**Official**VB Series 2005 Australia,Pakistan,West Indies.

[Adamc]

Vintage Lara, that. Hauritz will be buying a round of drinks for the rest of the team after having Lara stumped off a no-ball though, and to a lesser extent, Cameron White might be a tad disappointed not to have him LBW.

The White LBW (if I am referring to the right one) was missing offstump comfortably IMO. The Hauritz no-balls however did cost him eight runs and a wicket, so if anyone's to blame...

 

[GotSpin]

That was hilarious seeing Lee getting hit like that

 

[age_master]

what? twice?

 

[Adamc]

what? twice?

Yes, twice. And it was hilarious on both occasions.

 

[bryce]

great game today, for the first time ever(i think) they showed a tour match in aussie on NZ tv which they don't even do when NZ are touring

 

[Gangster]

That Lara innings was absolutely sublime, reiterating in my mind that he is the best player of spin around. David Hussey must also be in consideration for the Australian squad with a century to follow his 83* a few days earlier, and Clarke out with an injury(?).

A few Indians might have something to say about whether Lara is the best player of spin around or not...

 

[Craig]

I would rank it was one Lara's better one day innings I have seen him play. His six off Brett Lee was simply brilliant. The good thing about these matches is the competitiveness of all the Australian sides the WI will come up against and will teach them to play well to beat these sides, because you will have to do so to beat AUstralia.

That is from playing a 2nd XI to an Australian 'A' side.

Other then that, what other changes would there be to the sides tomorrow? If Lara plays (I think he will) Samuels may sit out and a either one of King or Bradshaw would sit out for Dillon and Collins I would expect. If Lara doesn't he may move to five or six with either one or two of Collins and/or Dillon to come in. Ricardo Powell is coming to Australia to replace Ryan Hinds.

One think I do find interesting is that Bennet King and his backroom staff are Australian, and that King is an ex Queensland coach so I wonder if that will help them in discussing tatics in bowling to Hayden, Symonds etc.

 

[GotSpin]

lets hope so, I'd like an competitive series

 

[Adamc]

A few Indians might have something to say about whether Lara is the best player of spin around or not...

I would rate Lara ahead of anyone in the current Indian side in terms of playing spin, based on what i've seen. Certainly, Lara has better footwork against spinners (IMO) than any of the Indians. In terms of pure timing, someone like Laxman might be better than Lara. Lara's strength is that his footwork can turn good balls into bad ones, whereas Laxman, Sehwag et al are more adept at hitting balls out of the rough with minimal footwork; overall though, I would still rate Lara as #1.

 

[marc71178]

Vintage Lara, that. Hauritz will be buying a round of drinks for the rest of the team after having Lara stumped off a no-ball though,

To be fair to Hauritz, if Lara heard the call early, then he knew he could charge him without fear.

 

[marc71178]

A few Indians might have something to say about whether Lara is the best player of spin around or not...

I think this series may say something about Lara.

 

[Adamc]

To be fair to Hauritz, if Lara heard the call early, then he knew he could charge him without fear.

At that stage Lara was trying to hit every ball off the spinners for six (and justifiably so), so I doubt it would have made a difference whether he heard it or not.

 

[Josh]

That was hilarious seeing Lee getting hit like that

Well, that might be a sign of things to come... Will it be hilarious watching McGrath, Gillespie, Kasprowicz and Watson being smashed like that aswell??

 

[GotSpin]

Probably, though not kaspo or dizzy

 

[Adamc]

Well, that might be a sign of things to come... Will it be hilarious watching McGrath, Gillespie, Kasprowicz and Watson being smashed like that aswell??

It's always hilarious watching McGrath get smashed around. No other bowler gets riled quite as easily as he does.

 

[Craig]

Not for the batsman though http://forum.cricketweb.net/images/smilies/original/tongue.gif

 

[Crazy Sam]

adamc, akhtar gets a LOT more ****ed off than mcgrath these days.

and on hauritz, I thought it was poor captaincy/poor game plan today to have white bowl before hauritz. hauritz has a far superior record to white but haddin brought on white and let lara smash him around the park before bringing the specialist spinner on, with only 14 overs to go and with lara finding some good shots. hauritz may as well have not bothered turning up. white's batting is a little bit more than handy but he doesn't offer much else.

and here's hoping one of the form players (certainly most improved) for this ing season, james hopes, actually gets a run tomorrow.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

A few Indians might have something to say about whether Lara is the best player of spin around or not...

I know for a fact that Murali considers him the best player of spin he's ever seen. I heard somewhere that Warne indicated the same. His stats against both spinners would certainly back that up.

 

[Josh]

and on hauritz, I thought it was poor captaincy/poor game plan today to have white bowl before hauritz. hauritz has a far superior record to white but haddin brought on white and let lara smash him around the park before bringing the specialist spinner on

Tell us the truth.

"Hauritz is better than White because White is a Victorian" (im only joking around, no nasty stuff)

 

[Josh]

I know for a fact that Murali considers him the best player of spin he's ever seen. I heard somewhere that Warne indicated the same. His stats against both spinners would certainly back that up.

He is, of his time, the best player of spin bowling.