on the point of taking the final wicket in an innings, that I believe is Hazlewood's 26th time he has done that, taking batsman 10 and/or batsmen 11 or final wicket before declaration etc. In the same period of time Starc is about 20 times. The taking of a No 10 or No 11 batsmen, the real batting bunnies is very important for stats. Why?
You can have 2/75 but getting those final batsmen can get you 3/75 with no further runs. Amazing what that does for averages. Think about it 26 times from 160 wickets.

problem with chasing short term form is it can take time for the new guy to acclimatize to test cricket and you've lost someone with a decent record that could return to form at any time. The new guy is also going to have seasons that poor as well most likely

So when is enough enough? I said Hazlewood should not have played this series, but your saying he should trying to turn form around. He didn't so do we continue in hope? These first 3 tests in hindsight could have given a proven performer in Tremain at FC level, the opportunity to acclimatise, but we're still scratching our heads thinking when is it time.

I mean there is always an argument that the bowling can be better

its just weird to me that the bowling side is under scrutiny here when they are meeting career benchmarks that I would definitely describe as world class. Lyon is the GOAT and our three quicks have career averages well below 30

Mcdermott averaged over 28
Gillespe averaged 26
Brett lee averaged 30.8
Merv Hughes averaged 28
M Johnson averaged 28

I doubt many would dispute any 3 of that trio would make a world class trio yet I'm not sure any combination would beat our current trio. All of them have had bad seasons and good seasons thats perfectly natural

compare with career benchmarks for batters. A passable test batter averages 40+ a very good one 45+ and an outstanding one 50+. We have 1 passable test batter in Khawaja. Good selection could have a team full of passable batters rather than the hopeless lot we have (And smith and Warners return make it a decent team that could push for number 1 at some stage)

Sure there is an argument to use our impressive bowling depth. But why the focus on our bowlers?

It depends. If a player beats the door down (say Patterson or Jhye continue to have insane averages for another season or tremains average drops lower) then even a return to form may not keep them out (although o'keefe should have had more opportunities but thats another story)

But if you compare to other top bowlers or batters, most of our top bowlers had seasons averaging 30+ and most of our decent batters (taylor, jones, boon, m waugh, slater etc) had seasons averaging sub 40 or even sub 30. If your career average is as good as hazelwood I would think 2 12 month periods of 33+ average would be needed unless someone makes it impossible to ignore them. Any guy you bring in, except maybe patterson who could have mcgrath like stats injuries permitting, is going to have the same ups and downs. Rotation allows you to smooth out form fluctuations a bit so that can help

Because you can't change what doesn't exist. S Marsh is one of our best FC batsmen, we don't have many FC batsmen above 40 and some of them are questionable as to the reality of their averages. Baggers and I have had this discussion, and in short
Burns in Sydney at sheffield shield and international level has an FC average of 60, but an overall FC average of 40
Patterson averages 40 at FC level but plays most of his time in Sydney. In SA he averages 9 from the last 3 years. Just an example. All the centuries scored by NSW except for 1 by Patterson in Perth have been in Sydney. So NSW batting averages are inflated.

So no we don't have the batsmen available currently, so you have to work with what you have. We do have a lot of quality bowlers so you have to use that to get the number of runs by the opposition down. 50% of the time oppositions are scoring over 600 runs in a match, and we struggle to achieve that even with Smith and Warner, that is why we have lost so many series recently. Paddles recently posted that the current opening bowlers are the worst Australia has had in terms of "effectiveness" (SR averages etc) in the last 50 years (Hope I got that right Paddles) I believe him. They are. So that is the only area where we can work currently to get the number of runs oppositions score down, to get us a better opportunity for the quality of batsmen, where one currently doesn't exist. If you're not prepared to do this then just accept that we won't get much better in the short term and we will lose, which is fine by me, because Hazlewood and Starc can go down in history as the common denominator in a losing team. Just feel sorry for Cummins and Lyons who will be tarred with the same brush.

I'll compare the current mob to previous ashes squads starting in 2010 before this mob was around going back nearly 50 years (as far as ESPNcricinfo will let me go!)
average/strike rate (sum divided by 3) of our historical pace trio

Hazelwood-Starc-Cummins 26.56/52.97
Hilfenhaus-siddle-johnson 29.06/58.2
lee-mcgrath-clark 25.44/53.3
mcgrath-lee-gillespe 26.19/53.37
mcgrath-gillespe-bichel 26.67/54.76
mcgrath-gillespe-fleming 24.55/53.93
Mcgrath-gillespe-Kasper 26.88/56.63
Angel-Mcgrath-Mcdermott 32.19/61.2
Alderman-reid-hughes 26.72/57.63
Alderman-lawson-hughes 28.70/59.8
Lawson-mcdermott-o'donnel 47.73/91.73
lillee-alderman-lawson 27.196/57.83
Hurst-Hogg-Laughlan 33.34/73
Thompson-Pascoe-Walker 27.17/59.6

So our average is the 4th best (mostly due to mcgrath's long incredible career) and our strike rate is actually our best ever

As for whether NSW scores are inflated here are the ground averages per wicket over the past season

NSW 30.1
Tas 25.9
WA 32.1
QLD 47.75
SA 34.8
Vic 30.26

If NSW runs are inflated due to flat pitches its not showing up in the stats.....

so our current 40+ batsmen are Marsh and Khawaja (in the team and probably should stay with Marsh replaced by smith)
Burns who plays for QLD
White who plays for Vic
Maxwell who plays for Vic
Pattison who plays for NSW
and Lynn who plays for QLD but has made himself unavailable (I reckon he could be brought back)

an ok batting squad actually is possible. Harris and that youngster (Pukavic? what's his name?)  are other options given their youth I suppose. Also Wade given he gets his runs in tasmania is a defensible position (also nearly 40 anyway)

Gday SF
Always a bit late to the Forum due to time difference,
Great post and says everything I wanted to say & my hat off to Kohli as well a truly well planned, captains performance

Sorry, MikeR, still waking up

Why cannot Aussies swing a ball - you hold it down the seam... its not that hard...

The only reason I can come up with is our bowlers cut their teeth with non swing conditions. Fast and bouncy decks are not conducive to swing. Hot sunny days are not conducive to swing. So the emphasis is to bowl fast and seam up. You can count on one hand the out of the truely quality swing bowlers produced in this country over the decades.  Today Chadd Sayers, Frank Worrall and Nick Winter are the only three that come to mind. If CA is using horses for courses selection policy one or two of those blokes should be on the plane to England. Tho green Winter would be one. He was allbut unplayable last season. Our juniors are evidently still not being tutored in swing bowling. That was evident watching some of the U17/19 nationals finals this year. So sadly nothing is likely to change. I call on CA to make the Duke ball mandatory for all 10 Shield rounds the next time we are about to tour England. Reckon they missed a trick not doing that this time. They could also think outside the box and start the shield later to ensure good preparation for what to expect in England.

Someone posted a few days ago that Cummings was trying to turn himself into an all rounder,
which did not attract much attention.
First innings after 2 days in the heat bowling, took it,s toll on his bating, but hasn't he shown his qualities now.
If he can become a truly great all rounder doesn't that change the dynamics of the team.
When a pace all rounder is required he goes in at 6 with 3 other pace men & Lyon.
If you want a spinning all rounder then Cummins becomes a bowler but where do you bat him?
eg next test @ SCG - 2 openners, Khawaja, S. Marsh, Head, Agar, Paine, Cummins etc.
Problem is, Cummins currently is batting better that any of them, is he going to be good enough to bat at 4 instead of S. Marsh?

Good for you grazor shooting down Mikes NSW bias in flames.

Our last quality pace all rounder was  Keith 'Nugget" Miller yonks ago... or was he classed as a genuine all rounder?

How does S Marsh keep his place? When we need him to stand up and make a big statement such as yesterday.. he falls flat on his face. He has done that so many times over the years I have lost count. He is mentally weak as is his brother. Swampy was not all that mentally great either from memory.

keith miller has an insane record
I'd be ok with another watson. In the meantime players like white/maxwell are enough to give the top 4 a rest

Watson in his heyday yes. Injury cruelled what could have been a productive career.

Pucovski, Sangha and Philippe are the three most exciting of our next gen. Why not take a gamble and blood all three against the weaker Lankans. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Call in White or Bailey..even Maxwell to provide mentorship .

grazor. It is  Kurtis Patterson mate.not Pattinson.

My next question is, why is Langer not sorting this out.
All I hear bandied around by the commentators, is that he stands by his team & has their backs - great, but what if your team is not performing.
Look at our selections for 12 & 13, WI would always have 2 good fielders and on hot days in Perth rotate their players into the rooms for a rest.
Caused a bit of controversy in it's day but what smart management. Who did we bring on Siddle!!
Langer seems to be slipping under the radar & I think more questions need t be asked about him.

ah sorry

some fight has been put into a very average team by him perhaps but he should be well away from selection. Perhaps some tactical changes like you suggest could help too