*Official* England in Australia (2 T20 & 7 ODIs)

[Jono]

Wrong and wrong.

You can't have it two ways. You can't go around saying that the middle order are useless when they lose wickets in in groups when you criticise a player who bats sensibly (without dominating) to ensure wickets are in hand for the last 20 overs.

People are going on about how the game has changed and you can't carry a player who strikes under 80 or so. You're right, the game has changed and it's now more important than ever to have wickets in hand so in the last 20 overs or so you can easily score at 8+ an over.

The issue would be if Clarke was in at overs 40-50 and was striking at 70. The middle overs are the time where you set your team up for a huge finish by ensuring there are wickets in the shed, particularly when you have explosive players in there.

When has losing wickets in groups been a problem for Australia in limited overs cricket?

For 24 months now (basically since the series vs. Pakistan in UAE) it's been coming to a halt in the middle overs.

 

[vic_orthdox]

I do agree partially with Taylor here. If you think it's a no ball call it FFS

There's the expectation that you make the call straight away when there's the no-ball. It's different to being a linesman in tennis, for example, where you only have one thing to call. As soon as that foot lands, you have to look up and watch what goes on afterwards.

Very tough to do, and when I umpire (just with the teams that I coach) there are times where you miss calling it straight away, and you can't really call it late because it looks bad.

Doug's deserved that tbh. He's bowled with reasonable fire today.

Doug was really ordinary, IMO.

Yardy is making our blokes look good here. No mean feat that.

One of the things that ****s me is how our blokes fire the ball at the stumps even when there's no run out on. They reckon it gets them used to it for when there's one on, but they never hardly hit the stumps any more whentheyre meant to.

They've done that since Mike Young got involved. Under instructions to throw whenever they feel it's even half worth it.

 

[Jono]

And in any case, no number 3 batsman, hell no batsman from 1-5 should strike at less than 70 against Yardy, Bresnan, Tremlett etc. Sure Swann bowled well, but FFS.

Especially when they come in at 1/100-odd.

 

[Ikki]

When you come in after the loss of a wicket, you need to consolodate so you can treat the last 20 overs like a t20. That's the approach I'd be taking every day of the week over a helter skelter approach that looks fantastic when you get 400, but can more often than not be very ordinary when you slump to 7/150.

We'd already had 100+ on the board before Clarke came. Consolidate what? We needed to score at basically a run a ball to win this match. Clarke was ****ing that up. If he wanted to play that role, he should have batted lower...not at #3. There was no collapse to consolidate. We have plenty of capable batsmen to score lots of runs fast. If the need arose that we wanted to steady the innings then we could send in Clarke (who I think you're overrating in that aspect anyway). That need did not arise therefore Clarke's innings was useless/a hindrance.

 

[Furball]

When you come in after the loss of a wicket, you need to consolodate so you can treat the last 20 overs like a t20. That's the approach I'd be taking every day of the week over a helter skelter approach that looks fantastic when you get 400, but can more often than not be very ordinary when you slump to 7/150.

I'm not saying he should be going helter skelter. Clarke himself 4 years ago, and Michael Hussey currently, are/were quite capable of striking at 90 without mindlessly slogging.

 

[vic_orthdox]

I've been critical of Clarke in other innings, and his knock might look bad on the scorecard, but while the run-rate never really got higher than 7 (maybe 7.5 at worst) then he's playing to the situation, and Australia were always favourite with so many wickets in the bank, chasing 7 an over over the last 10-12 overs.

EDIT: could he have been better? Maybe. But the game was always in our half while he was out there, and while he was there it never really became more loseable.

 

[Jono]

When you come in after the loss of a wicket, you need to consolodate so you can treat the last 20 overs like a t20. That's the approach I'd be taking every day of the week over a helter skelter approach that looks fantastic when you get 400, but can more often than not be very ordinary when you slump to 7/150.

Striking at 80 isn't helter skelter.

No one is accusing Clarke of playing poorly with a strike rate of 80-85.

Sub-70 and then going out is ****.

 

[benchmark00]

Disagree.

Have gone into this argument many times on CW so will refuse to go into it again.

Don't care if it's Clarke or anyone else. I want my team to load up for the final 20 overs, and that's how I'd instruct the middle order how to play.

 

[Jono]

Disagree.

Have gone into this argument many times on CW so will refuse to go into it again.

Don't care if it's Clarke or anyone else. I want my team to load up for the final 20 overs, and that's how I'd instruct the middle order how to play.

 

[Ikki]

Disagree.

Have gone into this argument many times on CW so will refuse to go into it again.

Don't care if it's Clarke or anyone else. I want my team to load up for the final 20 overs, and that's how I'd instruct the middle order how to play.

Why? If your team has plenty of batsmen who score comparably to Clarke and score much faster why would you want that kind of pressure in the last 20 overs?

I've been critical of Clarke in other innings, and his knock might look bad on the scorecard, but while the run-rate never really got higher than 7 (maybe 7.5 at worst) then he's playing to the situation, and Australia were always favourite with so many wickets in the bank, chasing 7 an over over the last 10-12 overs.

EDIT: could he have been better? Maybe. But the game was always in our half while he was out there, and while he was there it never really became more loseable.

But that is because of Watson. It had nothing to do with Clarke. We were well in control without Clarke and it was his innings that was hindering us.

 

[Uppercut]

I just don't think Ferguson or Hodge are especially less likely to get runs than Clarke, despite doing it much faster.

 

[Jarquis]

When did Yardy take a dump in Jono's bed?

 

[Jono]

If, when watching an international cricket match, you like seeing Yardy bowl legside darts with that awful round arm action, than fair play.

I however do not.

 

[TumTum]

No, don't agree with TumTum that Oz is a great place to chase, infact at places like the Gabba, Perth and SCG its pretty much impossible to chase down a good total.

Reckon the performance of our bowling attack has been too good to restrict the opposition to either a small target or make it really hard to chase big targets, which shows us that misleading record.

But just from the view of an observer, the pitches still look true and the artificial light seems to have no effect (in fact you can make a case that it brings a sense of urgency to the chase).

Recently I've seen to many cases where 50 from 25 balls have been chased down here (mostly by SA ). Whenever you want to play the big shot, the opportunity is there, which is not something you can characterize with in other countries.

 

[benchmark00]

Why? If your team has plenty of batsmen who score comparably to Clarke and score much faster why would you want that kind of pressure in the last 20 overs?



But that is because of Watson. It had nothing to do with Clarke. We were well in control without Clarke and it was his innings that was hindering us.

Mate, by having wickets in hand you're doing the exact opposite of putting pressure on batsmen. It allows them to play with more freedom than they would otherwise have.

 

[Furball]

Disagree.

Have gone into this argument many times on CW so will refuse to go into it again.

Don't care if it's Clarke or anyone else. I want my team to load up for the final 20 overs, and that's how I'd instruct the middle order how to play.

You can still load up without striking at 63. My criticism of Clarke is largely based on the fact that Clarke himself used to be one of, if not the best in the business.

 

[Ikki]

Mate, by having wickets in hand you're doing the exact opposite of putting pressure on batsmen. It allows them to play with more freedom than they would otherwise have.

You already have wickets in hand in the middle-overs unless there is a giant collapse. What makes you think the tail is going to be better at taking advantage of that buffer than the middle-order batsmen themselves?

I think your argument is basing too much on batting slowly = keeping your wicket. Many of our players can score the same amount of runs as Clarke and do it faster - meaning the risk you are talking about isn't real.

Furthermore, if you take a look at the last few years where Clarke has batted slowly it has in turn made him score less runs. Meaning he does neither thing well - score runs or do it at an acceptable rate. If he had scored a ****load of runs at a slower SR that'd be something.

 

[pup11]

Wickets in hand are useless if the required run rate rises to the point where chasing a score down becomes almost impossible (which, granted, didn't happen this morning.) My criticism of Clarke isn't based on the fact he struck at 63 - it's because having done the sensible batting, he's got himself out instead of shifting up a gear and finishing the job himself.

The problem is he doesn't have a gear to shift upto or probably he is just too scarred to do that and lose his wicket.
Someone like White is an equally slow starter, but he can virtually make up for that as he spends more time at the crease becuase of his ability to clear the boundary regularly, since Clarke isn't capable of that so he can't afford to take 10-20 balls to kickstart his innings.
Nobody wants him to turn into a Mini-Hulk and start whacking 6's and 4's, but he certainly can be a bit more aggressive and innovative in terms of his strokeplay.

 

[benchmark00]

You already have wickets in hand in the middle-overs unless there is a giant collapse. What makes you think the tail is going to be better at taking advantage of that buffer than the middle-order batsmen themselves?

I think your argument is basing too much on batting slowly = keeping your wicket. Many of our players can score the same amount of runs as Clarke and do it faster - meaning the risk you are talking about isn't real.

Furthermore, if you take a look at the last few years where Clarke has batted slowly it has in turn made him score less runs. Meaning he does neither thing well - score runs or do it at an acceptable rate. If he had scored a ****load of runs at a slower SR that'd be something.

No, my argument is based on not caring how quickly they score (within reason obv) as long as the target is still manageable.

Would be great if Clarke could strike at 100 whilst doing that, but for me it's not important if he doesn't as long as he keeps his wicket.

Anyways, I'm done. Agree to disagree.

 

[Manee]

Shane Watson is really looking like the second coming of King Jacques.