So what went wrong?

[Redbacks]

Sutherland was already remeniscing about the SA series on the radio tonight

I think TEC is on the money, whilst our bowling IMO was good bar Johnson, given the pre series expectations most Australians would have held, it was the simple fact that England's bowlers when the conditions were right were able to put together such a higher standard of bowling (i.e. they had more in the shed not just that we underpeformed), coupled with our middle order failing to stem the tide during these periods, that allowed England to win their two matches so convincingly.

But I don't think our batting failed 1 time it was 3 times that we collapsed, if we think back to RSA i'm pretty sure we had an innings in each match where we were rolled in quick time also, that's a worrying trend.

 

[pup11]

'Sacking Ponting would be completely unfair' - Sutherland

James Sutherland, Cricket Australia's chief executive, has said sacking Ricky Ponting from the captaincy would be "completely unfair" and has praised his leadership through the Ashes. Australia lost The Oval Test by 197 runs and conceded their second Ashes defeat to England this decade.

"Ricky's had a very, very good series," Sutherland told reporters. "He's been under incredible pressure. I thought the dignity and poise that he showed in defeat was something that all Australians should be very proud of."

He also absolved the National Selection Panel (NSP) of responsibility for the defeat in England. One of the talking points in the post mortem was the omission of the offspinner Nathan Hauritz, which captain Ricky Ponting and coach Tim Nielsen admitted was a blunder. Hauritz's counterpart Graeme Swann proved why a spinner was so essential on that pitch as he picked up eight wickets. Sutherland defended the team management for the final line-up, implying that not all gambles are likely to pay-off.

"I think everyone will be looking for people to blame. I don't think that in anyway we can hold the selectors accountable for us losing the Ashes," Sutherland told Sportal. "At the end of the day, the players go out and do the business on the field.

"Only six or seven months ago we had a fantastic series in South Africa where we beat the No.1 team in the world (2-1 in the Tests) with a pretty similar line-up. The selectors were hailed for their selection, I guess in some ways the perceived risks they took in backing young talent. I think it would be jumping to conclusions to be blaming the selectors for this."

Sutherland said it would be unfair to criticise the decision to play a four-pronged pace attack at the expense of Hauritz, while it was clear that Australia effectively lost the game when they conceded a huge first-innings lead of 172.

"That's something that the selectors can explain for themselves," Sutherland said. "Whether that had any bearing on the result of the game, who will know? We've lost the game by 200 runs, it's a pretty significant defeat, and having a spinner in the side wouldn't have helped us in the first innings, where we were bowled out for 160 and effectively lost the game."

With Australia free-falling to No.4 in the latest ICC Test rankings, Sutherland admitted that plenty of work had to be done to reinstate their position at the top.

"I don't think Cricket Australia is under any illusions as to where this team is at. We're definitely in a re-building phase after losing some of the best players to ever play cricket for Australia, and right now, what you get with a young and relatively inexperienced team is some ebbs and flows in performance.

"We saw a little bit of that in the Ashes series. Our best cricket was very, very good, and our not-so-good cricket, in a couple of critical moments, were really the reasons why we let the Ashes slip."

Commenting on likely changes to the selection panel, Sutherland said at least one position in the three-man panel, led by Andrew Hilditch, will be converted to a full-time role.

"The selection panel is to some extent, professional already. We have in recent times had a review, where we are now moving to a phase of becoming more professional in our approach to selection. It's not just selection, it's a matter of identifying talent and being partners in the development of talent and I think that's part of the review and going forward we'll be moving towards having at least one of the selection panel full time."

However, he ruled out the possibility of appointing the captain and coach to the panel, on the lines of what New Zealand Cricket adopted on Sunday. "The captain and the coach are always heavily consulted before matches but the structure that we prefer is for the selectors to be independent and making their own decisions and to be accountable for selection on that basis."

This is what Sutherland said, and this is utter BS, I agree with what he said regarding Ponting, but seriously why can't he just chuck away his ego and accept that they made a mistake, the first step to solving a problem is accepting that you have a problem, but people who are running things in CA atm obviously live in their own cacoon world, where they think everything they do is right.

 

[Redbacks]

Not as bad as I thought. I listen to commercial radio on the way home from work, explains it all.

e.g. "The police aren't happy after some bloke held up a servo today." Yep, that's Nova for you.

 

[inbox24]

This is what Sutherland said, and this is utter BS, I agree with what he said regarding Ponting, but seriously why can't he just chuck away his ego and accept that they made a mistake, the first step to solving a problem is accepting that you have a problem, but people who are running things in CA atm obviously live in their own cacoon world, where they think everything they do is right.

Totally AWTA.

But what do you expect really? These guys are politicians, if they admit all their mistakes there would be riot and they'd be out of job.

 

[BoyBrumby]

This is what Sutherland said, and this is utter BS, I agree with what he said regarding Ponting, but seriously why can't he just chuck away his ego and accept that they made a mistake, the first step to solving a problem is accepting that you have a problem, but people who are running things in CA atm obviously live in their own cacoon world, where they think everything they do is right.

I think Sutherland defending the selection of 4 seamers based on having won in SA with the same sort of attack is pretty weak. If one follows that train of thought why then was Hauritz included at Cardiff, when most of us (myself included) assumed he'd be left out?

I do have more sympathy for him saying we read the pitch wrongly too (although admittedly Panesar's woeful form for Northants mitigated against him playing anyway), but it's precisely because the reading of pitches isn't an exact science that I advocate a spinner where possible for such eventualities as The Oval.

 

[Craig]

I think Sutherland defending the selection of 4 seamers based on having won in SA with the same sort of attack is pretty weak. If one follows that train of thought why then was Hauritz included at Cardiff, when most of us (myself included) assumed he'd be left out?

I do have more sympathy for him saying we read the pitch wrongly too (although admittedly Panesar's woeful form for Northants mitigated against him playing anyway), but it's precisely because the reading of pitches isn't an exact science that I advocate a spinner where possible for such eventualities as The Oval.

If Panesar had been in form, would you have played him?

 

[BoyBrumby]

If Panesar had been in form, would you have played him?

If he'd taken 50 wickets at 15 for Northants this season, then yes I'd strongly have considered it. As it was tho he was a waste of a spot in the squad.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

If England had a half decent Test class spinner people like Panesar who'd done little to justify his selection and someone like Swann who's never been anything more than a good County pro would never have played for England.

 

[BoyBrumby]

If England had a half decent Test class spinner people like Panesar who'd done little to justify his selection and someone like Swann who's never been anything more than a good County pro would never have played for England.

& if my auntie had a penis, she'd be my uncle.

In fact we've not really had an unreservedly decent test spinner since I've been watching (early-mid 80s). Tuffers flattered to deceive and was tempramentally suspect, Monty seems unable or unwilling to even attempt to grow as a player and blokes like Emburey and Giles attract adjectives like "solid", "decent" & "workmanlike".

 

[Lillian Thomson]

& if my auntie had a penis, she'd be my uncle.

Not if she borrowed it from next door.

 

[Midwinter]

What went wrong ?

Absolutely stunned when they walked without Clark in the first test. Remember the conditions were more favourable than in the last game, and even then he went for only two runs an over.

Most people are admitting now that Johnson was rubbish for most of the series but Siddle was almost as bad
Haddin's byes were mainly due to Siddle sending them down to fine leg

What was wrong dropping these blokes for a game or two. You can always bring them back
Like the batting, it seemed that the selectors were unable to admit that things needed changing. Like jackasses they made a decision and stubbornly stuck with it even when losing !.

For me the only certainties in the next test team are Clarke, Katich and Haddin.

Even Punter, he's not what he used to be and should be made to earn his spot.
Hussey is going the same way as Hayden did last summer, no longer quite there. He has to make runs in shield cricket or make way.

For everyone else, it should be - play the first three shield games and pick the best from there.

 

[pup11]

I think Sutherland defending the selection of 4 seamers based on having won in SA with the same sort of attack is pretty weak. If one follows that train of thought why then was Hauritz included at Cardiff, when most of us (myself included) assumed he'd be left out?

I do have more sympathy for him saying we read the pitch wrongly too (although admittedly Panesar's woeful form for Northants mitigated against him playing anyway), but it's precisely because the reading of pitches isn't an exact science that I advocate a spinner where possible for such eventualities as The Oval.

Sutherland is just making a bigger joke of himself and the Australian team by turning his back to an obvious problem and conveniently living in the past, the selectors always keep talking about this horses for courses approach, but it very rarely gets implemented, what happened in RSA (which were totally different conditions) shouldn't even have been mentioned in the present context.

Every average fan knows that Australia didn't pick the right team at the Oval, and for him to come out and defend that blunder only makes matters worse.

 

[NUFAN]

What went wrong ?

Absolutely stunned when they walked without Clark in the first test. Remember the conditions were more favourable than in the last game, and even then he went for only two runs an over.

Most people are admitting now that Johnson was rubbish for most of the series but Siddle was almost as bad
Haddin's byes were mainly due to Siddle sending them down to fine leg

What was wrong dropping these blokes for a game or two. You can always bring them back
Like the batting, it seemed that the selectors were unable to admit that things needed changing. Like jackasses they made a decision and stubbornly stuck with it even when losing !.

For me the only certainties in the next test team are Clarke, Katich and Haddin.

Even Punter, he's not what he used to be and should be made to earn his spot.
Hussey is going the same way as Hayden did last summer, no longer quite there. He has to make runs in shield cricket or make way.

For everyone else, it should be - play the first three shield games and pick the best from there.

Haha. Are you seriously suggesting that Simon Katich has his name penciled into the next Test more so then Ponting? They'll both play but waaat?

 

[Midwinter]

Check his figures for last summer and this series some good runs but how many times did he make them when it counted.

I know he is not the only one but he's not sacred, he was great, now he is occasionally very good .

 

[tooextracool]

Nope, don't agree with this, it very easy to blame our inexperienced bowling attack for this debacle, but I think the blame lies firmly with the batting line-up, we had three shoddy 1st innings batting performances in this, and unsurprisingly for most of the time we were on the receiving end in all three of those tests.

Its also pretty easy to say that we should have taken that last wicket at Cardiff, and tbh 9 times out of 10, we might knock over Jimmy or Monty in that sort of situation, but at times you just need to accept that some things are just not meant to be, on that Cardiff pitch where English bowlers were just able to take 6 Aussie wickets, it was a very good effort on the part of our bowlers to get us that close to winning the game, but unfortunately we weren't good enough to take that final wicket.

There may have been 3 batting collapses, but 2 of them were down to extraordinary bowling efforts. Jimmy swinging the ball both ways around corners was always to trigger a collapse and Broad getting the ball to swing and cut off the pitch at the Oval was the same. It's almost like Lords in 2005, no one in their right mind would suggest that England batted poorly in that game. It was a mind blowing spell that was simply very difficult to counter.

 

[tooextracool]

If Panesar had been in form, would you have played him?

If Panesar was any good, I would consider playing him.

 

[Ikki]

Did the bowlers really let us down? Really? I don't think so. They regularly kept England to par scores but were given too much to do when the batting line-up really **** itself in those two tests.

 

[tooextracool]

Did the bowlers really let us down? Really? I don't think so. They regularly kept England to par scores but were given too much to do when the batting line-up really **** itself in those two tests.

ENGLAND is a **** batting team, moreso after they lost one of their 2 test class batters. Do you not realize that allowing them to get par scores was the problem ITFP?

 

[Ikki]

ENGLAND is a **** batting team, moreso after they lost one of their 2 test class batters. Do you not realize that allowing them to get par scores was the problem ITFP?

Not a great bowling team either TBF. But I take your point. I personally thought we were letting them get to scores they shouldn't be getting but worse than that was the scores our batsmen should have been getting but weren't. The bowlers didn't really do anything as poor as our batsmen did in the first innings at Lords or the Oval.

 

[tooextracool]

Not a great bowling team either TBF. But I take your point. I personally thought we were letting them get to scores they shouldn't be getting but worse than that was the scores our batsmen should have been getting but weren't. The bowlers didn't really do anything as poor as our batsmen did in the first innings at Lords or the Oval.

You are right in that England are not a great bowling team. They did however bowl some very good spells during the series that changed games on their heads.

For me, the Australian bowlers were steady but rarely threatening. At many times during the series, you felt that the England batsmen had just tossed their wickets away when everything looked so easy rather than Australian bowlers getting them out. Only at Leeds did the bowlers actually get England out, for the rest of the series the batsmen just obliged.

I take your point that the Australian bowlers were rarely poor during the series whilst their batting veered from excellent to fragile at some points. However, even that collapse at Lords was on the back of a very poor bowling performance in the first innings at Lords which arguably had just as much of an impact on the game as the bad batting did.