Re: Australian Cricket - Crisis, What Crisis ??
Reply #1223 –
I sit back and wonder what this summer will bring.
We have a crowded summer, as usual, but we are ordinary and the Poms are not much different. So the chance of really top class cricket is not overly high.
Then we have Aussie pitches and Aussie balls: designed to last 5 days, perhaps, but designed for batsmen to make runs. The ball doesn't move much after the initial spell with the new ball.
It may well be that the two evenly match below average teams bring a close contest though.
Our bowling attack looks reasonable, but spin is still our distinct weakness. Lyon has done everything asked of him and is the best performed finger spinner for Australia, but he isn't a Shane Warne.
We look for up and coming spinners and see their figures being aweful. Not surprising: drop in pitches don't spin as much as they used to do. So batsmen can hot through the line of the ball and ruin a spinner's figures fairly easily.
Same old problems: lack of batting depth and batting consistency, flat pitches and lack of truely world class spinners. Same old lack of solutions.
I think it's unfair to compare Lyon to Warne, or any spin bowler to Warne. Lyon is first class, elite by any standard and would be even better if he had a captain who knew what he was doing!