What has been the single biggest contributing factor to Australia's demise?

[benchmark00]

They are playing reasonably well for the last 18 months. Why exactly do they need to get rid of all these players? Just because of one poor series in India? and then recall 35-40 olds back?

Exactly, why pick players who won't do much better, and probably do worse, on top of the fact they won't be there in 18 months time max. Not doing anyone any good.

 

[NUFAN]

Australia's biggest problem is that the current generation of mid-late 20s batsmen are all gash. For one reason or another, the likes of Ferguson, Marsh, Pomersbach and North have all failed to live up to expectation. Imagine if Marsh and Ferguson had have lived up to what their natural talents suggested that they could have achieved and Jaques had not had his back injury. We'd have a couple of batsmen entering their prime after a couple of years in the squad, a 45+ averaging opener who was nearing the end of his career and Clarke in the middle order. Sure, we still wouldn't be up to the standard that we were in the past, but it's really the failures of the administration to get the best out of what should be the current generation of batsmen that's the issue.

Our team would look a whole lot better if this was the shape of it:

Jaques^
Warner
Marsh*
Ferguson*
Clarke
Watson
Wade
4 bowlers+

^If Jaques hadn't gotten injured and was still performing at or near the level he was before his back injury
*If these two had have kicked on to become the 45 averaging batsmen that they very well could have been
+We would still be weak in the spin department, but our quicks have been as good as, if not better than the fast bowling stocks we had during the 95-07 era.

Hughes would have been pounding down the door and we'd all be rather optimistic about the future of the Australian team right now.

I get your point I really do but... where would Ponting and Hussey have fit into the above team? Something would have changed for sure, like Warner not getting the same chances.

 

[BoyBrumby]

So what do you want the selectors to do with Katich and Hodge (who has just as many glaring problems as David Hussey)? They don't play first class cricket in this country ffs. I reckon Matthew Hayden would probably still be better than Cowan, but he doesn't play either.

Brumbeh it's weird that you have that many problems with Hughes but not with Rogers, hardly an oil painting to look at. Sometimes you have to look beneath the raw numbers.

If Hughes hadn't have had a pretty extended crack at tests I'd be advocating his inclusion too, in all likelihood.

I don't like watching him much (I'll be honest and say I'm not a massive fan of Cook's batting either, if it comes to that) but runs cancel any aesthetic considerations every single time.

Trouble is that he has. I'm from the Kingdom of blokes with great FC records not making the step up to tests and there must be an inkling Hughes belongs with the Ramprakashes and Hicks of the world by now.

 

[Cabinet96]

Yeah, I don't get this whole desperate search for why Australia aren't the best team in the world at the moment. All sides go through periods where they don't produce as many high class players as they have before, and if that coincides with other countries going through purple patches of loads of talented players, then they'll fall behind them in the rankings. Sure there are ways you could improve Australian cricket at the moment, but if people think there is a quick solution which will make them indisputably the best side in the world at the moment, they're kidding themselves. The reason they're not the best at the moment goes all the way back to club cricket at junior level.

 

[Goughy]

Other teams getting better. In professional sport the margins are so small that a small demise and a corresponding small improvement in opposition wipes away any advantage.

 

[Redbacks]

Sept 15, Australia will be competent again.

 

[Daemon]

Poll lacks 'They don't have as many gun players as before' option. The transition phase theory is such bollocks, it's not like any team has a right to be ranked at a certain place.

 

[Red]

I sort of get the Katich and Hodge arguments, but both these guys were fringe Australian players WHEN THEY WERE IN THEIR PRIME. That was ten years ago now.

 

[Daemon]

Just read through the thread, PEWS has been excellent. This thread should be a must read for anyone posting about Australian selection, especially Victorians.

 

[dhillon28]

Two cricinfo articles relevant to current discussion:

Matt Cleary : The worst Australians since the last lot | Cricket Blogs | ESPN Cricinfo


Numbers Game: Australia's gaping hole at No. 3 | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo


Still can't believe that since 2010 Australia has had a lower batting average at no.3 than Bangladesh!!

 

[Top_Cat]

Hodge has retired from first class cricket and wasn't the world saver people make him out to be. Has big technical flaws on wickets with any life in them but cashes in on roads.

God, thank you.

My thoughts on this topic are well-documented.

 

[robelinda]

Has to be the batting. I'd even say someone like Andrew Symonds was pivotal in the batting going south, after he was booted out we were weaker, and we just spent 2 years on him and he was coming really good after the MCG 06 test. 2009 and he is gone, he was becoming destructive at #6. We got Marcus North as a replacement, and that was just abysmal. Jacques is the other, injured and never played again. in that one year 2009, it all changed. We had bowlers, we still have bowlers. By end of 2009 We lost Hayden, Symonds, MacGill and Hogg, and began to enter life with Watson opening, which I think has stuffed the team around ever since that 3rd Ashes 09 test.

2009 is it for me, the year it dawned on us that the cattle in shield cricket just wasnt up it scratch, Hughes came and went, North, McDonald, all tired and failed. Hodge shouldve played again in that year, but didnt happen. Johnson had zero idea in england, it wasnt expected. Tough tough year that was.

 

[Spikey]

lack of hammocks

 

[robelinda]

lack of hammocks

Business hammocks?? why didn't I think of that. LOL.

#hammockdistrict #maryannshammocks

 

[MartinB]

There has been a Lack of Quality players coming through. Fast Bowler are starting to come through now. If Australia can keep some of the young Bowlers on the field, the attack should be OK.

Tasmania has won the last 2 Shefield Shields; Tasmania has 500,000 people (includes a lot of Retirees) to draw on. That is maybe twice resources that the top Club sides in Sydney '/ Melbourne would have.

Tasmania won the shield because the other state sides[\B] have fallen below Tasmania's level, not because Tasmania has been producing Top Quality players. The 2 best batsmen Tasmania has produced are Ponting and Boon (15 + years ago), They have not produced any Quality Batsmen in the last 15 years but they have been winning the Sheffield Shield !!!

 

[benchmark00]

 

[NUFAN]

Didn't know Sheffield Shield was every 4 years like the Olympics and major World Cups.

Looking forward to Tassies tilt at 3 in a row in 2014-15.

Ffs

 

[uvelocity]

I like MartinB I THINK HE CAN GO PLACES

A PARK IN BOTSWANA! - YouTube

 

[Noppe]

The whole 'transition phase' thing relied on a couple of players coming good.... which never really happened.

We're just not good enough. Hard to accept when our memories of holding the best batting stock of any country make it seem as though that was the case only a year ago. Our constant referral to the golden period is almost unproductive, like we can't accept that there is no light at the end of the 'transition' tunnell, there is no Langer/Ponting/Hayden/Gilchrist right over that hill waiting to reclaim our rightful place as the best

Australian cricket fans are enamored with a corpse, and after six years still on the 'denial' stage of grief.

Its just not happening fellas, time to sit back, order a pizza and watch Clarke and Pattinson protect the last bastion of Australian cricketing pride. Let go of the disappointment.

 

[Jono]

Australia have never been the same since JP Duminy arse ****ed them at the MCG Boxing Day test of 2008. There is still tissue damage.