***Official*** West Indies in Australia

[age_master]

Inevitable. The selectors tend to prefer having the 12th man as a bowler, and I think now that they've blooded Watson, he needs to be given a good shot in the side, just as Brad Hodge should have if he got the guernsey. Hodge now will probably be relegated to this generation's "Jamie Siddons", very unlucky to never played International cricket.

yep, his best shot was Katich not getting any runs in the FC match and him being dropped i reakon.

 

[Pratters]

Courtney Browne has retired from cricket, for the few who are interested.

So the last match he played was the ridiculous President's Cup final. What a stupid match and loss to end your career.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

glad to see MacGill in the squad, hope he is given a test place.

I'd much rather see Bracken.

*waits for Bracken to snare 10 in 1st Test*

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

So the last match he played was the ridiculous President's Cup final. What a stupid match and loss to end your career.

Stark contrast to Jacobs' curtain call really.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Great effort from Powell today. This Queensland side has 8 current or former Australian players in it, and it's certainly not a weak batting lineup. If it wasn't for Ryan Le Loux turning it on with the bat in his second ever FC match, Queensland could have been bowled out for 220 or 230 easily. As it is, it's still not a huge score.

 

[aussie]

Just on that...the biggest myth with Australian pitches, is that the Gabba is a 'greentop' for Test Matches. For Pura Cup games - yes, batting first can be a fate worse than death. However teams do not get sent in at the 'Gabba in Test Matches (no Nasser, I haven't forgotten about you, but look what happened when you did send them in) and get rolled. After the first hour, the 'Gabba is a ripper of a Test pitch to bat on.

Teams batting first at the Gabba in recent years:

2004: NZ 353 (Oram a century)
2003: Aust 323 (Langer a century)
2002: Aust 492
2001: Aust 486

The related idea that MacGill and Warne both cant play at the 'Gabba because the pitch seams, or is a 'greentop' is a load of outdated nonsense.

yea i know about all of that, but i have heard that their is a lot of rain in brisbane currently & those type of conditions could come about....

 

[Adamc]

Hmm, not too bad from WI point of view. Impressive effort from Powell to dismiss Hayden, Love, Watson and Hopes, poor return for Best though. A bit odd that WI went into the match with basically three bowlers, with Samuels bowling a lot of overs. Quite a good performance to keep Queensland to 300-ish in light of that, though it could've been much less at 7-183.

 

[aussie]

well now that Hinds is out i reckon the windies will play Samuels & aslo i have a gut feeling that conditions will suite & Bracken might get the nod over MacGill.

 

[tooextracool]

accuracy is not the only thing that equates to economy rate..

Harmo is as waywards as anyone often but with his bounce and trajectory those wayward balls while harmless to the batsman so far as takeing a wicket can at times be very hard to score off..

accuracy in ODIs is almost always related to ER. you cannot bowl harmless balls outside the off stump without it being called a wide and you cannot bowl harmless bouncers over the head of a batsman without it being called a no ball. it is possible for the ER to not equal accuracy in tests yes, but from what we saw from watson in the super test we can safely conclude that that is not the case.

Watson on the other hand low trajectory skidding action that will come onto the bat easy means batsman quite fancy slogging him even if his balls are of quite good length.

He is by no means an accurate bowlers yet but it's not a major weekness either..

he may not be wayward, but hes most certainly not 'reasonably accurate' which was what i was arguing against. and yes much like brett lee he has a low trajectory action, but thats no excuse to go for 5.08 in list A cricket.

 

[tooextracool]

yeah i must say im not a big fan of his bowling - than again in tests, if the selectors play 2 spinners while he is playing, he wont have that many overs to bowl - so his role will be more to keep it tight and take the odd wicket AND score heavily with the bat

cant see how picking only 2 frontline pace bowlers is going to work out, especially when they come across surfaces that offer something for the pacers. with lee in the side, the only thing you can guarantee is inconsistency and since watson provides almost nothing, its going to lead to a major disaster if they came across a seamer friendly surface with just mcgrath looking threatening.

 

[tooextracool]

Watson looked less threatening. Sehwag was eating him up. Constantly I was shocked to see a ball Sehwag would dispatch to the cover fence with amazing ease (more so than usual, anyway) and then the speed would come up and it would say 143km/h. Just don't understand it.

speed,without being express, and without any sideways movement rarely results in anything other than fielding practice for the crowd.

 

[tooextracool]

much like the Freddie post before late 2001, has i said before all Watson needs is more bowling at the highest level, then i'm sure his bowling will become more effective at test level..

the argument that watsons bowling will improve significantly is much like making an argument to continue picking someone whos scores 5 ducks in 6 innings, simply because marvan attapattu did it.

 

[tooextracool]

He's 24 with bugger all bowling behind him.

On Saturday, he was genuinely quick and also looked decidedly better with the bat whilst he was there than all others, including Hayden and Maher.

BTW, Id rather face Giles - inaccurate and unthreatening.

if giles is inaccurate, then one can only wonder what shane watson actually is.

 

[tooextracool]

Except he's in the team to take wickets when the pitch is turning, and he didn't do that.

and how many times had he not done it before that series?

 

[aussie]

the argument that watsons bowling will improve significantly is much like making an argument to continue picking someone whos scores 5 ducks in 6 innings, simply because marvan attapattu did it.

uh no, because Watson bowling does have potential all he needs is more bowling at the highest level & i'm sure he'll be able to find something that will be able to make him a good enough test match bowler, if not well at least he would have tried. Again i go back to Flintoff around 2000 to late 2001 his bowling wasn't good enough test match bowler but he was persisted with at test level & he gradually found added effectiveness in his bowling n look where he is now. Patience is the key....

 

[tooextracool]

Great effort from Powell today. This Queensland side has 8 current or former Australian players in it, and it's certainly not a weak batting lineup. If it wasn't for Ryan Le Loux turning it on with the bat in his second ever FC match, Queensland could have been bowled out for 220 or 230 easily. As it is, it's still not a huge score.

im glad powell did well, ive been impressed with him ever since i first saw him bowl in india. i certainly cant understand why best played ahead of lawson and collymore though, and i cant understand why they only have 3 frontline bowlers with samuels bowling more than everyone else.

 

[tooextracool]

uh no, because Watson bowling does have potential all he needs is more bowling at the highest level & i'm sure he'll be able to find something that will be able to make him a good enough test match bowler, if not well at least he would have tried. Again i go back to Flintoff around 200 to late 2001 his bowling was good enough test match bowler but he was persisted with at test level & he gradually found added effectiveness in his bowling n look where he is now. Patience is the key....

flintoff most certainly wasnt 'persisted' with at the test match level before 2001. he got picked for his batting abilites and then got dropped plenty of times because they were inadequate. he showed improvement in the australian cricket academy with both ball and bat and was then brought into the side in 2001.

 

[aussie]

flintoff most certainly wasnt 'persisted' with at the test match level before 2001. he got picked for his batting abilites and then got dropped plenty of times because they were inadequate. he showed improvement in the australian cricket academy with both ball and bat and was then brought into the side in 2001.

typo..., i meant it wasn't good enough.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

the argument that watsons bowling will improve significantly is much like making an argument to continue picking someone whos scores 5 ducks in 6 innings, simply because marvan attapattu did it.

Actually it's more like picking someone who made 5 ducks in 6 innings, but has a good first class record and just got a bunch of good deliveries. Watson is being persisted with (or at least, he MAY be persisted with) because it is considered that a) he can warrant his place with the bat, and b) he has the potential to improve with the ball. At the moment he's a good option, at least for a summer or so to see how he goes.

 

[Prince EWS]

im glad powell did well, ive been impressed with him ever since i first saw him bowl in india. i certainly cant understand why best played ahead of lawson and collymore though, and i cant understand why they only have 3 frontline bowlers with samuels bowling more than everyone else.

I completely agree with all of that. Powell, Lawson and Collymore are the West Indies best bowlers. If they decide to play four specialist quicks, Best, Collins and Edwards should fight it out based on form and conditions (obviously Collins would be useful if the pitch had a bit of grass and it was overcast, while Best would be a better choice if the pitch was quick and carried, with Edwards lying somewhere in between). I'd be inclined to just pick Powell, Lawson and Collymore though, with Bravo in there primarily for his bowling, and Gayle and Samuels to only bowl sparingly.