Playing Australia

[Craig]

I hate it when people think or seem to have this mentatity that Australia are unbeatable. Its that mentatlity is the reason why Australia wins so much. Teams just dont believe in themselves. Namely England.

For me when you arrive in Australia you must have every member of the squad thinking 'we can beat these guys' and you must believe it as well. Its one thing to say it at the press confrences, but the whole squad must all believe it themselves.

Also I dont think teams do enough research on the Australians and set plans for each member of the Australian team, and if they do they dont stick with it long enough.

To me teams lose confidence in themselves when Australia get a good start. To me it's all about planning, research and confidence.

Agree, disagree or not. Give me reasons why.

 

[Gaijin-san]

I would absolutely mess my pants if I had to take on the Aussies.

 

[Craig]

I wouldnt.

 

[iamdavid]

I would absolutely mess my pants if I had to take on the Aussies.

Id pay good money to watch you taking on the Aussies Ged :P

11.4 Lee to Armstrong , tries to avoid a quick short ball & ends up ****-over-head on the ground next to square leg umpire

34.3 Armstrong to Hayden , half tracker at 30kph , Hayden rocks back & dispatches it into the upper tier of the Gabba to bring up his 250!

 

[Gaijin-san]

What's Haydos doing on 250 after 34.3 overs? Wouldn't Australia have declared on 0/800 after 25 overs?? (Maybe 1 down if Marto opened :P)

 

[Richard]

I hate it when people think or seem to have this mentatity that Australia are unbeatable. Its that mentatlity is the reason why Australia wins so much. Teams just dont believe in themselves. Namely England.

For me when you arrive in Australia you must have every member of the squad thinking 'we can beat these guys' and you must believe it as well. Its one thing to say it at the press confrences, but the whole squad must all believe it themselves.

Also I dont think teams do enough research on the Australians and set plans for each member of the Australian team, and if they do they dont stick with it long enough.

To me teams lose confidence in themselves when Australia get a good start. To me it's all about planning, research and confidence.

Agree, disagree or not. Give me reasons why.

Too many batsmen don't realise how easy runs are to make against Australia. Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly and (eventually) Tendulkar didn't trouble themselves with this, though the knowledge that McGrath was out can't have it's effects underestimated. Nor, of course, can the lack of Warne.
Too many bowlers are intimidated by the like of Hayden and Gilchrist, instead of concentrating on the fact that, like everyone, they do have faults - big ones, that are possible to exploit if you're good enough.
Often recently, there have been substandard teams taking them on anyway (if England really thought they could win with Dawson, Giles, Hoggard, Harmison, Trescothick, Key-in-the-middle-order and the like they're seriously deluded - especially as, once again, it was "the best chance we've had recently"!). Clearly they're not going to have much of a chance.

 

[Richard]

I would absolutely mess my pants if I had to take on the Aussies.

Naturally you would - you're not a Test or even top-level standard player!

 

[marc71178]

if England really thought they could win with Dawson, Giles, Hoggard, Harmison, Trescothick, Key-in-the-middle-order and the like they're seriously deluded

So what side out of the players available at the time would you have taken then?

It's far too easy to criticise people without offering alternatives.

 

[Armadillo]

IMO the vulnerability of the Australian bowling attack was recently shown by India, and if other teams could do what india did then Aussie might not be the team to beat.

 

[iamdavid]

IMO the vulnerability of the Australian bowling attack was recently shown by India, and if other teams could do what india did then Aussie might not be the team to beat.

I think the 'vulnerability' of the attack has been a tad overdone since the India test series.
Now sure the attack which we put together on the day was exposed , but really if the selectors had been smart about it then we would never have ended up with an attack of Bracken , Lee (half fit) , Williams & MacGill in the first place.

I think even without McGrath we have one of the better seam attacks around , its just a matter of picking guys like Kasprowics & in time Inness , Cleary & Tait .
While picking Bracken & Williams less.

Kaspa's selection for the SRL tour shows that the selectors are learning & Im sure next time we are placed in that situation we'll fair much better.

 

[Richard]

So what side out of the players available at the time would you have taken then?

It's far too easy to criticise people without offering alternatives.

I wasn't criticising the selectors, none of those players had been proven substandard beyond doubt.
I was just saying that none of them would offer a challenge to Australia and there were some who believed they would.

 

[Richard]

I think the 'vulnerability' of the attack has been a tad overdone since the India test series.
Now sure the attack which we put together on the day was exposed , but really if the selectors had been smart about it then we would never have ended up with an attack of Bracken , Lee (half fit) , Williams & MacGill in the first place.

I think even without McGrath we have one of the better seam attacks around , its just a matter of picking guys like Kasprowics & in time Inness , Cleary & Tait .
While picking Bracken & Williams less.

Kaspa's selection for the SRL tour shows that the selectors are learning & Im sure next time we are placed in that situation we'll fair much better.

Someone (I thought it was you) told me Tait and Cleary had unsustainable actions.
They don't, yet, look anything special anyway.

 

[ReallyCrazy]

India decalred on 705/7 in the last test. Enuff said!

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Against a second string Aussie attack. I have no doubt in my mind that a fully fit Australian team would have won that series.

 

[Gaijin-san]

Naturally you would - you're not a Test or even top-level standard player!

Yet the mentality remains, Richard.

I've seen what Australia has done to people on the TV and such. I'm sure many of the international teams have too.

 

[Ford_GTHO351]

What's Haydos doing on 250 after 34.3 overs? Wouldn't Australia have declared on 0/800 after 25 overs?? (Maybe 1 down if Marto opened :P)

I assume that Hayden is on 250 after say 155 balls at a strike rate of 161.29.

Also if Australia was 0/800 after 25 overs, they would be scoring at 32.00 rpo.

 

[marc71178]

I wasn't criticising the selectors, none of those players had been proven substandard beyond doubt.

So go on then, name your side that should have toured then.

You clearly know more about Cricket than the rest of us put together.

 

[Mr. P]

Someone (I thought it was you) told me Tait and Cleary had unsustainable actions.
They don't, yet, look anything special anyway.

:rolleyes:

Please tell me you have seen them play. You CANNOT judge those you have not seen.

 

[Eclipse]

Tait's action only has one flaw that is it's possibly going to result in injury down the track.

As far as effectivnes goes there is nothing wrong with it at all he generates heaps of pace and swing plus a good deal of bounce and seam.

 

[bennyr]

Also I dont think teams do enough research on the Australians and set plans for each member of the Australian team, and if they do they dont stick with it long enough.

To me teams lose confidence in themselves when Australia get a good start. To me it's all about planning, research and confidence.

I reckon you're spot on, Craig. When you look at recent Test series involving Australia they have been seriously stretched thrice - against India in the series just gone and in 2001 and against NZ in 2001.

While you could argue there were circumstances that assisted the opposition in both teams cases (absence of Warne and McGrath against India and weather against NZ), both NZ and India were led by captains that were able to instill a belief that the Aussies could be beaten into their teams, and NZ in particular backed it up with the right tactics to frustrate the Aussie machine.

And once that machine is thrown off it's original plan, it can become vulnerable.