Nathan Lyon deserves more respect

[uvelocity]

hasnt been the same without the blonde bits

 

[Spikey]

in hindsight it was silly to expect anything good outta a guy who was born in Young, moved to Canberra in his teens and then moved to Adelaide

 

[uvelocity]

good point

 

[Johnners]

Anyone else get the impression Scaly has never seen Lyon bowl?

 

[Howe_zat]

Anyone else get the impression Scaly has never seen Lyon bowl?

Scaly hates cricket

 

[hendrix]

Yep he had the Indians thinking about the sweepstake on when they'd bring up his double century.

It is a stretch to shoehorn positives out of 3-215, going at more than 4 and a half an over when the Indian spinners have 17 out of 17 Aussie wickets to fall. He won't be the first or last bowler to do that in India, true.

A spinner should be in the side to provide variety, take wickets when not much happens and when things are in their favour to win Test matches. Lyon hasn't really done a great deal besides clean up some tailenders and I really cannot fathom what the fuss is about. What exactly is his role in the Australian team?

cleaning up tailenders is a pretty useful role in combination with Australia's pace attack, IMO.

Also, meh. He got smashed by Dhoni. No shame in it. Wasn't looking bad until after he got Tendulkar.

 

[Flem274*]

Decent spinner in getting smashed by India shocker.

Some people seem to be forgetting Swann/Panesar were the exception, and that is why their performance is so lauded. Most of the time it's one way traffic when you put a spinner in front of India.

 

[Scaly piscine]

If ever a team could pick a time to tour India, this would be it. Their batting is still good but it's not really intimidating.

 

[Jono]

Scaly you are right about that. India are probably most vulnerable since 1999/2000.

But that doesn't mean Australia should drop Lyon or his place should be at risk, even if he couldn't make significant inroads against a vulnerable Indian batting lineup. Why? Because he out bowled Siddle and Starc. It doesn't matter that the pitches didn't suit them, they aren't for the next 3 tests either.

Lyon bowling reasonably poorly still looked more threatening than Starc and Siddle. Hence if a bowler i to be dropped for the next test, whether it be for a spinner or pace bowler, it should be Starc or Siddle.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Jono is bang on with what he says there. The Aussies have to drop a paceman (probably be Starc) and play an extra spinner (Smith) if only to strengthen the batting a bit and give Lyon a hand with the spin department.

India are vulnerable, they showed that against England as Sehwag and Tendulkar are clearly in decline and even without Gambhir the openers look suspect so early wickets are always likely in an innings to keep the Aussies in a game. It just happens that when the game looked fairly level Dhoni played his greatest ever knock and virtually won the game in a few hours.

Kneejerk wholesale changes are the last thing Australia need at present, just one less paceman and an extra spinner and maybe carry one less passenger bat who is clueless against spin (if Watson can't bowl he brings nothing to the team on a tour like this) as surely Usman can play it a bit better than Watto?

 

[Prince EWS]

Smith is about as much a bowler as Warner at the moment. He gave up bowling altogether for basically the whole season. He's on tour as a spare bat.

 

[Daemon]

Jono is bang on with what he says there. The Aussies have to drop a paceman (probably be Starc) and play an extra spinner (Smith) if only to strengthen the batting a bit and give Lyon a hand with the spin department.

India are vulnerable, they showed that against England as Sehwag and Tendulkar are clearly in decline and even without Gambhir the openers look suspect so early wickets are always likely in an innings to keep the Aussies in a game. It just happens that when the game looked fairly level Dhoni played his greatest ever knock and virtually won the game in a few hours.

Kneejerk wholesale changes are the last thing Australia need at present, just one less paceman and an extra spinner and maybe carry one less passenger bat who is clueless against spin (if Watson can't bowl he brings nothing to the team on a tour like this) as surely Usman can play it a bit better than Watto?

Smith can't bowl and as much as I love Usman, he's not a better batsmen than Watson.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Smith is about as much a bowler as Warner at the moment. He gave up bowling altogether for basically the whole season. He's on tour as a spare bat.

Be more use on those pitches than a paceman though presuming that they don't play on one like Kolkata a few months ago.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Smith can't bowl and as much as I love Usman, he's not a better batsmen than Watson.

Doherty it is then.

Though he'd have more chance of wickets on these pitches than Siddle and Starc would.

 

[Prince EWS]

Be more use on those pitches than a paceman though presuming that they don't play on one like Kolkata a few months ago.

As much as I don't think they're within six or seven levels of being Test standard bowlers, both Doherty and Maxwell are better bwleors than Smith at the moment.

 

[Daemon]

Any clips of O'Keefe bowling? Is he really that bad that his stats can completely be disregarded?

 

[Spikey]

he's not bad. he's just so meh. he doesn't catch the eyes. doesn't excite. doesn't make you stand up and say "that's a test cricketer". which is btw how we pick our spinners nowadays. and then consider that SOK was horrible last season (average of 50+, SR of like 150 in 7 games). like to the extent every ****er who said "nup. this guy ain't a test cricketer" would have been laughing to the bank. he basically undid all his good work stats wise last season. he's starting from scratch. if he had the season doherty had last season (average of 25-30) he'd be there, doubts over him and all. but last season he proved those doubts.

anyway there's like two balls in here Pietersen Fails Again : Ashes - YouTube

 

[social]

he's not bad. he's just so meh. he doesn't catch the eyes. doesn't excite. doesn't make you stand up and say "that's a test cricketer". which is btw how we pick our spinners nowadays. and then consider that SOK was horrible last season (average of 50+, SR of like 150 in 7 games). like to the extent every ****er who said "nup. this guy ain't a test cricketer" would have been laughing to the bank. he basically undid all his good work stats wise last season. he's starting from scratch. if he had the season doherty had last season (average of 25-30) he'd be there, doubts over him and all. but last season he proved those doubts.

anyway there's like two balls in here Pietersen Fails Again : Ashes - YouTube

Bit rough when you consider that he has taken 17 wickets @ 26 this season whilst Doherty has taken 2 @ 80

 

[Daemon]

he's not bad. he's just so meh. he doesn't catch the eyes. doesn't excite. doesn't make you stand up and say "that's a test cricketer". which is btw how we pick our spinners nowadays. and then consider that SOK was horrible last season (average of 50+, SR of like 150 in 7 games). like to the extent every ****er who said "nup. this guy ain't a test cricketer" would have been laughing to the bank. he basically undid all his good work stats wise last season. he's starting from scratch. if he had the season doherty had last season (average of 25-30) he'd be there, doubts over him and all. but last season he proved those doubts.

anyway there's like two balls in here Pietersen Fails Again : Ashes - YouTube

thanks, didn't know he had such a poor 2011/12. He's doing well atm though isn't he?

 

[Spikey]

couple of the papers are running with stuff like

The whisper is that O'Keefe is out of favour with heavy hitters in Australian cricket. But using form as a barometer, he had to be on the plane.

today. now i find this hard to believe mainly because the dude got made NSW captain.......but i should note that i feel like the same thing got said about Copeland (perhaps be a user on here rather than in the papers.) after the new selection panel came in. it seems weird that two very similar bowlers (eg doing the goods at state level, don't scream test success) would get the hard to handle tag rather than the easy to handle at test level tag...