I'm a little bit hmmm about the location more than the actual statue (which I think is fantastic).
I'd have thought that located either around Princes Park, or with other statues of sporting greats in the MCG precinct would have been more appropriate. Although maybe the decision to locate it here was a deliberate one to sort of take it a step away from the pure sporting angle & move it into a social comment area. Still don't know if that works for me.
Maybe this is not intended to be the final location.
I'm not much of a batsman or bowler, can I be recalled to the test side too?
yep, I'm with you there.....& Travis Head sacrificial lamb!
....good grief. Warner & Harris will possibly go down in history as statistically worst opening combination we have ever had in a Test Series..and they both still get a gong.
And.....perfect opportunity to give Pucovski a go with little pressure on......but no....no imagination shown at all.
We've pretty comprehensively outplayed England with effectively 2 bowlers & 2 batsmen performing....and only 1 of those batsmen & bowlers playing all four tests so far !
We need to develop & encourage more batsmen with sound, solid techniques (preferably the majority Right Handed) to replace the useless 20/20 focused leftys in the rest of the batting order.
The worst thing we can do is to give the likes of Warner & Harris another chance in the next summer series here....of course they'll score runs.
Paine turned it into a one-day game which is Stokes' forte. In a partnership of 73 off 62 balls, Jack Leach faced only 17 balls. They let Stokes milk the strike with no idea how to stop it. They kept bowling back of a length to a guy who was smashing them over the point and square leg fence - why no yorkers....!!!?
And then, they review an LBW shout that pitched so far outside leg that it's even lucky it hit a pad. I was screaming at the tele, 'don't do it' - if I can see it from 10,000 km away how come they can't?
Just plain dumb, and 3 hours of sleep I will never get back.
Kudos for actually watching it....I was cooked after a 4am finish on saturday morning !....just as well probably, my TV would have had a remote sized hole in it yesterday.
However, we are in the position of being able to bring in fresh, world class fast bowlers...Starc will play next test. Poms bowlers are going to be flatter with every Test.....if we win the next test then Stokes innings & everything that went on that final day becomes completely irrelevant. We need to use that as motivation.
Yep, well Labuschagne has made it impossible to drop him when Smith comes back...so, yep bye bye Kahwaja.
& ...way too many leftys. Wade really is not the bloke I want to see coming in at 6 in a tight situation. Paine, doing a great job as skipper atm.....but showing what we miss with a good keeper batsman, even of Haddens skill & fight.
Well bugger me Malo, guess who one of my junior coaches was? The same person I was talking about when I discussed being coached to get one arm high and get my other elbow behind the bat, Sir Gary! (He hated being called Sir, if you called him Sir..... he'd reply "Call me Gary" in that gruff voice! )
I can tell you it works a treat?
Unbelieveable !...yeah, you sort of have to pinch yourself when you look back & think about the calibre of player/gentleman who was involved ! Earlier on in that decade, he actually came up to our local high school (little school in Hobart !!) and gave a talk to our cricket side in 1984 ! How he was there & who organised it, I still have no idea, but for the whole time he was there talking, you could hear a pin drop among a bunch of usually rowdy grade 10s !
I agree with Malo, helmets have enabled poor techniques, but they shouldn't be an excuse for poor techniques!
I was lucky enough to be involved in a coaching course many years ago...during which we had a guest talk from Sir Garfield Sobers. I don't think even then that I appreciated how special that was ! Anyway, his thoughts on technique were very interesting at the time , particularly regarding playing short balls. The traditional theory is that Cricket is a side on game....particularly batting. His thoughts were that a batsman trying to stay side on to a short ball limits the height that their front arm can be raised & also limits the options & range of movement of an attacking (pull/hook) shot (Try it yourself). If a batsmen moves across & back with a more front on (2 eyes towards the ball) stance, the front arm can reach far higher for a defensive shot, your range of options for an attacking shot become far greater, you have a far better view of the ball, you can quite easily just duck under a ball that is too good.
Even with my limited batting ability I could see the sense of what he was saying....and any advice from a bloke who (up until recently) was the greatest batsman outside of Bradman should be taken extremely seriously !
Helmets (& yes, I accept that they are a necessary part of the game now) have actually contributed to more & more batsmen getting hit in modern cricket. Batting techniques are far too reliant on the safety net of the helmet & the first move is that push onto the front foot before the ball is even delivered......from that point...they are a sitting duck for the well directed short ball.
Batsmen in the pre-helmet days just didn't have that safety net & so their technique was far better developed to deal with short pitched bowling, their footwork was better, & they used the bat to repel the ball from a better defensive position going back to the short ball, not forwards. There are at least 3 or 4 helmet hits per test it seems now, yet a batsman getting hit on the head pre-helmet days was a rarity & a shock when it did happen.
I certainly don't have a problem with bowlers bowling short at times (not the only method of attack mind you), they need to have some comeback against the ridiculous power in modern bats, roped in boundaries & batsmen who happily prop on the front foot safe in the knowledge that if they stuff up, they're not (usually) going to injured anyway.
I don't think the Aussies will give a flying hoot if Archer continues this type of attack....doesn't get top level batsmen out & of all countries, we grow up on this stuff. of the all the great players of short pitched bowling over the years, the vast majority of them are Aussies, for very good reason. if there are any batsmen in our top order who CANT handle this....their spot should be vacated.
Gee...what would I give to see Punter in his prime take on this joker.....& lets face it, Archer is still over 10kph slower than the likes of Lee & Akhtar.
Labuschagne ... great knock. Root, you're a lying cheat
Pretty much sums my feeling up exactly cap.......assuming that Smith plays, one of those top 3 has to go. Marnus showed the grit that has been sadly lacking from the 3 amigos at the top there.
Oh.....and can we all booo Root now that he's a cheat as well ?
We parody England for Roy, then Warner walks out to bat! Both are flat track no swing bullies with techniques suspect at test level,
Yeah, can't agree with you there.. I was at a Test at Bellerive against NZ in 2011....Greentop, overcast conditions, Boult, Southee & Bracewell were swinging it around corners. Aust lost by 7 runs..Warner scored 123 out of 233......the next highest score in the entire Test was 56. So don't tell me he can't bat in swinging conditions. Everyone gets out to good balls occasionally.....maybe he's not quite the player now that he was then though.
Why was the DRS introduced again ? To eliminate the howlers wasn't it ?
well....it aint working....& will never work with the 2 review system. And honestly, how does Alem Dar continue to get test matches. He is the worst international umpire in world cricket. I'd rather the best English umpires do the whole series.
All the talk is about playing Harris as opener as well though... that would make it 5 out of 7...and 5 out of 6 specialist batsmen. I hope they don't pick him quite frankly. You line up is pretty much the same as the one I'd go for.
I really hope they don't make the mistake of having a batting lineup dominated by lefties......unfortunately this is exactly what looks like happening with Langer virtually assuring Kawahja's spot. How he can do this is mind boggling.....Kawajah is just not the bloke you want to be batting 3 in an Ashes series....he just saps us of all momentum, or digs a bigger hole if we lose an early one.
There will be a sh..tload of sandpaper sold in London next week if Warner and Bancroft get picked!
First test is at Edgebaston.....in Birmingham...right in the middle of the Barmy Army/football hooligan stronghold......you reckon this scheduling was an accident ?
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Both are flat track no swing bullies with techniques suspect at test level,