***Official*** Commonwealth Bank Tri-Series

[_TiGeR-ToWn_]

Oram was fantastic, and deserved MoM

Hayden might of scored a century but he still batted terrible IMO. Dropped 3 times, playing very scratchy and streaky. Played some stupid shots but got away with it.

Ponting was his usual brilliant self.

McCullum was a great supporter to Oram. Didn't realise that he was only 25.

 

[meatspx]

I think its quite clear that Oram batting at 6 is based on his potential rather than what he scored previously.

Considering our lack of depth in the batting department this is understandable.

Perhaps with Styris coming into the side with some bowling overs under his belt Oram can drop to 7, but I doubt he will (taking into consideration Astle no longer plays).

We need an all-rounder at 6 (just like Australia wants, and England have). Oram is the man for the job.

Also if you have McCullum/Vettori & Franklin coming in behind him then its OK when you don't loose early wickets. Coming in at 4/60; that's a problem for Oram who will be required to play like M. Hussey. Personally I would bat Oram at either 7 behind McCullum if the spinners are operating.....the NZ lower batting order needs to develop flexibility.

 

[pup11]

I think ponting's behaviour today was very immature, openly criticising his bowlers is the last thing he should have done. And what does he mean when he said that we dropped a lot of chances of oram, barring glen's dropped chance i really don't any other chance was catchable.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

i want a sandwich

ive alredy had 1 2day but i want anotha 1 im rly hungy nd fell lik 1 1 wit lettus nd mayo nd chees nd ham nd tomato nd qcumba

 

[Johnners]

Oram was fantastic, and deserved MoM

Hayden might of scored a century but he still batted terrible IMO. Dropped 3 times, playing very scratchy and streaky. Played some stupid shots but got away with it.

Ponting was his usual brilliant self.

McCullum was a great supporter to Oram. Didn't realise that he was only 25.

pretty much my thoughts in a bottle...

@ smith

 

[Slow Love™]

name me one world cup winning team that didn't had a good spinner in the team.

Define "good".

Australia in 1987?

 

[mikeW]

mikeW mate i know hogg might not be the most talked about name in world cricket, but he does his job. There is lot of talk about a balanced australian team but name me one world cup winning team that didn't had a good spinner in the team. And if hogg is not good enough for our best team may i know who is?

ATM our best XI is the players currently occupying it.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Looks like a typical Aus v NZ game, NZ are virtually out of it most of the time and they end up getting close without looking like winning. If the game had been a bit more meaningless NZ might have won. If it had been in a World Cup or final NZ would have lost by 100+ runs. NZ are the masters of plucky, hopeful for the future losses against Australia. Unfortunately England are too crap to beat anyone at the moment, but NZ may as well be as bad as England for what hope they have of winning anything meaningful.

 

[meatspx]

Looks like a typical Aus v NZ game, NZ are virtually out of it most of the time and they end up getting close without looking like winning. If the game had been a bit more meaningless NZ might have won. If it had been in a World Cup or final NZ would have lost by 100+ runs. NZ are the masters of plucky, hopeful for the future losses against Australia. Unfortunately England are too crap to beat anyone at the moment, but NZ may as well be as bad as England for what hope they have of winning anything meaningful.

Nothing meaningless about chasing down 60 off 30 with McGrath bowling 6 brilliant yorkers in a row. Not sure why you have such a negative attitude about such a great game, and a team which is on the improve (perhaps a little too late though).

 

[Laurrz]

lol i thought the discussions by the players were interesting...

see when Symo was throwing the ball bak at Vincent's stumps... then Vincent doing a wanker signal... then Symo coming right up to him and talking lol.. woulda liked to of heard what he said

and then Johnson and McCullum...very nice

 

[meatspx]

Yeah, that was the classic "****ing wanker sign", good stuff.
Probably should turn off the stump mike next time!

 

[Jono]

Well... that was an amazing match.

 

[Laurrz]

Yeah, that was the classic "****ing wanker sign", good stuff.
Probably should turn off the stump mike next time!

haha yea Vincent looks like a charactar... will be interesting to watch him bat in the future definately... hope Binger can get some in the rib cage

 

[Scaly piscine]

Nothing meaningless about chasing down 60 off 30 with McGrath bowling 6 brilliant yorkers in a row. Not sure why you have such a negative attitude about such a great game, and a team which is on the improve (perhaps a little too late though).

NZ are always on the improve... yet they still manage to lose virtually every meaningful contest against Australia. It has been happening for years. What NZ do during a defeat is irrelevant because they've been doing this for years, if they do anything in this tournament final then it'll really be worth something.

Here are some examples, Aus have won 19 of the last 21 ODIs against NZ - here are some of the margins:

2 wickets with 3 balls left
2 wickets with 1 ball left
17 runs
10 runs
2 runs
2 wickets with 8 balls left
8 runs (today)

NZ have won two close matches in that time, one was a dead rubber and the other against a significantly weakened side. The 3 Champions Trophy matches there NZ got thrashed by 164 runs, 7 wickets with 76 balls left and by 34 runs. In the World Cup NZ lost by 96 runs. When it's a bit less important Australia just lose a bit of intensity, when it's important Australia throttle NZ til the end.

 

[pup11]

Australia's failure to defend totals is turning out to be a big concern now. Ok we won today but there should have been no way in this world that new zealand should come this close to the target.
Its not a new problem since the 2nd match of chappell-hadlee series last year we have been having this problem. Since than we have not been able to stop two world record chases, and have faltered other times also defending targets.

 

[Laurrz]

Australia's failure to defend totals is turning out to be a big concern now. Ok we won today but there should have been no way in this world that new zealand should come this close to the target.
Its not a new problem since the 2nd match of chappell-hadlee series last year we have been having this problem. Since than we have not been able to stop two world record chases, and have faltered other times also defending targets.

yea its getting a bit worrying for me as well

 

[pup11]

I think we are really ruining white's career by just using him as a slogger. The man plays as an all-rounder for victoria bats no.4 and bowls decent amount of overs in limited over games. What he is doing in australian team is coming using the long handle for few balls and thats it doesn't even get to ball. Every bloke is not hussey that you give him any role and he will come good at that. I think white deserves more exposure at this level.

 

[pup11]

Is it only me or you guys also think pup needs to add some big shots in his arsenal. At this stage i think he looks a bit out of place when it comes to tonking among his other mates. Tonking is really important to survive in modern day odi cricket so pup needs to work on that. There also needs to be more flexibility in aussie batting order specially hussey should be floating option.

 

[Prince EWS]

I think we are really ruining white's career by just using him as a slogger. The man plays as an all-rounder for victoria bats no.4 and bowls decent amount of overs in limited over games. What he is doing in australian team is coming using the long handle for few balls and thats it doesn't even get to ball. Every bloke is not hussey that you give him any role and he will come good at that. I think white deserves more exposure at this level.

White is the best man for the #7 role at this stage. Michael Clarke, Andrew Symonds and Michael Hussey were all given fairly extended runs in that position when they first came into the side.

 

[Prince EWS]

Is it only me or you guys also think pup needs to add some big shots in his arsenal. At this stage i think he looks a bit out of place when it comes to tonking among his other mates. Tonking is really important to survive in modern day odi cricket so pup needs to work on that. There also needs to be more flexibility in aussie batting order specially hussey should be floating option.

Michael Clarke's strike rate is 81.81 which is very good - even by modern ODI standards.

He bats at 4 so he doesn't need to "tonk" by any means - the days where a #4 needs to be a slog sixes out of the ground to hold his place in the ODI team is the day I stop watching ODIs. He's not a slogger - he looks awful when he does it. He's a fluent strokemaker when he's in good touch, and he's great at finding the gaps and milking singles. His record speaks for itself really.