Australian Test Selection 2016/2017

[Gob]

Poor Nev. On top of the above let's not forget the guys still a relative noob in the team (Wade was previously kept around as reserve keeper etc on quite a few tours). M Marsh while not having many more games has been around the side for much longer and has a lot more exposure in these types of conditions so you would hope he could do a little more.

Ultimately though I think there's quite a bit of an over reaction going on here. At its core this is still a fairly raw side and barely 18 months ago Rogers, Clarke, Watson, Haddin, Harris and Johnson would form the base of this team. Even with this retired group we were still **** in these conditions and they had several opportunities to develop a method and adapt.

Lyon wasn't brilliant but he would need to match Herath's performance to give Australia any real hope for the series given the ******ness of our batting. The main disappointment is the continuation of generally stupid selection policies (why bring in Henriques for a batsman, Holland who hardly deserves the shot and gets no warm up, S Marsh's selection even if it did work) that don't seem to help the development of the team or players.

O'Keefe's injury was annoying though. First real shot he's had to prove himself in conditions that suit and he'll probably get looked over for the India tour for the leading leg spinner in the next shield season (or spend most of the season injured).

Anyway for the home season I'd go with the below and look to use it as the base for away tours.

Warner
S Marsh
Khawaja
Smith
Voges
Burns
Nev
Starc
Patto/Bird
Lyon
Haze

Both SA and Pak have good bowling attacks so I think there's value in stacking the batting even if the pitches turn out to be roads. Could swap S Marsh and Burns around but I'd like see Burns given a shot in the middle order. I'd rather have Nev's keeping on flat pitches over a potentially better batsman. M Marsh isn't out of the equation but I'd like to see him given a solid run in the Shield.

Very reasonable team although i think you are going to need a fifth bowler

 

[morgieb]

Very reasonable team although i think you are going to need a fifth bowler

Smith and Voges can bowl if need be, IMO. Better than picking an all-rounder for the sake of it.

Also something about Marsh opening makes me worried. Just think he's too **** of a starter to do so effectively.

 

[Justo]

Nah I don't think we need a fifth bowler. If this attack can't take 20 wickets than M Marsh isn't likely to offer much more, Smith and Voges can bowl the odd over at the end of a session and before the new ball is due. This balance might also encourage our groundsman to put a bit more life in the pitches (unlikely).

Might also encourage Smith to bowl Haze a bit more.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Nah I don't think we need a fifth bowler. If this attack can't take 20 wickets than M Marsh isn't likely to offer much more, Smith and Voges can bowl the odd over at the end of a session and before the new ball is due. This balance might also encourage our groundsman to put a bit more life in the pitches (unlikely).

Might also encourage Smith to bowl Haze a bit more.

Haze gets plenty of overs in Aus

 

[Furball]

MMarsh and Nevill have concerning averages but they always come in at either a million/4 or 5 and are asked to slog, or come in in the middle of a collapse.

 

[Gob]

Smith and Voges can bowl if need be, IMO. Better than picking an all-rounder for the sake of it.

Also something about Marsh opening makes me worried. Just think he's too **** of a starter to do so effectively.

I can bowl if needed but i'm actually thinking about someone who can do it well

Mitchell Marsh provided number of crucial dismissals against NZ when needed. I'd definitely have him

 

[Prince EWS]

Yeah on most Australian wickets you really don't want to be relying on only three seamers. I'd definitely think about moving to six specialist batsmen overseas but I like the idea of having Marsh there at home. If they replaced him with Henriques or Faulkner I wouldn't particularly care (I'd disagree with it but not hate it) but his bowling was called upon a lot more than his batting in the home summer so I wouldn't want to replace him with a bat.

 

[NUFAN]

Drop Voges, both Marshes, Mo, Nevill, Holland and Gaz. I wanna see who we dig up in that scenario

Australia would have the potential to pick an England style team:

Hales	Burns
Cook	Warner
Root	Smith
Vince	Lynn
Ballance	Patterson
Stokes	Stoinis
Bairstow+	Handscomb+
Moeen	Maxwell
Woakes	Pattinson
Broad	Starc
Anderson	Hazlewood

I wouldn't actually pick this team FTR.

 

[Flem274*]

mitch marsh's bowling has been pretty handy for australia to date. not sure why anyone would choose to ignore it.

 

[Furball]

mitch marsh's bowling has been pretty handy for australia to date. not sure why anyone would choose to ignore it.

Is that directed at people on here, or Steve Smith?

 

[morgieb]

Yeah on most Australian wickets you really don't want to be relying on only three seamers. I'd definitely think about moving to six specialist batsmen overseas but I like the idea of having Marsh there at home. If they replaced him with Henriques or Faulkner I wouldn't particularly care (I'd disagree with it but not hate it) but his bowling was called upon a lot more than his batting in the home summer so I wouldn't want to replace him with a bat.

Yeah true that. Depends on the spice of the wickets though, if they offer more to the bowler than what they have over the last couple of years (and South Africa and Pakistan's bowling attacks are better than India and the West Indies, and shouldn't bowl as badly as New Zealand did) then the sixth batsman comes in handy.

 

[Furball]

Yeah on most Australian wickets you really don't want to be relying on only three seamers. I'd definitely think about moving to six specialist batsmen overseas but I like the idea of having Marsh there at home. If they replaced him with Henriques or Faulkner I wouldn't particularly care (I'd disagree with it but not hate it) but his bowling was called upon a lot more than his batting in the home summer so I wouldn't want to replace him with a bat.

I still say Marsh needs a season in Shield cricket the same way Smith did 5 years ago. There's a potentially very good player there but he's clearly not ready for Test cricket yet.

 

[Gnske]

Australia would have the potential to pick an England style team:

Hales	Burns
Cook	Warner
Root	Smith
Vince	Lynn
Ballance	Patterson
Stokes	Stoinis
Bairstow+	Handscomb+
Moeen	Maxwell
Woakes	Pattinson
Broad	Starc
Anderson	Hazlewood

I wouldn't actually pick this team FTR.

If we're talking English style

Bancroft
Warner
Smith
Wells
Khawaja
Cartwright
Handscomb
Maxwell
Faulkner
Starc
Hazlewood

 

[Australiafan]

How good would it be to have an inform Faulkner in test for the subcontinent.

6. Handscomb +
7. M.Marsh
8. Faulkner( or Maxwell)
9. O'keefe
10. Starc
11. Lyon (or Ahmed/Pattinson)

On another note, Swepson looks like the most promising spinning prospect in a while.

 

[Spikey]

cross posting from tour thread seeing how it's come up here

(lehmann) believes that unless you have a warne-like spinner, you need a 5th bowling option. (this is on the record, look for the articles regarding Dan Christian when he almost fluked a test match). I think this is something Clarke roughly believed in but I'm not so sure about Smith. Anyway Lehmann may have a point in Australian conditions but when you're in the sub-continent and you're gonna be using your spinner from about the 10th over onwards, I don't really see it.

aka what Prince EWS said

 

[TheJediBrah]

I don't really know what happened to Faulkner, guy seems to have completely fallen off the radar . . . or the wagon

or is it on the wagon . . .

 

[Red]

That's very bizarre logic IMO. You should be critical of both. "no. 6 sucks so it's ok if no.7 sucks is well" just makes no sense.

That's not my point FFS. My point was (and I would've thought this was pretty obvious) that you have a set of expectations for the top 6 batsmen, and before you start worrying if the keeper is making runs at #7, you get a top six that is performing acceptably.

 

[Spark]

How good would it be to have an inform Faulkner in test for the subcontinent.

6. Handscomb +
7. M.Marsh
8. Faulkner( or Maxwell)
9. O'keefe
10. Starc
11. Lyon (or Ahmed/Pattinson)

On another note, Swepson looks like the most promising spinning prospect in a while.

It would be useless, frankly.

 

[TheJediBrah]

That's not my point FFS. My point was (and I would've thought this was pretty obvious) that you have a set of expectations for the top 6 batsmen, and before you start worrying if the keeper is making runs at #7, you get a top six that is performing acceptably.

No need to get upset, I'm just going by literally what you said:

if you've got a guy at 6 averaging 24 it's hard to be critical of someone as good with the gloves as Nevill is on the basis of him averaging 20 at 7

which is obviously rubbish. This literally sounds exactly like you're saying he shouldn't be criticized because other guys are bad as well.

 

[Burgey]

Don't really have anything to add. Am just posting because I'm on a mission this morning to have the last post in every sub-forum I have access to on the front page of the site.

In doing so, I'm adding more to the discussion than most.