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**Official** Australia in Sri Lanka Jan - Feb 2025

Anthony Clayden

Anthony Clayden

School Boy/Girl Captain
SteveNZ said:
I just can't get my head around how he's even on the tour, let alone picked. OK, Murphy bowled dross in the 1st Test, but you're going to play a batting 'all-rounder' at 8, then hardly bowl him when he's a part, part-timer at best? Are selectors trying to make heroes of themselves by flinging in Hail Mary young guys in the hope they might average 45 at a S/R of over 100 and take wickets at 28s? I truly don't get it. Steve Smith says 'he bowls good balls in the nets' which is a high bar to have to leap over to get a baggy green.

Jamie Siddons must sit in a dark room and wonder whether he should end it all some days. 160 quality FC games and can't crack it once, yet these young guys can extravagantly nick three through the cordon and all of a sudden they blow up on X and they're wearing an Australian crest soon after.
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Brad Hodge agrees with you.
 
S

SteveNZ

International Coach
TheJediBrah said:
with that logic they should have picked McSweeney as the extra bat instead though

Let's just tell it how it is, they were looking for any excuse to get Connolly a game. "Oh he bowls some left arm spin" was a cop out
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It's a hell of a time to be alive for a young cricketer. You're right, they looked for any excuse to play Connelly...for reasons only they'd know. It's an 'old team' given after McSweeney was dropped in the BGT they didn't have a single 20-something year old, so maybe they are looking to promote youth at any given opportunity.

Maybe they want these young guys to have a taste of long-form cricket so they fall in love with it and ensure they don't have tunnel vision down the T20 hit and piss about path? Maybe we should actually be praise-worthy of it. I dunno. Just feels to me like selectors want to make heroes of themselves when it's unjustified.
 
S

SteveNZ

International Coach
The_CricketUmpire said:
Jamie Siddons is one of quite a few players to play little to no Test cricket for Australia despite having good records in domestic competitions. It just shows how strong an era Australian cricket was - the 1990s through to the mid 2000s, compared to now and the past ten to fifteen years, it hasn't been strong depthwise.
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Anthony Clayden said:
Brad Hodge agrees with you.
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Yeah, there's a few without even thinking - Siddons, Law, Elliott, di Venuto, Hodge, Bichel, even MacGill and I'm sure there's more who suffered from the era they played in being incredibly strong.

There wasn't a lot of rotation in those days, playing less formats, Tests were the pinnacle and so on, so you didn't get the opportunities like you do now. And you had to cop it if you weren't getting picked, unless you wanted to change sports.

I almost puked the other day, Matt Short was asked to provide a cricketing comparison to the Doncic/AD mega trade and he used Fraser-McGurk's name. It shouldn't be like this. Cooper Connelly should be about 20th in line for a Test XI berth, but here we are and we have to like it, I guess. Welcome to 2025. England did it with Bethell in the recent NZ series - picking him at 3 having never scored an FC hundred batting 5 and below - and to be fair, it didn't go poorly.
 
H

halba

International Debutant
Kusal needs to farm the strike and get the lead to 100+. if its under 100, its australias game.

Re Connolly i dont see a future for him at this level. Even the state side will be lucky to pick him consistently, he hasnt been tested enough at State level.

Most of our upcoming stars are pro T20 flat wickets type of cricketers, that includes Konstas. No fault on the youngsters, thats how its going globally, thats where the money is if you want to be a cricketer. T20 cricketers get paid millions of dollars. Test cricketers? Not that much unless you are in one of the top teams, and a senior player.

Its a disturbing trend, probably one which will see the end of ODI ( and perhaps Test cricket after a fair while ). ODI is definitely being phased out before 2027(no more tri series/bilaterals unless its a world cup year)
 
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Spark

Spark

Global Moderator
halba said:
Kusal needs to farm the strike and get the lead to 100+. if its under 100, its australias game.

Re Connolly i dont see a future for him at this level. Even the state side will be lucky to pick him consistently, he hasnt been tested enough at State level.

Most of our upcoming stars are T20 material type of cricketers, that includes Konstas.
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God help me for replying seriously to this but he averages over 60 for WA in a side that is currently 7/50. He's an automatic selection for them.
 
H

halba

International Debutant
Spark said:
God help me for replying seriously to this but he averages over 60 for WA in a side that is currently 7/50. He's an automatic selection for them.
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thats a very tough wicket though. Both teams havent crossed 120 ish. difficult pitch, which can happen at WACA

If hes being picked all the time in State, that means the State and international level, the difference is an order of magnitudes, cos hes all at sea in international.
 
Qlder

Qlder

International Regular
halba said:
Most of our upcoming stars are pro T20 flat wickets type of cricketers, that includes Konstas. No fault on the youngsters, thats how its going globally, thats where the money is if you want to be a cricketer. T20 cricketers get paid millions of dollars. Test cricketers? Not that much unless you are in one of the top teams.
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This T20 flat wicket Konstas you talk about, is that the same Konstas that played his first ever T20 game only a week before his Test debut?
 
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