Paine can eat his words now, while he contemplates stepping down from the captaincy tomorrow
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Paine can eat his words now, while he contemplates stepping down from the captaincy tomorrow
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Got a little embarrasing there , if there is not a major overhaul of where we are headed now I dont know what will , frail batting order that has been hidden by some good individual innings at the right time , and a very good bowling attack
The field settings were baffling at times I'm not sure Paine knew we had to win the test to win the series for a while ,
On the other side of the coin what a performance by India losing 8 of the players that played in the first test which I suppose might not have been a bad thing , but they showed some true courage today and the rest of the series after Adelaide
Amazing what young guys pushed into a team before they are ready can do , we are playing injured players and they played net bowlers
Pujara what a innigns that was getting like a boxing bout where you are yelling at the ref to stop the fight .
Bloody great series to watch, that was. Maybe not so much for Australian supporters but cricket lovers, yes.
Totally agree, you don’t see that sort of drama in T20.
No matter the result, that’s why I love Test cricket.
Unbelievable effort by India after getting embarrassed in Adelaide and coupled with lots of injuries to turn everything around to win the series.
Not sure what to say about Australia, we just managed to find the wrong times to stuff up but found some real talent like Cameron Green.
Post-mortem can wait until tomorrow - today should be solely about congratulating India for winning. They were clearly the better side across the series, and thoroughly deserve their victory.
BUT, wow, the post-mortem tomorrow will be a doozy ...
Great test and a great series. India thoroughly deserved it. To pull that off without their best batsman (and captain) and all of their best bowlers is very, very impressive. Their depth is unbelievable. They beat our best team at home with their 3rd stringers.
The post mortem is simple - they were better than us. It happens. There’s no point overhauling the team when virtually position for position there’s no one better on the bench.
Cinderella story, out of nowhere, former greenskeeper, now about to become a Masters champion..... It looks like a mirac.. It's in the hole! It's in the hole!
But yes, India absolutely deserved the win.
I want to hear all of the suggested replacements for this "overhaul". The Aussies didn't make enough runs. It's one of the few series where Australia have never scored over 400 runs in any innings. But more importantly, the Indians were able to hold out the very good bowling line up. I'd like to see if Swepson is a better option than Lyon. Lyon has been serviceable when there hasn't been many options, but his numbers aren't that good.
Full credit to India, too good despite all the injuries and departures and being the away team. I thought we were on par with them and would win at home but they are well ahead really. They have good depth too as shown by the rise of guys like Gill and Siraj. How good has Gill been?
Plenty of amusement on the internet as Lyon after hundreds of wickets has suddenly been found out. Starc, Lyon, Wade, Paine, Langer and the entire group of selectors need to be dropped etc etc.
The fact is India were just too good.
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Lyon has hundreds of wickets because he has played a hundred tests. I was told that he has the worst bowling average of any Australian bowler with over 200 wickets, including Brett Lee.
My simple post-mortem:Slightly more complex 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
Mitigating factors:
- 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 ...
- 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.
Off spinners have to be compared to other off spinners. Exclude chucker/s. They are a completely different breed. Have a look at his stats against past greats, average and SR being quite important. Lyon and Ashwin are two of the greatest offies of all time. A guy like Swann just shades him but also had a much shorter career.
Where Lyon struggles a bit is he hasn't often got swags of wickets on the last day as spinners often do.
Last edited by TheNuclearOne; 20th January 2021 at 08:28 AM.
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I assume that no-one has bothered reading that diatribe in my previous post, so I should also say that India have uncovered a real gem in Siraj and his inclusion over Yadav actually strengthened them. India's bowling attack of Bumrah, Shami, Siraj, Ashwin and Jadeja is the most well balanced of any in the world.
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I read it and agree more with a lot of what you said.
Your last point about the BBL is the main reason that Australia now finds our stocks of players in such a precarious position.
The ability to graft an innings has been lost on our batsmen totally.
Test cricket is an art that is rapidly losing hold in this country unfortunately.
Golflink
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Golflink
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They mentioned that one of the Indian new caps, I think Washington Sundar, hadn’t played a first class game in 2 years. He seemed to go ok.
It’s multi factorial. Devaluing first class cricket, pay rates vs AFL etc for gun young players, even drop in pitches maybe, but fundamentally there’s a lack of depth and talent. We’re a small country with many competing sports. We were spoilt by the team of the 2000s having many generational talents at once. Until that happens again we need to make the best of the mediocrity we have.
Cinderella story, out of nowhere, former greenskeeper, now about to become a Masters champion..... It looks like a mirac.. It's in the hole! It's in the hole!
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Stuart, thanks for your "diatribe". I agree with everything you said & appreciate you taking the time for helping me get my head around how this season evolve as it did. The 1 person who largely escaped your microscope was Paine. I have been such a huge fan the past 2 years but he was off tactically, technically with the gloves & by failing to "LEAD" this series. Its never going to be a good time to punt him but it actually sounds like he is not going to walk.
I also totally agree with multiple posters who highlight that we are only an opener or 2 away from being a bloody good tea. I would also happily lose the GOAT but he clearly has photos of JL that are protecting him.
In a previous life I wrote articles for Cricinfo. If you are really bored, I will link to a massive dummy spit that I wrote almost exactly a decade ago about what is wrong with Australian cricket. I don't think it is on Cricinfo anymore, but some of my other stuff still is. Sadly though, some of this rant is still fairly relevant today ...
http://historyofcricket.blogspot.com...n-cricket.html
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