A pessimistic look at Australia's WC chances

[Athlai]

He was good against us too. Kept Aus in the series.

 

[aussie]

Clarke is simply not cut out for the shorter versions. So forget him and try and build a squad without him. That's the best way for Australia now.

You still with this nonsense yo...rassclathh u done spoil this early mornin

 

[Smith]

He was good against us too. Kept Aus in the series.

He kills momentum. That;s why I don;t like him as an ODI player. Has hardly got anything above 2nd gear. Which means opposition never really relinquishes their hold on Australia when he is batting.

 

[Smith]

You still with this nonsense yo...rassclathh u done spoil this early mornin

You are welcome.

 

[Athlai]

He kills momentum. That;s why I don;t like him as an ODI player. Has hardly got anything above 2nd gear. Which means opposition never really relinquishes their hold on Australia when he is batting.

e.g. Dravid?

 

[inbox24]

The sad thing is though, even if Clarke averages 10 with the bat in ODIs for the next year, he won't even have his place questioned. No one should be untouchable like this.

 

[pup11]

Nannes, for one.

Having already played for the Dutch, would he be allowed to play for Aus now..?

Never say never for anything. I have no doubt he can improve but right now he's not good enough in either format (yes, I know he had a good tour of Pak, but those were rare circumstances that allowed him to play those types of innings). He shouldn't be in either side, let him improve on the domestic circuit. He improved so much as a Test bat since being dropped, why should it be any different for the shorter stuff?

Axing Clarke on current form, from the T20 side might be fair enough, but its pretty unfair to say he should be axed from the ODI team too, because lets be honest, till the 2007 ODI series in India, Clarke was easily one of Australia's top ODI batsman, but since then both Australia' and Clarke' performances have dipped in the limited overs format, but still in a struggling ODI side Clarke has been one of the consistent run-scorers, albeit he has scored those runs at a poor strike-rate.

There is nothing wrong in asking Clarke to go back to the domestic cricket arena, and hone his limited overs batting skills, but again except Hodge and Ferguson (to a lesser extent), there is hardly any batsmen around who have done anything substantial in order to get picked ahead of Clarke.

 

[Smith]

e.g. Dravid?

To be honest, Never regarded Dravid a good ODI player. Should not have been in the ODI team but for his wicketkeeping. But still credit when it's due, he indeed transformed into a good batsman in his last 4 or 5 years.

 

[Athlai]

In Clarke's career by year, he has only once had his SR below 70. That was in 2008, his worst year by a long way.

471 @ 31.40 SR 62.38

In 09, he has so far scored 599 @ 42.78 SR 73.04 (His second slowest year) Yet for every other year of his career he has been over 80 (besides on at 77.3, more than countered by his year at 89) Hes a class act and is hardly moving along at a snails pace.

In T20 he has been poor but in ODI's he is still one of the worlds best batsman. He could walk his way into any batting outfit in the world besides MAYBE India, and that is only a maybe. He'd still be there or there abouts.

 

[Smith]

In Clarke's career by year, he has only once had his SR below 70. That was in 2008, his worst year by a long way.

471 @ 31.40 SR 62.38

In 09, he has so far scored 599 @ 42.78 SR 73.04 (His second slowest year) Yet for every other year of his career he has been over 80 (besides on at 77.3, more than countered by his year at 89) Hes a class act and is hardly moving along at a snails pace.

In T20 he has been poor but in ODI's he is still one of the worlds best batsman. He could walk his way into any batting outfit in the world besides MAYBE India, and that is only a maybe. He'd still be there or there abouts.

90 should be the benchmark SR for a batsman of the 90s, unless he is compensating it with matchwinning solid innings. Anyway, his SR should NOT be lower than 85 (ER - 5.1). Now how many times has Clarke done that in his career?

 

[Athlai]

Haha SR of 85 at least in the 2000s? Well lets see what batsman don't have that wonderful mark...

(From 1 Jan 2000 vs. top 8)

Ponting
Tendulkar
Kallis
Yousuf
Jayawardene
Dravid
Sangakkara
Gibbs
Gayle
Hayden
Atapattu
Ganguly
Inzamam
Chanderpaul
Fleming
Clarke
Malik
Younis
Smith
Sarwan
Martyn
Boucher
Astle
Razzaq
Trescothick
Collingwood
Lara
McMillan
Styris
Arnold
Dippenaar
Dilshan
Flower
Bevan
McCullum
Flower
Kirsten
Bell
Vincent
AB

Why out of players with more than 2000 runs since the year 2000:

Jayasuriya with an average of 35.88 SR 89.65
Gilly 34.29 SR 99.05
Yuvraj 36.40 SR 86.07
Sehwag 34.11 SR 100.11
Symonds 39.47 SR 93.67
Dhoni 46.96 SR 89.10
KP 46.46 SR 87.86
Afridi 21.11 SR 110.06
Flintoff 31.43 SR 88.36

So out of 50 batsman, 9 have a SR of 85+ since 2000.

Okay but lets get this back onto Clarke! Lets see who has a lower SR than him for some context. (vs. top8 still)

Kallis
MoYo
Jayawardene
Dravid
Sangakkara
Atapattu
Ganguly
Inzi
Chanderpaul
Fleming
Malik
Khan
Sarwan
Martyn
Astle
Collingwood
Lara
McMillan
Styris
Arnold
Dippenaar
Flower
Bevan
Flower (G)
Kirsten
Bell
Vincent

Which would make Clarke the 23rd best Striker out of the 50 with 2000+ runs since 2000. Pfft but who cares if he doesn't get the runs, what about his average? Who has it better than 42.55?

Ponting
Tendulkar
Kallis
Hayden
Chanderpaul (by .01)
Dhoni
KP
Hussey
Bevan

So 10th best in terms of average? Oh wow. And what was that 23rd in SR? So you're trying to tell me he actually is quite a good ODI batsman? And in the 2000's only 10-15 batsman have been better?

No Precam's right. Rubbish him.

 

[Smith]

Sorry. I forgot my own analysis earlier that stated between 2000 and 2005, SR went up by about 10 points.

Can you please workout the SRs since 2005? Thanks.

 

[aussie]

90 should be the benchmark SR for a batsman of the 90s, unless he is compensating it with matchwinning solid innings. Anyway, his SR should NOT be lower than 85 (ER - 5.1). Now how many times has Clarke done that in his career?

Yo get away from the computer.

Their is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with Clarke's ODI batting since the 2007 WC as you are claiming. Any argument is just a baseless stats argument & i'm ready to discredit any stats you may put forward on the matter...bullet

 

[pasag]

Yo get away from the computer.

Their is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with Clarke's ODI batting since the 2007 WC as you are claiming. Any argument is just a baseless stats argument & i'm ready to discredit any stats you may put forward on the matter...bullet

Putting aside stats if you'd like, anyone that's watched most of his games since then, as I have, will tell you how bad he's been. He gets bogged down, struggles to rotate the strike and has a genuine inability to hit big when the situation requires it, not to mention he takes ages to get in and then gets out, putting pressure on everyone else to score quickly to post reasonable totals. I know he's the golden boy and his character states he should be a big hitter and at the forefront of limited overs cricket, but looks can be deceiving. He should be dropped from both formats and he'll come back a much better batsman for it.

 

[Matt79]

So, as an aside, we've pretty much just accepted that Smith is Precam and are letting him stick around on a multi? Shouldn't play the man rather than the post, but when such utter tosh is being posted by someone who's actually been banned and seriously damaged the atmosphere of the forum, it's a temptation that's hard to resist.

I've made my feelings on Clarke as an ODI batsman pretty clear in the past. Suffice to say that I think his place is properly secure.

 

[aussie]

Putting aside stats if you'd like, anyone that's watched most of his games since then, as I have, will tell you how bad he's been. He gets bogged down, struggles to rotate the strike and has a genuine inability to hit big when the situation requires it, not to mention he takes ages to get in and then gets out, putting pressure on everyone else to score quickly to post reasonable totals. I know he's the golden boy and his character states he should be a big hitter and at the forefront of limited overs cricket, but looks can be deceiving. He should be dropped from both formats and he'll come back a much better batsman for it.

What???. This is the same Clarke who in UAE vs PAK was the most free-flowing batsman on either side, scored that brillinat hundred in IND. Plus remember Clarke due to the injury woes recently was forced to open the batting & didn't disgrace himself.

You are right to a point that since he has gone down to # 4 he has become a bit more circumspect in his batting. But even in the early days when he used to bat @ 7 & play a finisher role - Clarke was never a big hitter. He would score quickly yea, but not 50 of 30 balls - but a 50 of 40 mixed with brilliant running & a few boundaries.

Given the ODI side has just lost the power-hitting force of Symo, Clarke assuring presence @ 4 is very important.

 

[Furball]

BUt he duznt hit sixez!!!111

 

[pasag]

but he duznt hit sixez!!!111

 

[pasag]

What???. This is the same Clarke who in UAE vs PAK was the most free-flowing batsman on either side, scored that brillinat hundred in IND. Plus remember Clarke due to the injury woes recently was forced to open the batting & didn't disgrace himself.

You are right to a point that since he has gone down to # 4 he has become a bit more circumspect in his batting. But even in the early days when he used to bat @ 7 & play a finisher role - Clarke was never a big hitter. He would score quickly yea, but not 50 of 30 balls - but a 50 of 40 mixed with brilliant running & a few boundaries.

Given the ODI side has just lost the power-hitting force of Symo, Clarke assuring presence @ 4 is very important.

It's not important, it's an overrated role that many others can play (not to mention he's not very good at it). I don't know what you've been watching if you call him free flowing. He stutters around, digs himself into a long and painful whole and gets out. It's horrible to watch and it's horrible for the side. It's the story of how far his limited overs game has fallen. All you have to do is watch him to see. Sometimes I think people are blinded by the personality and the colour of his hair, tbh.

 

[pup11]

It's not important, it's an overrated role that many others can play (not to mention he's not very good at it). I don't know what you've been watching if you call him free flowing. He stutters around, digs himself into a long and painful whole and gets out. It's horrible to watch and it's horrible for the side. It's the story of how far his limited overs game has fallen. All you have to do is watch him to see. Sometimes I think people are blinded by the personality and the colour of his hair, tbh.

C'mon mate, cut him some slack, Clarke has had one bad season, where he has struggled to score quickly, but even then he scored runs when others have generally failed to do so, Clarke through out his career hasn't had much of slump in form, its only been in the last season where he has had lean trot, and I think he atleast deserves a chance to resurrect things before he is shown the door.

As I said before, if a guy was breathing down his neck in order to get selected, then it would make sense to drop him, but in the present scenario that certainly isn't the case, and therefore dropping a proven campaigner like him, in favor of some underachiving batsman is a bit silly.