CA's top 20 batting performances in Australia since 2000

[vcs]

Yeah Sachin's 2008 knocks were awesome, McGrath/Warne had retired of course but Lee circa 2008, Stuart Clark and Johnson was a pretty solid attack (Hogg was a weak link of course).

MCG '99 was probably Sachin's best knock in Australia. Kohli's Perth ton on a treacherous deck also deserves a mention in this list.

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah Sachin's 2008 knocks were awesome, McGrath/Warne had retired of course but Lee circa 2008, Stuart Clark and Johnson was a pretty solid attack (Hogg was a weak link of course).

MCG '99 was probably Sachin's best knock in Australia. Kohli's Perth ton on a treacherous deck also deserves a mention in this list.

Sachin's knock at the WACA in 92 is probably his best in Oz, tbh. Virat's was a pretty amazing knock too.

 

[Victor Ian]

Can someone give more context to Waugh's last ball ton? Why is it so highly rated?

What Burgey said, pretty much.

I'll also add, that Waugh was immensly loved by Australians as a continuation of the fighting spirit of AB. It would have been a travesty for him to have not left on his own terms.

The theatre of the innings, for me, is captured by the fact that my friend and I sat in the carpark in Melbourne for a good half hour listening on the radio for him to bring up his hundred, which seemed likely, and then less and less so as time seemed to be running out. The Melbourne papers had been all over the dumping of him for the whole series, with articles pushing for it more and more, with each passing test. We were late for whatever it was that we were meeting our friends in the city for. Neither of us can remember what we were in the city for that day and what we did. Only that Waugh got his hundred of the last ball of the day and we both cheered loud enough that the concrete carpark seemed to echo. It was a typical Waugh fighting effort. This time for himself, rather than his country, and he had earned that.

 

[honestbharani]

Just think of it as the Aussie version of Sachin's 200 in ODIs...

 

[vcs]

Sachin's knock at the WACA in 92 is probably his best in Oz, tbh. Virat's was a pretty amazing knock too.

'92 Perth is obviously a special one considering his age and how clueless the rest looked. '99 was against a stronger attack in difficult conditions, I remember hitting boundaries was very difficult and the outfield was wet and slow.

 

[Victor Ian]

Just think of it as the Aussie version of Sachin's 200 in ODIs...

That is actually not a bad call.

 

[honestbharani]

'92 Perth is obviously a special one considering his age and how clueless the rest looked. '99 was against a stronger attack in difficult conditions, I remember hitting boundaries was very difficult and the outfield was wet and slow.

Yeah but that does not make batting and survival necessarily harder. Warne was still feeling his way back post surgery or whatever, though the pace attack was pretty good, I still don't think either Lee at that stage or Fleming were better than Gillespie who was missing that test and the pitch itself was not very tough to bat on. Perth in 1992 given his age and given how unfamiliar Aussie conditions would be for our players, I feel was a bigger test and I think that bowling attack on that track was a much sterner test than the attack he faced on the MCG track in 1999. I honestly just felt meh throughout the innings, which was not the case with any of his other hundreds in Australia, really.

 

[Burgey]

I am not saying it was the greatest knock or anything, juz better than Ponting's. And I agree Sachin's SCG knock of 2004 is EXTREMELY over rated. His knock in 2008 Sydney was so much better. Mind you, if I have to award a batting performance from the 2003-2004 series for sheer batsmanship, I would pick Laxman's SCG knock in 2004. His own knock in 2008 Sydney was plenty awesome too.

Always thought Laxman's 170 odd in 99-00 was an epic ton, though it was in total lost cause. FMD it was insane.

 

[Burgey]

Yeah Sachin's 2008 knocks were awesome, McGrath/Warne had retired of course but Lee circa 2008, Stuart Clark and Johnson was a pretty solid attack (Hogg was a weak link of course).

MCG '99 was probably Sachin's best knock in Australia. Kohli's Perth ton on a treacherous deck also deserves a mention in this list.

Yeah Kohli's Perth ton was awesome. Also agree re that 2008 attack. At that point it looked like Australia would transition pretty well after Warne and McGrath went, but Clark getting injured to the point where he was all but a non starter after that summer basically ended those plans. Lee was great around that time. Had taken him nearly ten years but he finally bowled up to his potential for a year before he died in the arse as well

 

[Spark]

Geez Lee was frustrating. Did more good with the bat than the ball in 2005, couldn’t land two balls in roughly the same spot most of the time

 

[honestbharani]

The bouncer/yorker bit was annoying as hell too.

 

[Burgey]

Geez Lee was frustrating. Did more good with the bat than the ball in 2005, couldn’t land two balls in roughly the same spot most of the time

The bouncer/yorker bit was annoying as hell too.

Comfortably the worst bowler to take 300 test poles. To the extent people taking that many wickets can ever be no good, he generally was. Great 12-18 months at the start of his career, and about the same at the end. In between was very, very ordinary. Was almost the bowling Khawaja - a pillow incapable of stepping up when he was really needed, the 2005 Ashes when McGrath was injured being the best example. Would take Johnson over him as a bowler every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

[stephen]

Yep, Lee was a gun ODI bowler but was a terrible test bowler. Would rather Bichel any day of the week.

 

[stephen]

Bichel over Lee in 2005 could very well have swung the series. England would have favoured Bichel far more than it did Kasper or Gillespie (especially after he fell off a cliff, losing his nip in that series).

 

[TheJediBrah]

Not sure Bichel was that great around 2005

Should have just gone with Stuart Clark

they even gave Shaun Tait a game

 

[vcs]

Wasn't really a keen follower of Australia domestic cricket but Stuart Clark pretty much became an automatic selection as soon as he got in around 2006, so he should have probably played in Ashes 2005. Him and Hussey might well have got Australia over the line. All these things are really only hindsight wisdom, though.

 

[GoodAreasShane]

From memory Clark didn't have a brilliant domestic season in 2004/05, so he wasn't really on the selectors radar so much at the time.

Sloon on the other hand had a damn amazing season, blasting quality batsman out left right and centre even while playing half his games on Les Burdett highways. That was probably the best he ever bowled, had an indifferent Ashes, then was pretty much never the same thereafter. The pace was still there, but only for a few overs until he was completely gassed

 

[honestbharani]

Agree that Brett Lee is a great ODI bowler but very blow hot and cold as a test bowler. Not sure I would take him over Mitch Johnson though, really. Think both were very similar, if anything. All of the quartet can be potentially better than those two though, and that is exciting from an Aussie PoV.

 

[Spark]

Reckon Johnson had a much more significant period of actually being good than Lee tbh. Lee was a lot like bad Mitch in that he would take wickets, but you could give up all semblance of control of both the run rate and the bastmen and you would find it incredibly difficult to bowl in partnerships and build pressure. Except for Lee that was close to his entire career and no one seemed to actually care that his stock ball in England was the short wide half tracker to a generation of batsmen all brought up on the cut shot with short square boundaries.

And obviously Lee never came vaguely close to Johnson's 2013/14 heights, especially away.

 

[stephen]

The thing about Lee is that he actually was an accurate bowler. He was just a dimwit. He was capable of bowling line and length and whenever he did he was successful. But if he went even a short amount of time without picking up a wicket he'd revert to bouncer/Yorker, neither of which were threatening to test match batsmen. He still picked up the occasional wicket due to his pace but all too often he let the pressure off.