*Official* Quarter Final 2 - India v Australia

[pup11]

No I'm referring to Pup's post.

Last time I checked Nielsen doesn't pick the team and his job is to support and manage the lads that have been provided to him, but from what I've seen or heard he likes to play the boss and hence doesn't like his authority and decisions being questioned no matter how stupid they are.

Nielsen is dumb I realised this the day when he came out in the press at the end day 4 during the Mohali test in 2008 and said that they were looking to chase a target of 520, that clearly showed to me what sort of cricketing head he has on his shoulders.

 

[pup11]

If the Aussies negotiate Zak successfully, they will win this game IMO. The number of right-handers in their lineup will assist their cause.

Forget about Zak, I'm pretty sure the 30-40 overs out of 50 would be bowled by the spinners and given the way we played likes of Hafeez in the last game I'm pretty nervous about our prospects.

 

[smash84]

Forget about Zak, I'm pretty sure the 30-40 overs out of 50 would be bowled by the spinners and given the way we played likes of Hafeez in the last game I'm pretty nervous about our prospects.

Hafeez isn't as good as the Aussies made him look tbh

 

[Spark]

Hafeez isn't as good as Haddin made him look tbh

It was basically just Haddin. Everyone else who faced him for any reasonable amount of time played him normally. But Haddin was insistent in hitting the ball straight back to him.

 

[smash84]

It was basically just Haddin. Everyone else who faced him for any reasonable amount of time played him normally. But Haddin was insistent in hitting the ball straight back to him.

not really. I thought pretty much everybody struggled against him. He had figures of 26-1 in 10 overs. Even Clarke was not looking good against him. The only guy who was looking comfortable against spin was Mussey and he got out in a very soft manner.

 

[pup11]

Hafeez isn't as good as the Aussies made him look tbh

Wasn't that exactly my point, that if we can make Hafeez look that good think what we are gonna do against likes of Harbhajan and Ashwin....

 

[Spark]

Thought Clarke looked fine myself. Picked out a few fielders too often and played one or two bizarre shots, but it was that sort of day.

Hussey didn't stay in long enough to really say whether he looked comfortable.

Think Harbhajan will keep it tight and look threatening. Don't know if he'll take any wickets. Ashwin the main threat to me.

 

[pup11]

Thought Clarke looked fine myself. Picked out a few fielders too often and played one or two bizarre shots, but it was that sort of day.

Hussey didn't stay in long enough to really say whether he looked comfortable.

Think Harbhajan will keep it tight and look threatening. Don't know if he'll take any wickets. Ashwin the main threat to me.

Jeez.. mate why no love for poor Hadds..!!? You keep making it sound as if Haddin is the worst player of spin in the Australian side and that's definitely not the case.

The lad has obviously been asked to be cautious and crub his natural instincts and to his credit he has done exactly that, after 6 games in this tournament he is the highest run scorer in the Australian side.

Obviously in his usual fashion he isn't sailing down the pitch and whacking spinners for 6's over their heads but he still making the runs, therefore the onus is on the rest of the batsmen to pick up the RR.

 

[Spark]

He isn't, and he's probably one of the better ones in terms of posing a threat. Which made seeing him hit balls back to the bowler rather than two metres either side to pick up a single so frustrating.

The problem with Haddin is basically that given the number of big shots he attempts, you'd think he was going at a run a ball - not 60 or 70. If he was actually trying to block out then fine. But he isn't - he's just failing to get most of his shots away. It's incredibly frustrating.

 

[smash84]

Wasn't that exactly my point, that if we can make Hafeez look that good think what we are gonna do against likes of Harbhajan and Ashwin....

yes but i was only reinforcing your point and not going against it

 

[pup11]

He isn't, and he's probably one of the better ones in terms of posing a threat. Which made seeing him hit balls back to the bowler rather than two metres either side to pick up a single so frustrating.

The problem with Haddin is basically that given the number of big shots he attempts, you'd think he was going at a run a ball - not 60 or 70. If he was actually trying to block out then fine. But he isn't - he's just failing to get most of his shots away. It's incredibly frustrating.

Haddin is not a natural worker of the ball he is someone who uses his feet and whacks the ball and looks to play very straight, so the role he has now been given is pretty alien to him.

Yet as I said he has been consistent and has been scoring runs in pretty much all the games like he was told to do, its likes of Ponting, Clarke, White, Smith who need to raise the bar of their game to complement Haddin's role.

 

[Spark]

Not sure what more Clarke needs to do, he's averaging 100+ already in this tournament. If Haddin's no good at working, then why has he been asked to do the worker's job? As I said if he was actually looking to play the role of the worker and milk the singles whilst protecting his wicket, that's fine. But far too often he throws caution to the wind, backs away to leg and tries to hammer the bowler through cover - to no result.

 

[Ikki]

White just has to go, he looks horribly out of touch and worldcup knock-out stage isn't the place for him to find form, with Dussey coming in at #6 we have a good attacking strokeplayer against spin and his offies too add another dimension to the bowling attack.

Would rather Smith go. He really isn't contributing with either bat or ball. White at least has the potential to win these matches on his own, if the others struggle. Smith is nowhere near that important to either our bowling or batting.

 

[Spark]

That's mostly due to his position in the batting lineup and the fact that Ponting doesn't know how to bowl him properly, tbh.

 

[Sylvester]

Australia v Zimbabwe: Ricky Ponting urges Brad Haddin to score big | Cricket News | ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 | ESPN Cricinfo

Top order too slow: Ponting | Cricket World Cup 2011, Live Cricket | Fox Sports

Take a look at the guy doing some back tracking.

 

[Ikki]

Well, I don't rate either his batting or bowling in this format and would much rather White's ability to take away the game from the opposition. With respect to what you say, Smith's going to get no more than 20-30 runs and will take 1 wicket at most. I'd much rather Hussey (D) than Smith. Hussey is going to be no worse with the ball, can also contribute that much with the bat and if (god forbid) we need a saviour he can do that role.

 

[Spark]

Well it's a hypothetical then. You're basically banking on White's capability vs. Smith's actual results, which you cannot deny have been vastly superior of late. Which is fair enough, but I just don't think you'll really gain anything but swapping Smith for Hussey.

 

[Ikki]

What I am saying is that Smith's ability to make 20-30 runs (he doesn't even have 1 50 to his name yet) is useless in the face of us needing more than that. White is far more important to us winning this cup than Smith. Smith's contribution is going to be minimal (most likely) and he should not have a spot in this side based on the small role he plays. White on the other hand can be our star batsman. Sure, he is out of form, but it wasn't very long ago he was making batting look piss easy.

In essence, I'd much rather White's 10 runs with the potential to make far more once he gets going, than the 20 runs Smith is likely to get however with the big unknown of whether he can actually win us a match if the need arises.

 

[Spark]

Yeah, fair enough, but swapping Dussey for Smith just strikes me as arranging the deckchairs, and won't really achieve anything.

I certainly don't see White, Dussey or anyone doing a better job at number 7. Don't forget he doesn't bowl any more. The main reason Smith's not made any decent scores is he hasn't had time, really.

 

[Top_Cat]

Really mate..!? I mean Ponting gets flogged pretty much from everywhere for the drop in Australia's performance in recent times and I don't see why it should be any different for Nielsen.

Read what I said again. I'm not suggesting anyone's above criticism, I'm saying pinning all or even most of it on Nielsen is crazy considering how much we all know about how distributed decision-making amongst the set-up these days.

Anyways, I just hate it when Nielsen comes out in the press and talks because the guy obviously has no know-how of handling the media because its just stupid to go out there and hype up an already challenging game by calling it a 'mini-final'.

Now this is ridiculous. Every time Australia comes up against a co-favourite, someone says this. It's been said so often it's a cliche!