***Official*** Australia in New Zealand 2016

[Cabinet96]

This is certainly how your average cricket fan tends to think of all-rounders but I really don't think it's true at all. There's tons of middling all-rounders who are decent contributors, usually in one field moreso than another, without being world beaters. It just seems more extreme because a player who is genuinely good at two disciplines is so influential that they really stand out, and when they don't do well they tend to be given much more time in the side than a one discipline player who is failing, since they can keep their position by performing in another discipline, like Marsh has been doing to a degree with the ball (and potential, I guess).

But they seem to provoke the most extreme reactions from supporters. If you asked the average English cricket fan who their best cricketer of the last 15 years was I'd imagine Flintoff would get more mentions than anyone else when his record really isn't that special, he just had a period of his career where he was exceptional, and you'd get the opposite reaction from Australians with Watson but again, he had some pretty good periods where he was one of the better contributors in the team.

Yeah, I should've clarified that he was mainly talking about how they're perceived by fans. Shane Watson is a pretty good example of someone who fans like to joke about but he was really not that far away from being a superstar in tests.

 

[NZTailender]

Is it just me or are all-rounders more of a thing than they used to be? Or maybe the Australian glory years with 6 specialist batsmen/gilchrist/3-4 atg bowlers just set a highly unattainable benchmark?

 

[Bahnz]

Ton imminent for Craig. So so glad the selectors left Wagner out for him.

 

[NZTailender]

Ton imminent for Craig. So so glad the selectors left Wagner out for him.

To be fair he looked like the most threatening bowler before the new ball.

Not that it resulted in anything.

 

[Bahnz]

To be fair he looked like the most threatening bowler before the new ball.

Not that it resulted in anything.

Again, this is about as well as one can realistically expect him to bowl and he's got 1/100. He's not ****ing good enough.

 

[Jono]

yeah comms but scoring record breaking third innings runs against India and Sri Lanka to rescue yourself from a day one implosion is one thing, doing it against a good bowling attack isn't going to happen.

also both those innings, as amazing as they were, involved crucial drops. Need a combination of awesome batting and luck/letdown from the fielding side to come back from positions like this.

 

[NZTailender]

Cumming backing up that we trolled ourselves into playing Bracewell

 

[NZTailender]

Imagine if we had the full version of Wagner instead of the trial version that's only good for 30% of the overs before you're unable to use it and have to upgrade

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Is it just me or are all-rounders more of a thing than they used to be? Or maybe the Australian glory years with 6 specialist batsmen/gilchrist/3-4 atg bowlers just set a highly unattainable benchmark?

It's funny because someone like Steve Waugh was definitely thought of as an all-rounder when he first started, and Australia even picked Bevan batting at like 7 and bowling a ton of overs at one point. I think it's a fashion thing to a degree and also different between nations insofar as say England or South Africa seem to try and pick all-rounders more than Australia historically, but they've always kinda been there. Just that one period of Australian dominance they didn't really need one or have one available. There might be a correlation in general where the most successful teams are less likely to have all-rounders because they tend to have a dominant bowling attack where it's less needed, and they only get picked if they are ridiculously good and demand selection. South Africa and England in the last decade where they've been better have been less all-rounder reliant than in the 90s when they picked a lot more of them but the teams were worse on the whole.

 

[CM Punk]

also both those innings, as amazing as they were, involved crucial drops. Need a combination of awesome batting and luck/letdown from the fielding side to come back from positions like this.

Yep.

Need a miracle to save this.

My money is on an innings defeat.

We've been scraping it at the Tests at Basin, not going to be as lucky this time around.

Best thing now is for the Aussies to bat another 2 sessions tomorrow which will result in us batting less time to somehow save the Test.

 

[NZTailender]

Is Siddle legit better bat than Hazlewood? I can't remember.

 

[Prince EWS]

Is Siddle legit better bat than Hazlewood? I can't remember.

Yeah definitely. Not even close IMO.

 

[CM Punk]

Is Siddle legit better bat than Hazlewood? I can't remember.

Siddle is*

 

[NZTailender]

It's funny because someone like Steve Waugh was definitely thought of as an all-rounder when he first started, and Australia even picked Bevan batting at like 7 and bowling a ton of overs at one point. I think it's a fashion thing to a degree and also different between nations insofar as say England or South Africa seem to try and pick all-rounders more than Australia historically, but they've always kinda been there. Just that one period of Australian dominance they didn't really need one or have one available. There might be a correlation in general where the most successful teams are less likely to have all-rounders because they tend to have a dominant bowling attack where it's less needed, and they only get picked if they are ridiculously good and demand selection. South Africa and England in the last decade where they've been better have been less all-rounder reliant than in the 90s when they picked a lot more of them but the teams were worse on the whole.

You're most likely right. I guess I was just used to it growing up that Australia mostly played without a recognised all-rounder. But even so if a country's number 1 all-rounder is out the seem to go for another all-rounder who is not as strong when they'd be better off playing a specialist batsmen, seemingly in the name of consistency and variety.

Also there seemed to be a few more genuine A-R's back in the day. McMillan, Cairns and Dev for instance, and Botham for a period before that.

 

[Zinzan]

Yeah definitely. Not even close IMO.

Yup, this

 

[NZTailender]

Yeah definitely. Not even close IMO.

Cool, couldn't honestly remember. Haze seems like another of the ridiculous talents that could average 20+ but I may be mistaking him with another Aussie quick.

 

[Prince EWS]

Siddle often ends up batting ahead of players he shouldn't, but Haze was batting below Lyon seven or eight months ago before he scored that 39. He's not a mug but he's not anywhere near the Pattinson/Starc/Milne class of annoyingly talented tailenders.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Imagine if we had the full version of Wagner instead of the trial version that's only good for 30% of the overs before you're unable to use it and have to upgrade

Voges is the ROM emulator which lets you save and load states at any time.

 

[NZTailender]

KW better double-ton up or I'll sleep from the time he gets out until the next test.

 

[NZTailender]

Voges is the ROM emulator which lets you save and load states at any time.