Australian Domestic Offseason 2011

[Spark]

ABC Sport - Grandstand's Mitchell quits the box

Sad.

 

[Spikey]

YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS ffffuuuuuuu

 

[Noble One]

Who else is excited about the next summer of cricket?

- Big Bash
- Another summer of clueless selectors
- No Glenn Mitchell in the ABC box.

Cannot wait, going to be a blast.

 

[Spark]

Test series vs. India is legitimately of interest though. I'm sure ABC will find a decent replacement.

 

[robelinda]

Im sure it will be interesting watching us play India, but only if you are an Indian fan. Will be a complete thrashing, and thats after SL and SA hand us our asses. We'll struggle to beat NZ convincingly.

 

[Spark]

Ever the pessimist. I think if we pick something close to the right attack we'll be competitive at a minimum.

Mind you... "pick something close to the right attack" may be stretching it as it is. As a minimum we need a fully-fit Bollinger back in, that alone would make life considerably better IMO.

 

[vcs]

LOL, way too pessimistic against a team that possess a grand total of one reliable bowler (who is injury-prone as well).

 

[Spark]

Hopefully the Indians suddenly all get soccer mad and start practicing full-on with spikes when they land

 

[SamSawnoff]

Just saw that after smashing 3 tons last year whilst striking in the mid-80's doing it, Andrew McDonald has kept the good times rolling against a Northants attack with two former Test bowlers in it. Seems to have turned a bit of corner with his batting and is still doing some good work with the ball too.

Should he be in the frame for Test selection at some point soon? Didn't really do a lot wrong when he was picked, is a generally reliable player and knows how to win. Would back him to take more wickets than most of the spinners running around right now, especially against India here and if he's batting well....

I'd back him to take more wickets than Ben Hilfenhaus and be far more economical than MJ. Not that either of those things is hard at present. I think he was stiffed big time. He would have been spot on for England in 2009.

But I guess he's a difficult sell to the marketing/ad sales team at CA. He probably doesn't tick enough boxes.

 

[benchmark00]

I'm reasonably optimistic itbt.

Not sure how the new Big Bash League will detract from your viewing though. Allready have a t20 league, just don't watch it if you don't like t20. I know I won't be following it very closely.

Reckon India's bowlers will battle on our pitches if we can actually have a dry summer for once.

They'll also struggle against Michael Clarke again.

 

[SamSawnoff]

LOL, way too pessimistic against a team that possess a grand total of one reliable bowler (who is injury-prone as well).

You know I really wouldn't go poking fun at other teams on the basis of their crappy bowling attack.
You've got quicksand under your feet there.

Edit: Didn't realilse you were an Indian fan. It all depends if Ishant Sharma has gained some reliability. He bowled some amazing spells in the IPL. 4 overs doesn't really count, but it would be brilliant if he had found his way back to top form.

 

[Spark]

He's talking about his own team...

I'm reasonably optimistic itbt.

Not sure how the new Big Bash League will detract from your viewing though. Allready have a t20 league, just don't watch it if you don't like t20. I know I won't be following it very closely.

Reckon India's bowlers will battle on our pitches if we can actually have a dry summer for once.

They'll also struggle against Michael Clarke again.

Still waiting for 6 for ****ing 9. Must go down as one of the most hilarious spells in history.

Sharma has his pace at times but still doesn't "look" right to me.

 

[SamSawnoff]

They'll probably bring him though.

Sreesanth is too much of a wildcard. He's not like MJ where he's reliably going to give you one/two killer balls an over around all the horrible crap. Sree will be crap all day then send in one amazing over.

 

[Spark]

Oh, they'll definitely bring him, but that doesn't mean he'll repeat what he did on the last tour. In any case with the amount of cricket between now and then I think it's a bit premature to be making any firm predictions about anything.

And yes for ****'s sake I hope it stops ****ing raining so much. Ugh.

EDIT: Good news. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/ENSO-summary.shtml

 

[robelinda]

Can you blame me for being pessimistic? I obviously hope like all hell that we compete, but we couldnt even do that against England in our own backyard.

 

[Spark]

That was in many ways a perfect storm though. The things that we absolutely couldn't afford to go wrong that hadn't gone that badly wrong in the years before (Ponting/Clarke, the attack, the fielding, etc. etc.) went wrong. In many ways it was the "series Australian cricket was due for" because for several years before then, various things - the attack, the FTP, parts of the batting - had managed to keep a lid on things, rather holding everything together with sticky tape. Well, eventually the tape broke.

Not to mention England are actually quite a decent team nowadays.

 

[Spark]

If anything my greatest fear is that the BBL turns out to be the worst case scenario and completely fails, leaving CA in a big financial hole and everyone in deep ****.

 

[SamSawnoff]

If anything my greatest fear is that the BBL turns out to be the worst case scenario and completely fails, leaving CA in a big financial hole and everyone in deep ****.

Same here. I can't want it to fail, no matter how much I think they are effing around with something that didn't need this amount of tweaking.

Spark, the thing about the Ashes was is that the lack of discipline in our fielding/batting/bowling hasn't mattered so much against teams that implode - NZ, Pakistan, WI, but against good teams it will matter a lot.

The fielding has been ropable for ages. I remember against the West Indies in 2009/10 thinking that this was possibly the worst slips cordon we'd had in my adult memory of cricket. And as two summers previously, the catching against the Indians was bloody laughable, that was saying something.

 

[Spark]

Same here. I can't want it to fail, no matter how much I think they are effing around with something that didn't need this amount of tweaking.

Spark, the thing about the Ashes was is that the lack of discipline in our fielding/batting/bowling hasn't mattered so much against teams that implode - NZ, Pakistan, WI, but against good teams it will matter a lot.

The fielding has been ropable for ages. I remember against the West Indies in 2009/10 thinking that this was possibly the worst slips cordon we'd had in my adult memory of cricket. And as two summers previously, the catching against the Indians was bloody laughable, that was saying something.

Yeah I've been beating the drum about the slip fielding for quite a long time here myself, ever since I joined I think. It's weird because you look at the standard slips cordon and they're all good fielders, but what is patently obvious is that they're just not used to slip fielding. And I realise that the FTP has definitely helped cover up many of the flaws, as I pointed out. As I said all these things have been there beneath the surface for a while, and have come up every now and then (Lord 09's 1st morning, 1st day at Headingley last year vs Pakistan, 1st day Sydney last year, 2nd innings at Perth vs WI - Christ that was poor) but we managed to pull it together OKish for that period. But then we came up against a good, disciplined team in England and all those frailties were exposed all at once and mercilessly exploited. I just hope we learnt from those mistakes.

 

[SamSawnoff]

Yeah I've been beating the drum about the slip fielding for quite a long time here myself, ever since I joined I think. It's weird because you look at the standard slips cordon and they're all good fielders, but what is patently obvious is that they're just not used to slip fielding. And I realise that the FTP has definitely helped cover up many of the flaws, as I pointed out. As I said all these things have been there beneath the surface for a while, and have come up every now and then (Lord 09's 1st morning, 1st day at Headingley last year vs Pakistan, 1st day Sydney last year, 2nd innings at Perth vs WI - Christ that was poor) but we managed to pull it together OKish for that period. But then we came up against a good, disciplined team in England and all those frailties were exposed all at once and mercilessly exploited. I just hope we learnt from those mistakes.

They have learnt I think that Michael Clarke can't be in slips to the quicks. He's only in there for the spin bowlers. On the rare occasions when they have slips for them.

Watson is a pretty good and experienced slipsman I think, but he and Haddin appear to have bad communication. Haddin's habit of jumping in front of the slips at some points then just standing still to an almost exact same ball doesn't help. Punter's catching has gone downhill, though such is the culture of denial that I can't see anyone admitting that.