*Official* Match 40 - Australia v Pakistan

[Jono]

I wish Haddin pushed Kamran. He's the only player that would deserve someone kicking his ass

 

[TumTum]

Why did Lee only bowl 8 overs?!

WWWWWWTTTTTTTFFFFFFFFF

 

[Burgey]

Why did Lee only bowl 8 overs?!

WWWWWWTTTTTTTFFFFFFFFF

Yes, very odd. There was one time where he was off the field for a short while, but not enough that he was delayed in being able to be used.

 

[Top_Cat]

Haha, this.

HADDIN IS A WICKET-KEEPER AND THEREFORE WILL OPEN THE INNINGS

PONTING MUST CAPTAIN AND BAT AT THREE

MICHAEL CLARKE!

etc etc etc

For mine, Ponting and Clarke need to be separated. Having them at 3 and 4 both getting low scores and eating up balls () puts massive pressure on blokes like White to go hard early when he's more of a nick-and-nudge merchant early.

Honestly, Ponting should have gone from ODI cricket a little while back.

Guiding a ball into Akmal's gloves is a serious achievement.

Clearly in great touch.

And getting on Ponting for bowling Lee out is such a can't win it's not funny. Imagine if Lee bowled out, took maybe another wicket and then Razzaq guided the Pakistan tail to the total. Everyone would have been ragging on him for not leaving his best bowler for the end. When you're defending a low total and you only have 1 or 2 bowlers even able to do a job, you're generally not going to be on the winning side.

Ponting would have been hoping Tait and others, even if they didn't break through, would have at least tied up an end before bringing back the best bowler to finish out. That he didn't get that from them and brought Lee back too late is a more suggestive of a problem with what they sent down than Ponting's captaincy.

 

[Furball]

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...al1=span;team=2;template=results;type=batting

Criticising Clarke is so 2009.

 

[stephen]

For mine, Ponting and Clarke need to be separated. Having them at 3 and 4 both getting low scores and eating up balls () puts massive pressure on blokes like White to go hard early when he's more of a nick-and-nudge merchant early.



Clearly in great touch.

And getting on Ponting for bowling Lee out is such a can't win it's not funny. Imagine if Lee bowled out, took maybe another wicket and then Razzaq guided the Pakistan tail to the total. Everyone would have been ragging on him for not leaving his best bowler for the end. When you're defending a low total and you only have 1 bowler even able to do a job, you're generally not going to be on the winning side.

Ponting would have been hoping Tait and others, even if they didn't break through, would have at least tied up an end before bringing back the best bowler to finish out. That he didn't get that from them and brought Lee back too late is a more suggestive of a problem with what they sent down than Ponting's captaincy.

DWTA. When you have 30 runs to defend and your opposition has 6 wickets down and 14 overs to get those runs, you HAVE to bowl out your best bowler because there is no way that you're ever going to get in your full 50 overs. The match situation called for Lee to be bowled out.

The other thing is that Lee was put on for his 8th over from the opposite end that he'd been bowling from before, which was stupid. With 30 runs and 4 wickets to go, Tait and Lee should have been simply bowled out. They were our two main attacking options at the time and if the game got anywhere near the 44th over we had lost anyway.

 

[Athlai]

Ponting should be seperated from the team tbh.

 

[Furball]

I wonder what Ponting needs to do to regain form.. I think he needs a true, bouncy track like Perth or Brisbane rather than these slow subcontinent wickets.

Get hold of one of these:

Get his 2005/06 self to travel forward in time.

 

[Burgey]

Clarke's been our best batsman of the WC by a mile.

 

[Furball]

Clarke's been our best batsman of the WC by a mile.

He's averaging over 66 in the last calendar year. And striking at 84.

Clarke's not the problem.

 

[Spark]

Haha indeed. His Test form has gone as far south as his ODI form has gone north.

Ponting is a huge worry. His captaincy, whilst not match-losing, was poor. His temperament is increasingly questionable. And he sure as hell doesn't look like scoring many runs the way he's plonking himself on the front foot outside off stump and squaring himself up so much. He's barely scoring off his hips and that used to be a bread and butter shot for him.

White was unlucky today, got sold a dummy when he was looking reasonably promising, although he has done that before this summer to no avail.

 

[Burgey]

Yeah, even last night he scored comparatively freely. The run out of White cost us terribly though.

/thingsyouneverthoughtyoudsay

 

[Spark]

Yeah. I still have no idea why he tried to play that shot, was a complete brainfade and utterly uncharacteristic of him.

I can only think he felt he desperately needed to up the scoring rate.

 

[GotSpin]

Well this didn't reflect well on Haddin, but I don't think it's quite that bad. It was a heat of the moment thing. Younis, being the nice guy that he is, tried to calm him down and paced his hands on him to get him away from the crowd. Haddin, being the hot-head that he is and already in a bad mood, just reacted angrily and gave him a push. Like I said, not the best of moment for Haddin, but it's not that big a deal IMHO.

The reaction to Younis basically stemmed from the fact that a whole group of Pakistani players were right in Haddin's face. Of course you're going to react badly

 

[social]

I was gutted at the time we lost the game but now I'm just glad that we got this out of the way right now rather than coming up with a performance like this in a knock-out game.

Forget about the pitch and the bowling because the fact of the matter is we had this coming, we have so far played in this tournament with just 4 batsmen because given Ponting, White and Smith's output with the bat in recent times it would be pretty ambitious to expect much from them.

So its imperative that going into the knock-out phase we strengthen our batting as much as possible.

Also unlike what many are saying I don't think much is wrong with Ponting's form with the bat, most of his problems are mental and AFAIC he just needs to go out there and be positive and play his shots. Atm he is just trying to graft his way back into form and that's a ploy that's just not going to work for his style of play.

Anyways.. bringing in David Hussey for Smith seems to be the most obvious thing to do now, becuase its become more and more clear that the Aussie think-tank just see Smith as an occasional part-timer and Smith's batting alone is hardly good enough for him to retain his place.

Its also a tempting thought to swap White with Ferguson but I doubt they would make too many changes but bringing in Ferguson too would help strengthening the batting to a large extent.

In the context of our title aspirations this loss is pretty bad one, not only does it dent confidence of the group it also makes our road to the final that much tougher.

If India win against West Indies, then it would mean an India v Australia QF and its definitely not an ideal scenario to face such a strong side early in the knock-out phase, what's worse is that even if we win against India then we again have to come back to Colombo for the semi-final and Pakistan again is most likely to be our opponent.

So we would have to bat with a lot more positive intent against spin if we are to stand any chance from here, becuase one can be rest assured that most teams would look to choke us with spin now.

Ponting wont be dropped despite being obviously unfit and horribly out of form

Smith hasnt been too bad and wont be dropped anyway

So the fall guy should be White

I'd like to see Clarke at 3 (our most in form middle order bat by a mile), Ferguson come in at 4 (he'll knock the ball around and add a bit of urgency to the top order), Hussey at 5 and Ponting moved to 6 so he has to play shots from the start

Unfortunately, we know that nothing will change with the batting order as Ponting is too stubborn and would prefer to steer the ship onto the rocks rather than admit he's wrong

 

[Sanz]

And why is Akmal trying to grab Haddin's ass?

He was aiming for his balls..Poor catching again....

 

[Prad100w]

He was aiming for his balls..Poor catching again....

 

[pup11]

For mine, Ponting and Clarke need to be separated. Having them at 3 and 4 both getting low scores and eating up balls () puts massive pressure on blokes like White to go hard early when he's more of a nick-and-nudge merchant early.

Its an obvious tactic from the Australian side during this worldcup to preserve their wickets at the start and then go hammer and tonks at the end.

This is one tactic that's never gonna work in the sub-continent against decent teams because when playing in the sub-continent its common knowledge that once the ball gets soft and old its very hard to score quickly.

Therefore rather then expecting middle order guys to boast strike-rates of 100's its more realistic to expect likes of Haddin and Watson to go hard at the new ball and provide the side with a brisk start.

Our performance in the mandatory powerplay's right through the tournament has been pretty poor and for me its one of the major reason why the middle order is struggling.

Also don't know about this whole White ''going hard early and perishing.'' From what I have seen through the Australian summer and now here in worldcup is that he comes in takes his own dear time (regardless of the situation) and usually gets owned by the spinners, in fact it won't be bad thing if likes of White and Ponting come out and play their shots rather than trying bleed out some tough runs that eventually do the team no real good.

 

[Spark]

White always takes time to get settled even when in form - he's not a ball-one hitter (few players are, and they tend to be your more orthodox players anyway). #4 is a good position for him as he has time to get settled and can cash in at the end (cf the number of not outs Clarke has at #4) him but I'm loath to fiddle with Clarke's position (unless he moves to 3, where he has done OK) as it's one of two or three cogs in our batting lineup which is actually working properly.

I seriously am wondering what Ponting's future in the side is. He's not working the ones, so he can't slot into Clarke or Hussey's role. He's not hitting out and scoring runs quickly at the end, so he can't fit into White's role. He certainly isn't doing the specialist captain role too well either.

The cricinfo article today is onto a wise thing, tbh.

If he can guide the Australians to a fourth consecutive title, it would be his greatest captaincy achievement. It would also be the perfect time to fold away the coloured clothing for good. If not - and they have much work to do after their 34-match streak without a World Cup loss ended against Pakistan in Colombo - it would still be the right time to start thinking about the next era of Australia's one-day team.
Michael Clarke has proven himself a thoughtful and adventurous captain, and handing him control of the one-day team would be a positive move. It would also create space to give more exposure to young batsmen like Callum Ferguson and Aaron Finch, who could be important parts of Australia's one-day future. And what else can Ponting, a potentially four-time World Cup winner, hope to achieve in one-day cricket?

 

[pup11]

White always takes time to get settled even when in form - he's not a ball-one hitter (few players are, and they tend to be your more orthodox players anyway). #4 is a good position for him as he has time to get settled and can cash in at the end (cf the number of not outs Clarke has at #4) him but I'm loath to fiddle with Clarke's position (unless he moves to 3, where he has done OK) as it's one of two or three cogs in our batting lineup which is actually working properly.

I seriously am wondering what Ponting's future in the side is. He's not working the ones, so he can't slot into Clarke or Hussey's role. He's not hitting out and scoring runs quickly at the end, so he can't fit into White's role. He certainly isn't doing the specialist captain role too well either.

The cricinfo article today is onto a wise thing, tbh.

This reminds me of those 'Endulkar' sort of articles that were around everywhere a few years ago and from there SRT certainly went onto make all his doubters eat their words, stuff like this has been written about many great players and usually they have gone onto prove them wrong.

Ponting is hitting the ball well enough but like I said during the Ashes he just seems to be trying too hard, he needs to calm down a bit and just look to back his skills. I mean just a month ago someone like Clarke couldn't buy a run and similar things were being said about him but he has turned that around to a large extent by backing his skills, so there ain't no reason why Ponting can't do the same.