That's his usual pace at full fitness, but in his comeback from injury he's been bowling well within himself. It's wonderful to see, because when he's bowling with that pace he's a genuine allrounder in ODI cricket, and it means we can afford to carry his batting a bit more when he's underperforming as he has in this series.
I think the problem which needs to be addressed is the showing of the replay on the big screen. Nothing wrong with the appeal as such, or in the umpire referring it. I think the problem is the referral comes after its shown on the screen, the crowd reacts and the fielding captain talks with the umpire about it (which you can't blame him for doing btw). If they don't get a replay up fast enough, it's likely play on - there was no inclination to send that upstairs before the replay was shown. I wouldn't want to get to a situation where decisions in a game are reliant upon whether the host broadcaster gets a replay fed through to the electronic scoreboard before the next ball is bowled.
I think the way Maxwell's style looks aesthetically doesn't help him in that regard tbh; the fact that he gets so much of his shotmaking power from that wrist snap at the end sometimes means he can look like he's just waving the bat half-heartedly at the ball rather than playing a full-blooded shot, which looks terrible.
We used to sit outside the 24-hour dairy in studentville in Dunedin at 3am, singing that to girls who rocked up with average-looking blokes. Looking back, we probably should have realised the irony of us sitting there singing that song before heading home to an empty bed.
Instead we have a situation where we accept human error will inevitably result in a number of incorrect decisions each game. The umpires should be able to check the replays themselves.
Yes, even in the World Cup final chasing a small score there was a risk Australia's lower order could fold, but not while Clarke was there (and Smith).
I think I said during that game that Clarke was playing basically the quintessential Clarke ODI innings, before the flurry of boundaries at the end which pushed up his SR.
Yeah, as much as the slow down in play will annoy me, I'm really beginning to think we just need to let the umpires review what they want to review. I remember the Aus-World XI series in 2005, and it was dire. The thing is, blokes can lose their careers with these sorts of things.
Yeah, I just don't think he is adaptable enough (a criticism I'd level at most of Aus team, which is why I agree with your comment about missing Clarke) to bat that high all the time.
Our entire ODI pool of batsmen is oddly imbalanced right now. A lot of openers/top three bats, a lot of lower order finishers/allrounders, not that many really good middle order bats who are known to be able to play that sort of Clarke/Hussey role. Plenty of hitters, not quite enough batsmen. It's why I find it genuinely hard to come up with a convincing replacement for Bailey or even Maxwell to play a similar role (Lynn is the first name that comes to mind, I guess)
I think the best option is for Smith to drop down to four and Khawaja to bat three. If Finch stops hacking ODI runs then there are plenty of other opening options to consider.
This
Yep this series has convinced me that the way ahead is to allow the on-field umpires to refer when they're not sure. And if they make a mistake and fire a batsmen, then the 3rd umpire should be able to step in and notify them that an error has occured and overturn the original decision. DRS is better than nothing, but it's still not enough as we've seen here.
