let’s remember some guys

[Prince EWS]

I thought Ferguson was a good prospect. He played that series Aus lost at home to RSA, right? And he was in his 30s by then?

Yeah he played one Test when he was 31, failed both innings but was run out first dig which is obviously a bit unlucky in gauging how he would've gone moving forward.

 

[honestbharani]

I feel like Khawaja is being wasted at the moment by Australia too. Sure, if the expectation was that he will step and be Smith or Warner levels when they left, then he failed but he is still a better batsman than anyone not named Smith and Warner (and perhaps, Labuschagne) out there in Australia and its kinda arrogant of them to keep omitting him, when the rest of the batting stocks are this dire.

 

[mr_mister]

Travis Friend an interesting one.

Started off as a fast bowling tail ender and ended up a number 3 batsman who barely bowled, all within a few years.

Out of his 39 ODI innings, 20 were at 9-11(including 10 at number 10) and 16 were at number 3.

pretty random

 

[Prince EWS]

I feel like Khawaja is being wasted at the moment by Australia too. Sure, if the expectation was that he will step and be Smith or Warner levels when they left, then he failed but he is still a better batsman than anyone not named Smith and Warner (and perhaps, Labuschagne) out there in Australia and its kinda arrogant of them to keep omitting him, when the rest of the batting stocks are this dire.

Yeah he should've been moved to open permanently after the UAE tour. Obviously Smith and Labu are better than him and you can make arguments as to Head's youth, Wade's recent Shield form and general cuntishness that Langer likes, Green's allround potential, Khawaja's likely poorer returns coming in below 4 given his off spin allergy etc for the 5 and 6 spots, but he was always clearly a better opener than Harris, Bancroft, Finch and Burns IMO.

This is a fairly common opinion on CW though.

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah he should've been moved to open permanently after the UAE tour. Obviously Smith and Labu are better than him and you can make arguments as to Head's youth, Wade's recent Shield form and general ****ishness that Langer likes, Green's allround potential, Khawaja's likely poorer returns coming in below 4 given his off spin allergy etc for the 5 and 6 spots, but he was always clearly a better opener than Harris, Bancroft, Finch and Burns IMO.

This is a fairly common opinion on CW though.

I would say even at 3. You can move Labu down to 5.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Travis Friend an interesting one.

Started off as a fast bowling tail ender and ended up a number 3 batsman who barely bowled, all within a few years.

Out of his 39 ODI innings, 20 were at 9-11(including 10 at number 10) and 16 were at number 3.

pretty random

Almost all of those early-00 Zimbab bowlers were gun batsmen in club cricket. But in international cricket were real bunnies. (And generally pretty crap bowlers too lol)

 

[Prince EWS]

Travis Friend an interesting one.

Started off as a fast bowling tail ender and ended up a number 3 batsman who barely bowled, all within a few years.

Out of his 39 ODI innings, 20 were at 9-11(including 10 at number 10) and 16 were at number 3.

pretty random

Yeah if you combined his rapid bowling youth with his sweet timing batting late 20s, he would've been an absolute gun of an allrounder. Between his back injuries, his concussions and the total collapse of ZC it didn't come together for him though.

He had a crack playing cricket in Aus and England after he left Zimbabwe and I kind of expected to see him pop up as a Kolpak if he got some good coaching, but it never happened. He ended up working at the cricket supply shop in Parramatta for a while; I had a chat to him there a couple of times.

 

[honestbharani]

The one with the greatest potential of the mid to late 90s Zim IMO was Andy Blignaut. Thought he will be awesome but injuries and Mugabe.

 

[Starfighter]

he went on to reinvent himself as a legitimate pioneer in bbl cricket, and was the first spinner here to bowl in the early overs, doing so well before it took hold as a legitimate tactic used by every team. bowling induckers and outswingers and 95-100km, beer along with jason behrendorff were the key cogs in the scorchers team that sucked the life out of bbl cricket by defending 137 week in and week out at #TheFurnace, which is what they were calling the waca at the time ("so give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say at the time").

Speaking of this, Behrendorff used to swing the ball like a banana back then. While I think part of it is simply the Kookaburra ball getting worse, can't help but think the back injuries have somewhat impacted his ability to swing the ball.

 

[Prince EWS]

Speaking of this, Behrendorff used to swing the ball like a banana back then. While I think part of it is simply the Kookaburra ball getting worse, can't help but think the back injuries have somewhat impacted his ability to swing the ball.

Yeah Dorff and Paris were both swing bowlers pre-injury. They're not terrible now but they're basically fringe state cricketers. Same injury too, I think.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Praveen Kumar.

Notable for being (arguably) the last genuine medium pacer (don't think I ever saw him ever get near 80mph, and was generally around 71-74mph) to play tests, having a six match test career that lasted less than 2 months in total, looking a good decade older than he was supposed to be (think he was nominally 24 when India toured up here in 2011, but realistically looked closer to 40), hooping it both ways absolutely miles and getting onto the honours board at Lords with his only 5-for.

 

[Starfighter]

Yeah Dorff and Paris were both swing bowlers pre-injury. They're not terrible now but they're basically fringe state cricketers. Same injury too, I think.

I do wonder whether attempting to swing the ball can increase counter rotation. I've always felt it was easier to swing the ball out if I curled my arm back over my shoulder and gave a real rotational emphasis, like bowling an off break. Can't help but notice that earlier career Bishop and Cummins both did the same thing, swung their arm back behind and were side on mid-leap, but their shoulders had opened out by back foot contact. Bishop continued to get injured, eventually ending his career, and Cummins is staying fit but has lost his outswinger.

 

[Prince EWS]

I do wonder whether attempting to swing the ball can increase counter rotation. I've always felt it was easier to swing the ball out if I curled my arm back over my shoulder and gave a real rotational emphasis, like bowling an off break. Can't help but notice that earlier career Bishop and Cummins both did the same thing, swung their arm back behind and were side on mid-leap, but their shoulders had opened out by back foot contact. Bishop continued to get injured, eventually ending his career, and Cummins is staying fit but has lost his outswinger.

I always found it easiest to swing the ball copying Matthew Hoggard, starting with the ball facing my chest and my back of my hand facing the batsman. I never really had any idea why (I'm a spinner so it was just net bowling trolling anyway) but this theory kind of explains it.

 

[Starfighter]

I always found it easiest to swing the ball copying Matthew Hoggard, starting with the ball facing my chest and my palm facing the batsman. I never really had any idea why (I'm a spinner so it was just net bowling trolling anyway) but this theory kind of explains it.

You mean the back of your hand facing the bat? I find Hoggard's a bit more of a leg break action myself.

Some kind of sideways impetus is vital to swinging the ball, as you can't angle the seam otherwise, but I think some bowlers are more subtle about it than others.

Maybe I should get on to making the mixed actions thread I was going to post in the coaching forum.

 

[Prince EWS]

You mean the back of your hand facing the bat?

Yeah, second time today I've basically said the opposite of what I mean on here. I blame Adders yet again.

I find Hoggard's a bit more of a leg break action myself.

Haha, might explain why I was more comfortable with it.

 

[Spikey]

marcus north was an enjoyable rocks or diamonds player who bowled handy offies.

geez you'd take him right now wouldn't you? the guy suffered from playing immediately after the great team.

marcus north is worth mentioning alongside Andrew McDonald. still to this day you'll hear andrew mcdonald should have played more tests than he did, having played all 3 tests in the series vs South Africa in 2009, and never again. But people forget that he played these games alongside Marcus North. North was picked as 6 and as the only spinner and McDonald was at 8 as the fourth seamer. (north having taken a 6 wicket haul in the FC game prior to the first test match). it was a unique set-up and when they committed to playing a spinner, McDonald didn't have a spot, so he missed out in the start of the 2009 Ashes. and then Shane Watson established himself as an opening batsman/all-rounder from the 3rd game of this series, and so it never really made sense to pick McDonald again, because when Watson got injured you needed to replace the opener before the all-rounder, but people will still say McDonald should have played more tests.

also while doing research for this post I come across this: Tasmanian Brett Geeves was called up to the Australian squad during the First Test after Doug Bollinger suffered an abdominal-muscle strain while training in the nets.[2] After the First Test of the series, Western Australian fast bowler Steve Magoffin, was flown to join the touring squad as cover for Hilfenhaus and Siddle who were in doubt for the Second Test.[3]

So Brett Geeves played 3 international games for australia, is a bit of a dickhead iirc and also got in a twitter fight with David Warner. Goofers Magoffin was a saint and frankly should have played these test matches instead of Andrew McDonald.

Craig White.

Never seen anyone bowl as quick as him from such an amble of a run up either.

In Ricky Ponting International Cricket 2005 (Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 outside AUS), they had a mechanic where the fast bowlers were, you know, quicker and harder to play than the medium fast bowlers. Craig White was in this category. This is my only memory of him

Peter Forrest

Such a brief oddity and shocking to think he was in a test squad.

He forced Ricky Ponting in ODI retirement. People forget this, but he scored runs while Clarke was injured, Clarke came back, Ponting was dropped, and then he retried.

#TrottsFault

If you know you know.

Good to see Dalrymple mentioned, I was going to but didn't think he was good enough to get a shout. Was part of the squad that won the tri-series down under in 07 which all true cricket fans know was the big one that winter.

Took a great catch at the SCG, I think in the 2nd final? to basically put the game beyond doubt

 

[TheJediBrah]

Never heard anyone say that Andrew McDonald should have played more Tests

 

[Spikey]

Daniel Brettig for one literally always says it. he even did it the other day. And when Watson was testing the patience of people, you'd hear people in various parts of the internet say what about McDonald, he did well in SA, should have played more, etc.

 

[the big bambino]

Not even Andrew MacDonald

 

[Dan]

Not really A Guy as such but in terms of one-time fringe internationals, how good was the Liam Davis for Tests chat after that hilarious triple vs NSW, unfortunately followed by him losing his state contract like a year later.

Davis: 303*
A NSW team featuring Phillip Hughes, Usman Khawaja, Brad Haddin , Shane Watson and Steve Smith, twice over: 237