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*Official* 2nd Test at Lord's

Hurricane

Hurricane

Hall of Fame Member
morgieb said:
I think with Watson what people are forgetting that until his injury in 2011 he was a pretty damn good Test cricketer - for the two years from winning a full-time place in the side to his injury his batting average was 44 and his bowling average was 25 - any all-rounder would be thrilled with those figures. Yes digging deeper you could argue that his innings lacked impact and he didn't bowl enough, but he was more than worth his place in the side.

Since then however he's been pretty crappy. A combination of prior performances and lack of batting depth saved him for a while, but now there's little point for him in the Australian side.
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I will play devil's advocate. I think he has never ever ever been worthy of being a top order batsman, he got away with batting at the top of the order through sheer chutzpah and not technique or merit.
I do think he is more than qualified to be an international number 6 although he will never be a world class number 6. But I do think he can be test match quality.
I actually had a terrible lbw problem that plagued me for years and was actually his game that taught me how to survive. If you watch his forward defense system very closely you will notice that when the ball is aimed at the stumps he defends the ball with the bat in front of his pad rather than in line with his pad. This is a decent enough technique and it is what I adopted. Where you will get out is if you get ambitious and try to whip the ball through midwicket unless your backlift is suitable for on side play. And his backlift and front foot position are not optimal. He definitely has a future but only if he pulls his head in and basically reverts back to patting the ball back to the bowler each time it is aimed at the stumps.

Persevere with him and good things will happen. He is an extremely mature cricketer and unlike from what little of seen of Mitchell Marsh, Watto will fight for you when the chips are down. Even if due to a poor strategy he didn't do that in the last test.

The ball is in his court to make changes. But I think he should be given more chances.
 
TheJediBrah

TheJediBrah

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Hurricane said:
I will play devil's advocate. I think he has never ever ever been worthy of being a top order batsman, he got away with batting at the top of the order through sheer chutzpah and not technique or merit.
I do think he is more than qualified to be an international number 6 although he will never be a world class number 6. But I do think he can be test match quality.
I actually had a terrible lbw problem that plagued me for years and was actually his game that taught me how to survive. If you watch his forward defense system very closely you will notice that when the ball is aimed at the stumps he defends the ball with the bat in front of his pad rather than in line with his pad. This is a decent enough technique and it is what I adopted. Where you will get out is if you get ambitious and try to whip the ball through midwicket unless your backlift is suitable for on side play. And his backlift and front foot position are not optimal. He definitely has a future but only if he pulls his head in and basically reverts back to patting the ball back to the bowler each time it is aimed at the stumps.

Persevere with him and good things will happen. He is an extremely mature cricketer and unlike from what little of seen of Mitchell Marsh, Watto will fight for you when the chips are down. Even if due to a poor strategy he didn't do that in the last test.

The ball is in his court to make changes. But I think he should be given more chances.
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Stopped reading here. In 2009-2011 he was one of the best opening batsmen in the world, even in Test cricket. It was just a relatively short peak that he had.
 
Hurricane

Hurricane

Hall of Fame Member
TheJediBrah said:
Stopped reading here. In 2009-2011 he was one of the best opening batsmen in the world, even in Test cricket. It was just a relatively short peak that he had.
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Based on the fact you didn't read the rest of my post you won't be interested in my reply and ordinarily I wouldn't make one to your post for a number of reasons but I will in this case primarily so that the other viewers of this thread can have something to read.

If you promote any number 6 batsman up to the open the batting they won't be terrible as they are still a batsman. It's not like promoting a tail ender. Watson can hold a cricket bat. But even if you promoted Brad Haddin to open the batting in countries not called England then he also would do a credible job for a while until he got a nose bleed from being so high up the order and his stats came crashing down.

Any proper batsman can have temporary success opening the batting but not enduring success. You will get found out especially when your "confidence" begins to wane after a few failures.

Confidence and mind set are incredibly important in cricket. Shane Watson believed he could be a opening batsman so he succeeded and he did very well. Gravity caught up to him because he is simply not a top order player and the natural state of the universe kicked in - his confidence probably took a bit of a knock and he didn't do as well.

When I feel suitably motivated and articulate enough I am going to start a thread to summarise my thoughts on mindset, confidence, and form. And when Watson started opening he had all three of those commodities in his favour and those things are equally as important as talent or aptitude. However those three commodities are also ephemeral.
 
OverratedSanity

OverratedSanity

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Hurricane said:
I will play devil's advocate. I think he has never ever ever been worthy of being a top order batsman, he got away with batting at the top of the order through sheer chutzpah and not technique or merit.
I do think he is more than qualified to be an international number 6 although he will never be a world class number 6. But I do think he can be test match quality.
I actually had a terrible lbw problem that plagued me for years and was actually his game that taught me how to survive. If you watch his forward defense system very closely you will notice that when the ball is aimed at the stumps he defends the ball with the bat in front of his pad rather than in line with his pad. This is a decent enough technique and it is what I adopted. Where you will get out is if you get ambitious and try to whip the ball through midwicket unless your backlift is suitable for on side play. And his backlift and front foot position are not optimal. He definitely has a future but only if he pulls his head in and basically reverts back to patting the ball back to the bowler each time it is aimed at the stumps.

Persevere with him and good things will happen. He is an extremely mature cricketer and unlike from what little of seen of Mitchell Marsh, Watto will fight for you when the chips are down. Even if due to a poor strategy he didn't do that in the last test.

The ball is in his court to make changes. But I think he should be given more chances.
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You've got to be joking there Hurricane.
 
Spark

Spark

Global Moderator
Haha, "Watson will fight for you when the chips are down" reminds me of that amazing piece of commentary at Sydney 2012 where Hussey scored a hundred having come in at 4/300 or something, 150 runs ahead in the first innings, and was praised for scoring a ton "when the chips were down"
 
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social

social

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Hurricane said:
a) I did say I was playing devil's advocate
b) He will fight and not throw in his hand just because the going is tough IMHO.
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Watto has had 50 odd tests and his returns are average at best

MMarsh is an incredibly gifted cricketer, in form and his fc stats look rubbish because he was picked at a very young age and has only just started showing maturity e.g. averages 50+ with the bat in the last 18 months or so

Time for young blood as you know what you are going to get with Watto and it aint great
 
TheJediBrah

TheJediBrah

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Hurricane said:
Crap poster - making a point to ignore from now on. Please ignore my posts and don't respond to them either.
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Can't take a joke - noted

Your post wasn't bad, but in all seriousness, what you said was wrong, "devil's advocate" notwithstanding. Watson was well and truly good enough for over 24 months, it wasn't a coincidental period of success as you were suggesting.

Spark said:
https://twitter.com/CricketAus/status/620883831898415104/video/1

With anyone else you'd call that "bowling off a few steps" but given Starc's run up he could easily bowling at close to full pace there.
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That's pretty much exactly how he always bowls in warm ups/light training
 
Hurricane

Hurricane

Hall of Fame Member
TheJediBrah said:
Can't take a joke - noted

Your post wasn't bad, but in all seriousness, what you said was wrong, "devil's advocate" notwithstanding. Watson was well and truly good enough for over 24 months, it wasn't a coincidental period of success as you were suggesting.



That's pretty much exactly how he always bowls in warm ups/light training
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My apologies you are a new poster to me - so I didn't give you the benefit of the doubt. Will do so next time :) Thanks for clarifying.
 
Son Of Coco

Son Of Coco

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
***** said:
With regards to batsmen adapting vs bowlers - it's a lot hard for a batsman. Batting is a lot more instinctual than bowling. It relies heavily on your reflexes. You literally have no time to think.

Bowlers have it easy in comparison. Stand at the top of your mark, aim where you want it to go, and bowl. It can be hard to maintain an unnatural line or length when you aren't in rhythm, or are tired, but by and large it's easier to adapt the areas you bowl in as a bowler. You can adapt over the course of a match.

You can't as a batsman. Batsmen need to bat and bat and bat and drill the new technical adjustments into their brain before it shows. A test match or even a test series isn't the place to do that. All they can do then is just back their natural game and hope for the best. And it looks like it just didn't come off for Australia.

I agree with Top_Cat that it really depends what sort of game a batsman has. Few batsmen have the game to fit every wicket and every bowler. Every technique will have holes. It's easy to spot a flaw but pretty ****ing hard to fix it.
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I think there's a difference between a flaw and deciding a handful of balls into your innings you're going to have a lash. Personally I think it's more the mental approach some batsmen are taking, rather than technical deficiencies. There were a couple of brain farts on show. Clarke in the second innings wasn't one of them however, the ball prior to him getting out did for him.
 
Spark

Spark

Global Moderator
Wasn't the ball prior just a legside pie which was easily clipped for four?

Certainly Clarke's footwork on that shot was all messed up, though, as has often been the case for Clarke against Broad since 2013.
 
vic_orthdox

vic_orthdox

Global Moderator
Spark said:
Wasn't the ball prior just a legside pie which was easily clipped for four?

Certainly Clarke's footwork on that shot was all messed up, though, as has often been the case for Clarke against Broad since 2013.
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He just looked like a stiff man, rather than any Broad related. Everything was set up in the right place, and he just couldn't get his weight forward.
 
TheJediBrah

TheJediBrah

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Son Of Coco said:
I think there's a difference between a flaw and deciding a handful of balls into your innings you're going to have a lash. Personally I think it's more the mental approach some batsmen are taking, rather than technical deficiencies. There were a couple of brain farts on show. Clarke in the second innings wasn't one of them however, the ball prior to him getting out did for him.
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I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Haddin's second innings dismissal was one of the unluckiest (after Smith). He had to have a go, it's the way he plays, and he happened to get one that spun viciously from the rough. So instead of the ball going over long-on for a one-bounce four it was taken at short midwicket.

On that note, anyone else notice how the whole "two left-arm pace bowlers gives Lyon rough to bowl in" spiel is complete bull****. England have an off-spinner too . . . and he's just as likely if not more likely to benefit from the rough created by Mitchells than Lyon. Especially if England bat first, Moeen will benefit a whole lot more than Lyon from any footmarks.
 
flibbertyjibber

flibbertyjibber

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vic_orthdox said:
It's sounded like the journalists have been a lot more pessimistic than anything coming out of the Australian camp, the whole time.
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Lets face it he is going to have a fitness test either tomorrow afternoon or on Thursday morning. It was a difficult one to work out from the outside as he looked ok in the field and batting and also running in to bowl but the problem seemed to happen when he was stopping himself in his follow through. Might be fine with a few days rest and extra strapping. Doubt if he was unfit though he'd be training yet so looks like he will play.
 
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