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*Official* Second Test at Lords

Demolition Man

State Vice-Captain
I wouldn't normally make a call like that and you know it, but seriously, I could bowl better than he is bowling in this game. It's absolute rubbish, it'd be smashed in domestic cricket, ****, I reckon I could've score a few off of his first spell on Day 1. It's seriously about ten times worse than in the Windies. The **** needs a boot up the arse for this puss.
Agree, I think he simply has to be dropped for Clark.Unless he figures out that the white lines on the ball is a seam and he should actually try to keep that upright before the next test.
 
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Prince EWS

Global Moderator
So you'd have this attack (may as well call it a defense) unchanged for the third Test?

I may be a knee-jerker, but I'd also like to win. Long-term selections for England and Australia are nearly always made circumspect to the next Ashes series. These bowlers have been groomed accordingly. If they misfire in a series like this, the selectorial faith has been misplaced (for this series, at least). Not having this stupid, stupid system of 'showing faith'. Two Tests is plenty of faith for a series your career has been building up to.

I would take your point if there wasn't a viable alternative. There is in Lee and Clark. You know, the lynchpins of our attack for the past two years.
I haven't disagreed with anything anyone who isn't a complete idiot has said on this forum for a very, very long time.

Bowling poorly in one Test does not mean you will bowl poorly in the next one. And in Johnson's case, bowling poorly doesn't even mean he won't be effective anyway. I personally actually think Clark is better than Johnson when both are at full fitness, but I have infinitely more faith in Johnson to get through his poor patch of form than I do of Clark to actually be fully fit and ready to bowl at his best.

You do not go from destroying one of the best teams in the world home and away, being lauded as the best quick in the world and being the leading wicket-taker in Test cricket over the past twelve months having played mainly against quality batting lineups to not being in the team after one below-average showing and one poor one. It's so tremendously fickle to suggest so that it's well and truly beyond any sort of sound logic.
 
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Briony

International Debutant
I don't think that Mitch destroyed SA at on our soil though. He had an excellent spell in the first innings in Perth, and took advantage of the cracks in Sydney but wasn't that penetrative in Melbourne and couldn't bowl us to victory in Perth. He vacillated between looking dangerous and ordinary during the series.
 

dontcloseyoureyes

BARNES OUT
You do not go from destroying one of the best teams in the world home and away, being lauded as the best quick in the world and being the leading wicket-taker in Test cricket over the past twelve months having played mainly against quality batting lineups to not being in the team after one below-average showing and one poor one. It's so tremendously fickle to suggest so that it's well and truly beyond any sort of sound logic.
Tell that to Brett Lee.
 

LongHopCassidy

International Captain
I haven't disagreed with anything anyone who isn't a complete idiot has said on this forum for a very, very long time.

Bowling poorly in one Test does not mean you will bowl poorly in the next one. And in Johnson's case, bowling poorly doesn't even mean he won't be effective anyway. I personally actually think Clark is better than Johnson when both are at full fitness, but I have infinitely more faith in Johnson to get through his poor patch of form than I do of Clark to actually be fully fit and ready to bowl at his best.

You do not go from destroying one of the best teams in the world home and away, being lauded as the best quick in the world and being the leading wicket-taker in Test cricket over the past twelve months having played mainly against quality batting lineups to not being in the team after one below-average showing and one poor one. It's so tremendously fickle to suggest so that it's well and truly beyond any sort of sound logic.
That's where we agree to disagree, then. I would back Clark, playing with whatever modicum of form he has, to not aggravate his fitness problem further over Johnson bowling to an acceptable standard in the next Test.

Having said that, I wouldn't mind Clark coming in for Hauritz either, but I don't think over-rates will permit.
 

LongHopCassidy

International Captain
He got injured so the selectors clearly had no choice. Completely different situation and you know it. It's not like I was against playing Lee when we were all under the assumption he'd be fit for this series, either.
Fair enough if you didn't oppose his inclusion, but the poor bloke sprays one ball down leg-side or gets pulled through midwicket and we get people saying he was mediocre all along, that he's a green-top bully, that he has seasonal affective disorder, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Johnson is worth persisting with, just not with an Ashes series on the line and him bowling like the tall geeky kid in the Outer Rockhampton under-14s with no guarantee that he'll get better with a week's notice.
 
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pup11

International Coach
I think talks of dropping Mitch is a bit ridiculous, but its also fair enough to say that he can't go on bowling like this, because he is pretty much undoing all the good work done by the other quicks.

Any bowler who can't move the ball in England is gonna struggle, because there isn't much life in the English decks to just look to get people out with pace alone, therefore I think Johnson needs to try to be a bit more conservative, and maybe look to support Siddle and Hilfenhaus, he is such an enigmatic bowler that he might still get people out, but its about time he bowls with some sort of a plan and sticks with it, rather than being all over the shop.
 

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