The Cricket Season of 2020/21.

[markTHEblake]

Australias batting for so long has been propped up by just one batsman saving the innings. If we didnt have the best all round bowling attack in the world we wouldnt be beating Zimbabwe.

For example how many times have we seen Smith score half or more of the innings total.

Its not that our batsmen are no good. They have all scored runs, our team just cant seem to put together an all round performance collectively. Formula for test cricket should be easy. If we can make 400 in the first innings we would be unbeatable with the bowlers we have.

[pt73]

Stuart, I read the article in the link and it looks like nothing has changed apart from the names of the players being picked then punted.

CA are still addicted to JAMODIs and the rise of T20 has eroded our batting stocks of Test top order players who are willing to grind out an innings.

Many years ago I played quite a few rounds with an ex-Australian opener (the late Jimmy Burke) and his stories of being selected for Tests when seriously out of form in Sheffield Shield match what you have said.

[TheNuclearOne]

Its not that our batsmen are no good. They have all scored runs, our team just cant seem to put together an all round performance collectively.

It's because some of them aren't "good enough". Any amount of Test bats have at times scored runs and plenty of them have been ordinary. Given enough goes they all come off at times. The really good ones come off more often. Wade averages under 30. He's got 5 fifties and 4 hundreds in 63 innings. In 31 innings (less than half of Wades) Labuschagne has 5 tons and 10 fifties. Now they can't all be a Marnus and there are mitigating factors (batting position etc) but obviously Wade doesn't come off too often. That's nothing against Wade, he's among the best of the rest vying for spots. He did some decent things opening this series in tough conditions. Head has the same number of innings as Marnus for 2 hundreds and 7 fifties.

A team playing here with 2 Warner's opening and a pair of both Smith and Lubaschagne following is obviously going to come off way more often than the team we have. It's why their averages are so high. Of course that would be an extraordinary team of batsman but when you look back to our more recent glory days the overall team strength was ridiculous. A lesser light like Damien Martyn averaged 46+ with 13 tons and 23 fifties in 109 innings. a guy struggles to get a game in Darren Lehmann averaged 45 with 5 tons and ten fifties in 41 bats. Mike Hussey couldn't break the team for years and when he did he averaged comfortably over 50.

It's unrealistic to expect another team near this strong but our current top 6 overall are lacking due to three struggling positions. If Warner, Smith or Labuschagne don't fire we are almost always in really bad shape. Our tail was saving us for ages too. Pretty sure you were joking about it a few years back. Our tail didn't fire to their usual standard this series leaving a few more cracks unpapered.

[TheNuclearOne]

My simple post-mortem:

• India won because they were the better team.
• Australia lost the series because their batsmen failed to score enough runs
• Australia didn't win the series (different to losing it) because their bowlers failed to take enough wickets on the final day in two of the four Tests

Slightly more complex post-mortem:

• Australia's batting order was, overall, woeful. The selectors chose Burns for the first two Tests, in spite of being clearly and utterly out of form. They also chose Head, who, like Burns, is technically flawed and seemingly unwilling or unable to fix his problems. However, of more concern is the mental lapses that occurred across the series. All too often players would get in and then throw their wicket away to a nothing ball. Wade is the obvious case in point, but all were guilty of it (except perhaps for Green) repeatedly. Even Smith played a number of dumb shots that seemed to indicate he wasn't really fully focussed.
• The batting problems have been evident for a number of years now, but Smith and Marnus, along with Warner last summer, have papered over these cracks to some extent. We desperately need to find some solid openers - why Renshaw and Ussie (amongst others) were jettisoned so quickly I will never understand (although I have my suspicions - see next point).
• Langer's favouritism is a problem. He has said that "It is harder to get out of the team than into it", but that only seems to apply to certain players. They stuck with Burns because he is a " good guy", while contrastingly Ussie seems hardly done by, and they killed any confidence that Renshaw had by dropping him prematurely. Others like Bancroft seemed to get preferential treatment at times, although his recent form has been so woeful that not even Langer brought him up as an option. Interesting to look at all the debutants over the past five years - four from Western Australia, five from Victoria and four from South Australia compared to just two from NSW and two from Qld.
• Australia's bowling attack was half-excellent. Cummins and Hazlewood were exceptional. Lyon and Starc were not. Lyon's failure to bowl out a team on the last day in Australian conditions is nothing new - he is a very solid offie, but it is hard to say he ever looks like dominating a series in Australia. In fairness, no offies ever do in our conditions. Starc was more disappointing, and his poor output I think contributed towards Lyon's struggles, as India could still score quickly from Starc's end which meant they could sit on Lyon and take less risks.
• Our overall tactics were very poor at times - whether this is the fault of Langer or Paine, or both, is unclear, but some soul searching is required on that front.
• Finishing on a positive note, Cameron Green is a genuine find, and Pucovski may be as well (if he stays fit). A middle order of Marnus, Smith, Pucovski and Green looks much more stable than what we saw this series. We just need some openers ...

Mitigating factors:

• The Covid bubble limited the options for selectors. However, that said, they picked a number of players, Moises and Abbott, who realistically were never going to play.
• The Big Bash continues to go on for far too long and overlap with the Test series. I love the Big Bash, but this distended competition is simply money-grabbing at its worst, and is of long-term detriment. It prevents players pushing their case through runs in the Shield - how good would it have been to have had three rounds of the Shield going on over the past month, with previously mentioned options like Ussie given a chance to push a claim for selection.

Excellent. I believe we had our long term opener in Renshaw and should have stuck with him.

Starc's accuracy was maybe the best i'd seen it early in the Test series and he was swinging the new ball back in. By the end of the series for whatever reason the accuracy had dwindled and so had the swing. It wasn't the conditions as i saw Hazlewood swing a couple appreciably at the other end. As a former swing bowler i can never understand why some have so much trouble with hand and seam position particularly guys that only really go one way with the new ball. Even at his best when swinging the new ball Starc rarely if ever gets that seam perfect. If he did he'd really hoop some in and be one of the greats. Johnson was similar.

Lyon might be a bit set in his ways of bowling too straight at times.

I'd be getting young talents like Josh Philippe into consistent Shield cricket and see if they develop.

[Stuart]

Excellent. I believe we had our long term opener in Renshaw and should have stuck with him.

Starc's accuracy was maybe the best i'd seen it early in the Test series and he was swinging the new ball back in. By the end of the series for whatever reason the accuracy had dwindled and so had the swing. It wasn't the conditions as i saw Hazlewood swing a couple appreciably at the other end. As a former swing bowler i can never understand why some have so much trouble with hand and seam position particularly guys that only really go one way with the new ball. Even at his best when swinging the new ball Starc rarely if ever gets that seam perfect. If he did he'd really hoop some in and be one of the greats. Johnson was similar.

Lyon might be a bit set in his ways of bowling too straight at times.

I'd be getting young talents like Josh Philippe into consistent Shield cricket and see if they develop.

All good points, but particularly the one regarding Mitch Johnson. I could never understand how a bowler could get to Test level and not be able to get their wrist and release positions correct. Absolutely basic stuff, and speaks very poorly of our coaching system that players could get to Test level without a fundamental skill like that. For comparison, look at the seam position of Shami.

[Stuart]

Many years ago I played quite a few rounds with an ex-Australian opener (the late Jimmy Burke) and his stories of being selected for Tests when seriously out of form in Sheffield Shield match what you have said.

How awesome is that! As you may have gathered I love my cricket history. Wonderful to hear such stories.

I have had a few people ask for the link to my Cricinfo stuff - most of it is still there: https://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/cont...html?genre=494

Still, the best thing I probably wrote about cricket (The definitive A to Z of Cricketing Terms) was never able to be published there. The editor loved it, but said that there was just no chance of it ever seeing the light of day as they would have had some serious lawsuits. Some of it is now not very relevant, but most of it holds up OK
http://historyofcricket.blogspot.com...ing-terms.html

[markTHEblake]

Our tail was saving us for ages too. Pretty sure you were joking about it a few years back. Our tail didn't fire to their usual standard this series leaving a few more cracks unpapered.

Oh yeah I remember, there was quite a run where our tail was awesome. We only needed our top 6 to make 150 and the tail did the rest.

I also get the impression our openers (one in particular) seems to want to score too fast. Too often I see we are 0/50 with one player on 40.
Sure 40 is a great start, but seems to me that in test cricket its better to build a platform not race to it.

Hayden and Langer were unbelievably good at bludgeoning a bowling attack into submission early in the innings, but I think that the opposition bowling wasnt so good back then.

[TheNuclearOne]

Oh yeah I remember, there was quite a run where our tail was awesome. We only needed our top 6 to make 150 and the tail did the rest.

I also get the impression our openers (one in particular) seems to want to score too fast. Too often I see we are 0/50 with one player on 40.
Sure 40 is a great start, but seems to me that in test cricket its better to build a platform not race to it.

Hayden and Langer were unbelievably good at bludgeoning a bowling attack into submission early in the innings, but I think that the opposition bowling wasnt so good back then.

I think it's ok with Warner as that's his go and he still averages near fifty but other less talented players aren't going to pull it off for long very often.

[TheNuclearOne]

Safe to say the Poms are going OK ATM. I wonder how our guys would have fared under the same circumstances. Top batting.

[TheNuclearOne]

One more wicket for a pretty historic win for the Poms. Well played.

[BobsYourUncle]

Certainly showed how to play test cricket in India. Have to go big in the first innings, something we're not capable of. Now we need England to win 2-1 or the series to be drawn to make the championship final. Which we will then pull out of over covid fears.

[backintheswing]

Joe Burns 171 out of 275 for Qld

[AndyP]

It's a long way back to get in the test side, BITS. It's a start, but he needs to keep doing that.

[markTHEblake]

That worked for Matthew Hayden... eventually

[TheNuclearOne]

Kwaka finds some Shield form and leads us home. Good win.

[BobsYourUncle]

Khawaja should've opened in all 4 India tests this summer.

[TheNuclearOne]

He's got one ton in his last 18 Test innings and had a poor series VS India here last time they visited. He got caught in all 6 innings (often in similar fashion) in England two or three times after getting a bit of a start. He's probably in the 6 best bats in Australia but man he must frustrate the selectors. I think they've wiped him as he can't even make the white ball teams now. He does actually average 40 but he's patchy.

[TheNuclearOne]

Winning the toss didn't really get it done for The Poms did it. Jesus H.

[WBennett]

Did you see the pitch? Urgh

[TheNuclearOne]

Did you see the pitch? Urgh

No but look at the current craziness. Joe Root comes on and basically takes the last 5 wickets for 8 runs off 6 overs and England barely behind. India open with spinners and The Poms are 2-0 off three balls lmao

From memory we need them to win this series to be a chance of the Test final. If a couple of them can somehow man up with the bat and have a bit of luck they aren't out of this one. A two day Test match isn't exactly impossible either.

[Stuart]

If a couple of them can somehow man up with the bat and have a bit of luck they aren't out of this one.

Nope ...

[jimandr]

There were more runs scored in the 20/20 than in the test match.

The two games are a good indicator of the primary problem cricket is currently facing.

In 20/20, on flat pitches and very small grounds, there is no contest between bat and ball. The batters are so dominant it is closer to baseball than to cricket. In the Test, the pitch was so awful the batters had no chance against bowlers who could bowl the right type of bowling.

[Stuart]

Root’s 5-8 is reminiscent of Michael Clarke’s 6-9 - when complete part-timers clean-up like that, it is a pretty big sign that the pitch is not up to Test standard. Also doesn’t bode well for the next Test.

[coalesce]

Once England won the first test there was zero chance of the rest of the tests being on any kind of pitches than this. England haven’t helped themselves tho with crazy selection. They fly Bairstow in to play with no practice and surprise surprise he’s clueless. I don’t think he’s the sharpest tool in the shed at the best of times but I’ve got a tiny bit of sympathy for him here

[markTHEblake]

The batters are so dominant it is closer to baseball than to cricket.

I have only seen two MLB baseball games (live) and i wouldnt say its a batters game at all. One of them was 3-2 scoreline over 21 innings. I reckoned the ball was reversing and my yankee mate didnt know what it means. Certainly i think they need to make 20/20 harder for batting.