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***Official*** Sri Lanka in Australia

chaminda_00

Hall of Fame Member
Selectors are gay, how the **** can you drop Malinga. Jaques is class, bloody hell he should be playing for NSW not bloody Australia. Why did Rogers have to injuried and forget how to score runs in Pakistan. Mind you he should be playing for NSW as well.
 

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
Before the start of this Test Maharoof Strike rate 95 + , 24 wickets in 18 Tests ie 1.33 wickets a Test . Fernando Strike Rate 52 , 77 wickets in 27 Tests... Maharoof picked some meaningless wickets in the practice match and the Brainless bunch at the selection panel took him ahead of Malinga.
Dilhara was expected to play regardless....I agree he has been crap today ...that's the nature of the Beast... Maharoof does play the pretender role very well...but never succeeds in getting wickets as his record shows.

Dilhara's performance may have been different if Malinga was in the squad...ie - a couple of early wickets and he is very threatening....Besides Tony Hill obviously got onto him (probably briefed before hand) about his running on the pitch before he even got a chance to settle in and never gave him an opportunity to settle in...But Maharoof is use less ....he may be there and thereabouts but never much to show on the score sheet...and today proves it again...
Why do you need Malinga at the other end to be successful. It is not as if Maharoof has been particularly dire either. 20-6-42-0. Fernando bowled like a novice today and there is no excuse for it. Even if you can't take the wicket taking deliveries, as a test bowler, you must be able to not bowl crap balls constantly.

Maharoof isn't a bad option really. When you look at the test economy rates, Fernando is 3.6 while Maharoof is 3.3. It is a small difference but from what I have seen of both, Maharoof can pitch the ball at a good length and contain the batsmen while Fernando is incapable of doing it. It is a matter of when and not if, Fernando will bowl a bad ball.

There is some thing call stock and strike bowlers in cricket. When you have Vaas and Murali bowling in your attack, you need some stock bowlers to ensure that the pressure is not lost (particularly when you don't have more that threatening strike bowling options). For that, I would choose Maharoof ahead of Fernando.

About Malinga v Fernando, Malinga is easily ahead given the strike bowling of Malinga.
 
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Prince EWS

Global Moderator
Yeah I thought Maharoof was good today; second best bowler on show. Would have been perfect at first change. Malinga obviously should have been picked above both Maharoof and Fernando, but I don't Maharoof's selection in itself was so bad given Fernando got picked.
 

Laurrz

International Debutant
this is wonderful test cricket atm.. very absorbing

lol @ Malinga dropped... Lanka were on the back foot ever since that..
and the 3 dropped catches
 

Laurrz

International Debutant
taken the light
quite happy about that... i can't watch it anyway coz of ch 9 .. on radio atm

3/242 at stumps..
advantage Australia
 

Johnners

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Oh ffs, smart move umpires, offer the light when it's perfectly safe for batting whilst there are forecasts for rain up until sunday...
 

chaminda_00

Hall of Fame Member
Lacked Dilshan in the field, he should play as specialist fielder IMO. I reckon we might have finished the day on top if we took our catches. I think Maharoof did enough with the ball to justify his selection. But if we wanted to play the extra batting option, then we should have dropped Dilhara, not Malinga. But at the end of day it doesn't matter who you bowl, if you can't take catches it doesn't matter how many chances you create.
 

Perm

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
If Sri Lanka had been able to hold onto their catches, this day would have been very different. As it is, they have done reasonably well. Muralitharan carrying the bowling attack though, with Maharoof being quite economical. Looking forward to tuning into the radio tomorrow and hopefully listening to Gilchrist score a big one.
 

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Selectors are gay, how the **** can you drop Malinga. Jaques is class, bloody hell he should be playing for NSW not bloody Australia. Why did Rogers have to injuried and forget how to score runs in Pakistan. Mind you he should be playing for NSW as well.
You do realise that when you land a NSW contract they package a baggy green with it don't you?

Maybe you should have said Jaques should be playing for Tas or SA, cause barely anyone gets picked from there :laugh:
 

Craig

World Traveller
How was the day's cricket? Pretty even then? I ask because I only got to see two overs when I got home and those bogans at Channel Nien decided to go to the local news, and this was a four minutes before it even started, but they wanted their precious ads.
 

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Oh ffs, smart move umpires, offer the light when it's perfectly safe for batting whilst there are forecasts for rain up until sunday...
It's far too dark to play test match cricket in Brisbane at the moment.
 

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
How was the day's cricket? Pretty even then? I ask because I only got to see two overs when I got home and those bogans at Channel Nien decided to go to the local news, and this was a four minutes before it even started, but they wanted their precious ads.
Yeah it's even IMO. Early wickets would put SL on top whereas 100 runs wicketless would put Aus on top. That makes it even to me.
 

Laurrz

International Debutant
How was the day's cricket? Pretty even then? I ask because I only got to see two overs when I got home and those bogans at Channel Nien decided to go to the local news, and this was a four minutes before it even started, but they wanted their precious ads.
Australia in front IMO...
remember Mahela actually elected to bowl first... they should've got more wickets while the ball was swinging in tougher conditions early on..
but it could've been a lot worse.. if it weren't for Murali

Clark will tear up on this wicket i think.. perfect for him.. not moving a lot but just a bit for him to do well IMO

lots of pressure on Lanka to get a breakthrough early tomorrow.. these two classy batsmen though
 

iamdavid

International Debutant
Sri Lanka by no means out of this match.
I really dont think Lankans did alot wrong today (apart from the catches and not picking Malinga), Murali, Vaas and Maharoof all bowled very well, it was just unlucky that most of the first session (which is the only time the deck was really moving around) got rained out. Hayden and Ponting both looked in imaculate touch and both would have been kicking themselves at the nature of their dismisals, Jaques looked pretty unconvincing alot of the day to me (missed plenty of scoring oppurtunities he should've taken, was very choppy and loose around off stump at times and didnt look comfortable against Murali at all), yet to his credit he stuck in there and showed another side to his batting that many of us havent seen before.
 

pasag

RTDAS
Absolute lashing on the radio with the taking the light when it was relatively bright outside. Also is it just me or did Damien Fleming get funny recently? Had a good gag going about charity for the privileged.

Anyways, Murali is a total gun. Was similar to Flintoff (I think) at the Gabba last year when the whole team went missing in that first innings and Flintoff had to hold the forte, with the gap in class really showing.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Maharoof was fine today. He wasn't brilliant, but you really can't fault him much. Even before Fernando bowled I was wondering why people were saying he was selected ahead of Malinga.

Maharoof can bat as well, Fernando, like Malinga, are just bowers, and its damn obvious who the better one is. With Sanga out of the side, Maharoof had to play... Fernando however didn't.

Jaques earnt that ton, but SL's dropped catches will hurt them badly come lunch-time tomorrow I feel.
 

pup11

International Coach
Aaagh.. a very good day of test cricket and it was a treat to watch, i think Sri lanka bowled very well Murali was their best bowler without doubt but Australia stuck to their tasks on a day when batting wasn't too easy and 242/3 at the end of the day's play is something that the Aussies would be happy with.
Jacques did well to hit his maiden ton but it was hardly a convincing knock, it took him an eternity get off the mark and throughout his innings he looked very circumspect (i would like to believe it was due to some nerves :unsure:) but nonetheless to give him some credit he got a century so well played Phil! :clapping:
I am not too happy with the way Jacques plays balls outside off-stump he almost seems to poke at deliveries outside off-stump and he plays the balls outside off-stump far away from his body and a good fast-bowler would certainly expose that glitch in his technique so that's something Jacques needs to work on.
 

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