Re: God help me - the Test Cricket thread
Reply #1150 –
Compared to back in their peak days the Pommie bowling has been dead ordinary, most of our top end are getting themselves out they are not being dismissed by unplayable deliveries.
On the batting the problem is the squad is chosen and the options to the coach are greatly limited, he's got what he has got and he needs to find a way to deal with it. Blokes with big reputations but not a lot of recent consistent form.
On our bowling, in my opinion our three best options for the Pommie conditions are Nesser, Boland and Murphy (Given Lyon is out). Spinners do not need to be big turners in Pommie conditions, but you need a lot of control so that you can lock down an end and the wickets will come. It seems to be a aspect of the game completely overlooked by Cummins, who seems to think he can bounce the Poms out.
Cummins, Starc, Hazelwood and delivering metronomic rubbish, hardly a smidge of speed variation among them, nothing out the back of the hand, no cutters, no slow bouncers, no knuckle balls, nothing to catch a batsmen off guard. It's like the left all their ODI and T20 skills back in India and forgot the basics of challenging a batsmen on the rampage.
Broad has worked on new balls to target dismissing Warner and Labourpains with great success.