*Official* West Indies In Australia

[Josh]

Value your wicket? Gayle to hit the fastest Test century tomorrow.

He values his wicket. He knows he can hit any bowler out of any park

 

[Josh]

Not when you factor in what the opposition bowlers will be doing.

Bollinger just ain't that good. Your boys made him look good. Tear him to pieces tomorrow. Hauritz is the worry for mine; possibly Johnson if he gets the ball jumping off the pitch.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Bollinger just ain't that good. Your boys made him look good. Tear him to pieces tomorrow. Hauritz is the worry for mine; possibly Johnson if he gets the ball jumping off the pitch.

Australia has the best bowling attack in this match. On the whole it'll be tough for West Indies to win this match from here. The encouraging thing is that they've come into a position where they have a chance to win it.

 

[Athlai]

Australia has the best bowling attack in this match. On the whole it'll be tough for West Indies to win this match from here. The encouraging thing is that they've come into a position where they have a chance to win it.

Agree with all of this, great effort by WI to put themselves in a situation where they can win, but it is still rather unlikely.

 

[pasag]

Bollinger just ain't that good. Your boys made him look good. Tear him to pieces tomorrow. Hauritz is the worry for mine; possibly Johnson if he gets the ball jumping off the pitch.

Spot the Vic.

 

[Prince EWS]

Spot the Vic.

Spot the Vic.

 

[GotSpin]

Holy ****!

Saw WI fall over in the batting then see Australia cruising to 1/60 odd before I had to go to a wedding. Presuming Australia will be 2/180 then **** me dead, see us 137-8. Well done Windies.

 

[Redbacks]

Australia still strong favourites. But I'd so love it if West Indies won. So sick of Australia's arrogant declarations and so far they've escaped it coming back to bite them, but it will happen sooner or later. Australia aren't good enough to be treating teams with such utter disdain.

I sense the wrong cause is being linked to the effect

 

[Son Of Coco]

There was absolutely nothing to lose by batting on as the only way West Indies were going to score less than 520 in the match was if there was going to be plenty of time left, in which case batting on wouldn't have mattered at all. While the only advantage of batting on was insurance, insurance is more of an advantage than the advantage of declaring when they did - ie. nothing.

Australia declared because they thought they could; not because it was actually a good idea. It was a typical example fo the "we have enough runs" atttitude, but again that's not the point at all if you have a look at how many overs are left are what is actually to be gained by declaring. It's easy to say that the only way you'll lose after posting 520 is by playing poorly, but playing poorly actually does happen sometimes and there's nothing wrong with taking insurance against that, particularly when it costs your chances of winning absolutely nothing anyway.

There were a few ways the WI were going to score less than 520 in the match, but looking back now of course we can say there wasn't.

I think this is the inherent difference in English and Australian attitudes to the game though. Personally I don't think you ever take insurance out against playing badly when you've made 500+ first innings. If that's what you're worried about how much is enough? You have to back your players to perform. If they don't, and somehow you manage to lose after posting 500+ first innings then the problem lies in other areas. There's absolutely no point in saying "Well bat on to 700 I think chaps, just in case we collapse in a heap in the second innings."

Australia will still have to bowl poorly to lose this match. Not sure what the fuss about the declaration is about to be honest.

 

[pasag]

If anything though, a lot of these recent early declarations are coming because Ponting feels we may need a lot of time to bowl a side out which is in itself conservative and "English". It's not arrogance, it's a lack of confidence in the side.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Go on, carry on then. Or are you up to **** all as I expected?

Just think it's funny that you're the first one to get narky when there's even a slightly off-handed comment coming NZ's way. A bit of a joke can send the toys, blanket and wheels flying in all directions.

But yes, you're probably right. It's time to add a few stars and talk it up.

 

[Prince EWS]

There were a few ways the WI were going to score less than 520 in the match, but looking back now of course we can say there wasn't.

Yeah, but if they did there'd be plenty of time left in the game anyway, so it wouldn't matter if Australia had batted on. That was my point.

I think this is the inherent difference in English and Australian attitudes to the game though.

Hmm. Not really sure how this applies to me TBH. It's not like I've been brought up in England or been taught the fundamentals of cricket by an Englishman.

Personally I don't think you ever take insurance out against playing badly when you've made 500+ first innings.

Well personally I think that's an absolutely ridiculous position to take when there's nothing to lose by taking such insurance. There was no risk of batting on producing a draw that declaring when they did would have avoided.

There's absolutely no point in saying "Well bat on to 700 I think chaps, just in case we collapse in a heap in the second innings."

I don't agree at all. What there is absolutely no point in saying is "Well even though batting on wouldn't diminish the chances of winning in any way, we're not going to do it because we think we have enough."

It's all about the potential gain and the potential loss of a decision - there was no potential loss in batting on at all, as the only situation in which a draw was going to occur was if Australia batted again anyway. If the West Indies scored less than 520 - or even less than 650 for that matter - it wasn't going to be draw, so declaring was pointless.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Value your wicket? Gayle to hit the fastest Test century tomorrow.

Was just thinking the same thing. WI to chase it down by mid-afternoon.

 

[GotSpin]

I don't understand. No one would be complaining about Ponting's declaration if Australia hadn't suddenly collapsed in the 2nd innings. Too many people are being way too results orientated.

 

[Prince EWS]

If anything though, a lot of these recent early declarations are coming because Ponting feels we may need a lot of time to bowl a side out which is in itself conservative and "English". It's not arrogance, it's a lack of confidence in the side.

This again is pretty pointless though because if you're going to take three and half days to bowl someone out, they're going to score more than 520.

 

[Uppercut]

Yeah, but if they did there'd be plenty of time left in the game anyway, so it wouldn't matter if Australia had batted on. That was my point.

Hmm. Not really sure how this applies to me TBH. It's not like I've been brought up in England or been taught the fundamentals of cricket by an Englishman.

Well personally I think that's an absolutely ridiculous position to take when there's nothing to lose by taking such insurance. There was no risk of batting on producing a draw that declaring when they did would have avoided.

Personally I think it's a very un-Australian thing to do. It's so lacking in ruthlessness to declare because you think you've got enough runs when getting more runs would do no harm to your team's prospects at all. And it's let the West Indies back into the game.

Put it this way, Allan Border would never have done it.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Yeah, but if they did there'd be plenty of time left in the game anyway, so it wouldn't matter if Australia had batted on. That was my point.

Hmm. Not really sure how this applies to me TBH. It's not like I've been brought up in England or been taught the fundamentals of cricket by an Englishman.

Well personally I think that's an absolutely ridiculous position to take when there's nothing to lose by taking such insurance. There was no risk of batting on producing a draw that declaring when they did would have avoided.

I don't agree at all. What there is absolutely no point in saying is "Well even though batting on wouldn't diminish the chances of winning in any way, we're not going to do it because we think we have enough."

It's all about the potential gain and the potential loss of a decision - there was no potential loss in batting on at all, as the only situation in which a draw was going to occur was if Australia batted again anyway. If the West Indies scored less than 520 - or even less than 650 for that matter - it wasn't going to be draw, so declaring was pointless.

I wasn't referring to you personally when I commented on the differences between the English and Australian mindset.

Looking at the situation now as it stands, no it wasn't going to be a draw if they batted on on the second day. As I said, in hindsight this is an easy comment to make. Whether the situation remains the same when you're 520/6 on day 2 and deciding whether to have a crack at the opposition for a few overs before tea or not is another thing. With 520 on the board you're probably not thinking about losing (so why need insurance?), the two scenarios would be the WI either get a similar score in their first innings (within 100 or so) in which case you're headed for a draw, or they don't and you win. This is not factoring in Gayle possibly scoring 200 of 15 balls of course

Ultimately, avoiding a draw wasn't an issue for Australia as then they win the series anyway if that happpens, so you're right...it didn't matter. But I guess Ponting will take some prying away from the old style of play. Personally, I think if they lose after making 520 in the first innings then they deserve to. If the WI make 360/2 though I guess we can then speculate that the extra runs wouldn't have made a difference (even though there's no real way of knowing).

 

[Son Of Coco]

I don't understand. No one would be complaining about Ponting's declaration if Australia hadn't suddenly collapsed in the 2nd innings. Too many people are being way too results orientated.

Yeah, exactly.

 

[social]

I don't understand. No one would be complaining about Ponting's declaration if Australia hadn't suddenly collapsed in the 2nd innings. Too many people are being way too results orientated.

Exactly

Oz should be 350-400 runs ahead with say 5 wickets in hand

If that was the case, this would not even be an issue

Problem is that Oz bats have collapsed AGAIN

 

[Prince EWS]

Looking at the situation now as it stands, no it wasn't going to be a draw if they batted on on the second day.

I wasn't talking in hindsight though; I was talking in general. No matter what happened after that point, the decision to bat on (had it actually been made) would not have resulted in a draw that could have been avoided by declaring unless it rained heaps. There was no potential loss by making that decision at the time regardless of what happened after it. I'm not just saying that in the context of what actually did happen after that point - I'm saying it in general because if the West Indies actually did manage to bat out the rest of the game, they'd pass the score anyway so Australia would have to bat again.

Essentially my point is that you should never, ever declare your first innings until you get to a point where you believe the opposition could bat out the remainder of the game without actually reaching your score. If you think the opposition would reach your score by batting out the rest of the game, you might as well keep batting as you'll be batting again anyway unless you bowl them out twice quickly, in which case batting on wouldn't have mattered anyway. Winning the game doesn't become any less likely at all by batting on until you reach the point of your innings where your opposition would not pass your score if they batted for the remainder of the game. 520 is not that point.

You seem to think I'm saying that this is only applicable now because what has happened. Batting on wouldn't have even diminished the chances of winning in another theoretical situation where a completely different set of any events (except rain or the players getting gobbled up by aliens) followed because of what the score was.