***Official*** NatWest Series/Challenge

[luckyeddie]

collingwood at odds of 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 to 1 against hayden whos 1.01 to 1 on.

Really?

He comes from coal-mining stock, as opposed to just bread-stealing.

 

[King_Ponting]

I dunno, just doesn't look that macho to me. I can almost see them throwing their arms around each other passionately from that position, staring into each others eyes, mouths open...

Someone really ought to put it up in the humour forum and see what captions people can come up with.

specially with collingwoods hand where it is

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Really?

He comes from coal-mining stock, as opposed to just bread-stealing.

Hayden is a Queenslander. You need to be tough to bend bananas...

 

[Scaly piscine]

specially with collingwoods hand where it is

Hayden's right hand is more of a worry, although we should be grateful that neither set of Hayden's knuckles appear to be scraping along the ground.

 

[marc71178]

3..something about the english tabloids making a big fuss about Matt Haydon hitting some kid with a bat on his way into dressing rooms,he said he spoke to haydos about this claim and he denied it.. He sinse has a vidoe that one of the players were making about cricketers and filmed haydon right from crease to rooms and nothing of the sort happened,apparently it is gonna be a big story in the english papers tommorow,

Well, it certainly hasn't made any impression on the media that I've seen today.

 

[marc71178]

http://forum.cricketweb.net/showpost.php?p=494358&postcount=57

This post confuses me

And me too - a wind-up merchant methinks.

 

[tooextracool]

What does every one feel about Gough? How long should he be persisted with and should you go with Gough or some one else now that Jones is looking good.

the problem with gough is that he's lost his outswinger, and he seems easily hittable with the new ball. he gets the old ball to reverse though and hes still a fairly decent death bowler, but as of now, i dont think he should be bowling with the new ball.
as far as jones is concerned, i think its fair to say that he has almost all the qualities of the gough of old, the outswinger, reverse swing, and what seems to be a fairly useful slower ball, but he doesnt have enough experience in ODs to prevent himself from being clobbered like he did in his last 3 overs yesterday. he'd make one hell of a test bowler, if he could bowl at the pace he used to before injury.

 

[tooextracool]

Vaughan screwed up big time in the field last night.

Pulled the slip out in the fourth over and Hayden puts one through for another four. Then he calls Giles to come straighter at mid off and Hayden puts the next ball right where Giles was standing for four.

because hayden ended up scoring so much?

 

[tooextracool]

Martyn is a fantastic batsman but a bit one-paced for ODIs at the moment. He not only got himself out last night but was the major contributor to Ponting's dismissal as he had not scored off the previous 11 balls.

it takes an incredible amount of stupidity to drop martyn(averaging over 60 in the natwest series) or to blame him for pontings dismissal. fact is that if ponting let the pressure get to him after a maiden over, its his own fault.

 

[tooextracool]

Which begs the question, should he be in the team?

who should he be replaced with?
i dont think tremlett has looked too much better.

 

[tooextracool]

Hussey actually dived to try and get in front of Symonds so he would be out instead, quite generous of him really.

i think he was trying to get to the crease. not to mention the stupidity of it all for symonds to be standing a couple of feet out of the crease, cost australia about 20-30 runs.

 

[tooextracool]

As said before Simon Jones can't bowl at the death

or rather, he doesnt have the experience of bowling in the death. he has all the ammunition to be successful in the death, just needs to bowl a bit more in that period.

 

[tooextracool]

Symonds has played pretty well tbh,

symonds to be called up to the test side replacing martyn for the 1st ashes test.......

 

[tooextracool]

Yet again the running between the wickets is excellent, Englands is pretty rubbish in comparison

although strauss, collingwood and tresco(in particular) are pretty good at it.

 

[superkingdave]

although strauss, collingwood and tresco(in particular) are pretty good at it.

i said in comparison, and its more turning ones into two rather than the quick singles

 

[tooextracool]

he had potential before the injury but showed few signs of fulfilling it.

well he only played 1 full test before that injury.
the problem with jones is that hes injured every 2nd game, and its quite likely that he'll end up like dion nash did.

 

[tooextracool]

This is Nasser saying 'You have a bat, lads' standard.

doubt it, that decision in brisbane was somewhat justifiable when it was made.

 

[aussie]

It should become the basis for the permanent team.

BTW, I know that neither Hodge (sorry) or Tait are in the ODI squad and I think it's ludicrous.

Tait will come to England with no match practice in 5 months and be expected to bowl with rhythm straight away and possibly make his test debut shortly thereafter. I hope people dont write him off should he bowl poorly because the selectors arent giving him the best opportunity to perform.

In the meantime, Hodge has been plying his trade in the back-blocks of England whilst Hussey has been taking all before him in the ODIs. At the very least, BOTH should be in the ODI squad AND the Test squad.

But knowing our genius selectors, they'll send an in-form batsman (Hussey) back to where-ever and expect Hodge to immediately graduate to the top level from a much lower level of cricket.

Well at this stage i dont see a place for Hodge & Tait in Australia's ODI sqaud. I agree with your point on Tait but you can say the same problem will be encountered by Langer.

Maybe Hussey will be the inform batsman & their could be a slight disadvantage for Hodge since he is playing county cricket, but i dont think it will be much of a problem, lets remember is a pretty darn good batsman & whenever he gets his chance i'll back him to perform at this level.

 

[aussie]

To be honest, dropping Martyn is unfair and we would be better served with him at opener so that he could potentially bat the entire 50 overs at his own pace whilst people played the big shots at the other end (something that Hayden appears unwilling/unable to do at present).

To say that I am biased against Martyn is ridiculous as I consider him to be Aus' best Test player at present and, IMO, was the best Test batsman in the world last year.

However, the fact remains that as Hodge is our back-up batsman for Test cricket, a spot should be found for him in the ODI team for experience alone. Should the selectors not consider him good enough (it cant be because of shot-making ability because anyone that has seen him play knows differently), then Hussey should replace him in the Test squad as well.

As for Martyn's dismissal, dont be ridiculous. To claim that it was planned is like saying that Tresco is weak outside the off- stump, setting slips in position, getting him caught at slip off the glove whilst attemting to hook a bouncer, and then saying "I told you he was weak outside the off-stump."

First of all i can see no reason why Martyn should go and open the batting since Gilchrist & Hayden have been extremely successful and Martyn has been eqaully has successful at #4 so no drastic changes are needed their at all mate.

I agree that since Hodge is Australia's back-up test batsman & place should be their just for experience but to be honest who would he replace ???

With regards to Martyn's dismissal its definately a plan by England it cant be a coincidence that he has been dismissed 2 out of 3 times that way, Martyn normally plays that shot if you have seen him over the years you would know that.

 

[aussie]

Yeah, I like him too. That's why I'm looking forward to getting Channel 4 in the tests... Richie, Boycott, Nicholas etc.

Damn right, channel 4 commentators are without doubt the best set of commentators in the world, channel 9 group of Greig, Chappel, Healy, etc are as as good as them in my estimation.