Sydney test preview

The Aussies are trying for a clean sweep- the second in three home Ashes and only third 5-0 scoreline in Ashes history-, and to jump to number three in the world.  The English are playing for pride and to keep the third place on the test rankings (for which they need a win here).  So a quick look at the teams:

Australia

Only a couple of injury worries would see the team change.  Harris's knee could see Coulter-Nile make a debut, and Watson's injury could see Doolan take his place at three, and Faulkner take his place (and Bailey's) as an all-rounder.  However they both seemed to be on track to keep the same team together for the fifth straight match.  

England

It seems likely that Ballance will get a run in the team given the repeated failures of the top six.  The question is who he replaces.  Carberry seems to be the favourite, though Root has been just as bad. England really cannot afford to have two slow scorers in the top three. Some people are still singling out KP, but he was by far the best in Melbourne.  I suspect Root will open with Cook, and Ballance will either slot in at three, or swap with Bell.  

Bairstow proved me wrong when I said that he couldn't do worse than Prior.  The shame is that England have several good keepers going around, but picked part-timer Bairstow as the back up as they thought he could be a back up batsman as well.  I guess they could not believe that Prior would be in such bad form for so long.  However, I think they will give Bairstow a second chance.  

The bowlers are an interesting problem.  Borthwick is likely to get a run.  Firstly, Panesar injured himself, so may not be available.  Even if he is, Cook showed no faith in him in Melbourne bowling Root in two spells before finally bringing Panesar on with only 30-odd left to defend.  If they are going to have a specialist spinner they don't trust, it might as well be one that bats and fields better the Monty, and is a chance to develop for the future.  As for the quicks, having brought Finn and Rankin, at least one of them really needs to play.  They would need to replace Anderson or Bresnan.  Anderson needs the rest and Bresnan was particularly unimpressive.  I doubt that both will be replaced, and realistically if the other changes are made, the English are unlikely to make a change here.

Prediction

Having put up a good fight for the first two and a half days in Melbourne, getting themselves into a position to control the match, England fell apart spectacularly to lose inside four days.  Given that, it is hard to see any result other than another Aussie win, though if they can find the early fight from Melbourne it would be a better match.  I am not usually this optomistic but I am looking at a clean sweep (which probably means England will find a way to win, but I still think that is unlikely).

Boxing Day Preview

The Ashes are over for this edition, England has handed them over.  However, try telling the packed house at the MCG on Boxing Day that this is a dead rubber.  So what should the two teams look like going into this match?

The Aussies

The Aussies are unlikely to change a winning formula, unless there is an injury.  Gone is the rotation policy that might have cost Harris a game or two. As it is, he has made it through seven consecutive tests- a minor miracle- and while a little sore seems likely to be picked for an eighth.  

This is not to say that the Aussies don't have issues, particularly with the batting.  Rogers is constantly playing for his place, and Bailey is far from confirming himself as a long term test prospect.  Watson, in spite of doubling his tally of centuries this year, still looks a bit fragile at three.  However there is no one making an undeniable case to unseat any of them.  Of concern is the fact that all three are over 30 (as are Harris, Haddin, Johnson and Clarke- though their current form gives them plenty of breathing space).

At least Smith seems to be showing a bit of promise, and some substance (there is no way I would have believed I would write this a year ago).  The Aussies will be hoping that this continues, and he is joined by a few more.

So basically stick with the same team, and hope that a few of them consolidate their place.  And hope that Silk and/or one of the other batsmen in the Shield will start piling on the runs and putting pressure on them.  

England

Having unexpectedly lost the Ashes, in the face of 10-0 predictions to the contrary,  the English have several questions regarding their team.  Like the Aussies, they have a few ageing players, though none of these have the protection of form that some if the Aussies have.    

Cook: has had a couple of very average series against the Aussies so far.  However he has a lot of selection credit to use up before he gets dropped, having been perhaps the key batsman over much of the last four years.  He will be back, it is just a matter of time.  His captaincy is more of a question.  It is generally conservative, defensive and unimaginative on the field, and does not seem to have inspired his team off it.  However, only Bell has the form and standing in the team to take over at this stage.  Cook will stay for the foreseeable future.  After all he has only lost four of the 19 tests he has captained, winning 9.

Carberry:  has been fairly impressive, first at getting in, and then at finding a way to get out when set. Still early in his career, but he is over 30 already.  He will need to prove himself soon.  

Root: is also new(ish) in his career, and very new at the number three slot.  He is however, the wrong person for the job.  The Aussies tried Warner at six and quickly corrected that mistake.  So too, the English need to get Root out of three.  While he did make a reasonable 87 (until Stokes, the biggest English score for the series), he has batted so slowly that it has not really hurt the Aussies that he has survived for a while.  He is averaging 157 balls a match, but it is only costing the Aussies about 51 runs.  His strike rate is the lowest for the series apart from Tremlett and Panesar. Meanwhile, the pressure is on his partners to score, the Aussies get the English on the back foot, and the rest is history.  He seems to be the future of English batting (though if you take out his 180 at Lords when the Aussies were at their worst, he is averaging 24 in Ashes cricket), but three is not his cup of tea.  The English need to decide whether to put him in in place of Carberry, as everyone expects him to open eventually, or to have him serve his apprenticeship at 5 or 6.

KP:  Has had plenty of people calling for his head.  I can understand that.  He is extremely frustrating the way he gets out sometimes.  In many ways he is like Watson with the bat- you expect him to deliver far more often than he does.  However, unlike Watson, KP generally gets a good innings or two a series.  And those innings generally shift the match, if not the series his team's way (more often than not it is in the second test of a series).  The fact that he is quite human the rest of the time is not usually noticed because players like Cook, Trott, Bell and Prior have covered for him.  It is noticeable now mainly because the others have failed too.  He is still a very good player having a bad run.  Unless he fails in the rest of this series and the next one or two, I would keep him.  His experience and occasional brilliance is going to be required going forward.

Bell: is still the backbone of the side.  Having carried them to victory in England, he is having a far more modest series this time.  He has however still out scored every one of his teammates.  He needs to move to three unless and until Trott returns.  He has the technique and temperament to do well there.  He can also set the tone for the team- likely to be a much more positive one than Root has set so far. As it is, England are usually already in trouble by the time he gets in.   

Stokes:  shows promise, but it is early days yet.  One century does not make a test match batsman, though you have to start somewhere.  His bowling is also useful.  He can't be dropped for a while yet.  

Prior: has had a lousy series with bat and gloves.  He is really low on confidence.  He is perhaps the ripest candidate for being replaced.

Bresnan: had an average return in his first test back from injury.  The most conservative of the third seamer options on tour, and so will probably stay.  Needs to step up a notch with the bowling to fill a Siddle-like role for England.

Broad: if fit he has to play as he has shown the most fight out of all his team.  However the news was not very good a few days out.

Swann:  can't have had too many worse runs of three matches.  He has been thoroughly out bowled by Lyon, and on occasions Root.  However he brought a lot more to the team than Panesar (his likely replacement), so the Aussies will be happy about his retirement.  Panesar bowled slightly better than Swann in Adelaide, but his batting and fielding are a class below Swann's so it is a loss to the team overall.  A better choice may be Scott Borthwick, the young leg spinner added to the squad on Monday.  Not sure how well he bowls (there must be something to his being picked as a bowler), but sounds like he can bat, and he gives them a view to a longer future than Panesar.

Anderson: like Swann is struggling, but he has been struggling for longer, most of the last seven matches.  He looks like he needs a rest.  He is too good a bowler not to come back from this, unless he has all enjoyment of the game ground out of him.  Rest him for a test or two.  Let him get back on his feet again.  He is too proud to be happy about this, but then again, England are too conservative to be likely to drop him.

So I would keep Cook, KP and Bell as the experienced batsmen, with Bell moving to three.  I would probably open with Root, bringing Ballance in at five (though if you think Compton is a better medium term prospect as an opener, then keep Carberry and put Root at five so you don't have to move him again). Stokes stays at six.  Bairstow can't do any worse than Prior, so he would come in.  The bowlers would be Bresnan, Broad, Borthwick (or more likely, Panesar, or Rankin if England go for four quicks) and Finn (though Anderson will probably still be picked by the English).  Finn would be told that he has two tests to justify his place on the tour, and have instructions to bowl fast.  Rankin or Anderson would replace Broad if he is still hobbling.  In all probability: Bairstow for Prior, Panesar for Swann, the rest of the team unchanged.

Prediction:

Before Swann's retirement, I suspected that this match would be the closest yet in the series.  The English have nothing to lose, and the Aussies will have their fire dampened a little by having already won the Ashes.  However, Swann's retirement may galvanise the English (in which case my prediction holds) or it might totally shatter them, in which case Aussies all the way.  I am hoping for the former, leading to a hard fought Aussie win, unless the weather intervenes in which case a draw is likely.

Where to from Here? (Part 2)

In my last post, I discussed the need for stable selection in the batting.  Now it is the bowlers turn.  While they have outperformed the batsmen significantly, the selection policies around the bowlers has been poor as well.

As an example, the way that Nathan Lyon has been treated over the last six months or so has been appalling.  He has entered the last two series as Australia's leading spinner.  In India he was dropped for Maxwell, a glorified part-timer.  Yes, technically Doherty was the key spinner in the team, but the reason he was there was that they wanted Maxwell as an all-rounder.  And they did not want two off spinners, so Doherty came in as a left arm spinner, and Lyon got dumped.  Doherty is a reasonable short form bowler, but not really a test level player.  Maxwell is a batsman that bowls a bit.  The experiment failed, and Lyon returned and took nine wickets in the final match of the India series.  He was once again the number one spinner.  Except that he was dropped for the next test for an virtually unknown nineteen year old, after a third spinner, Fawad Ahmed was tipped to take his spot.

Lyon's main fault is that he will never be a Warne or McGill, nor even a Swann.  What is true is that he is a solid performer, but not a world beater.  He hasn't won Australia many matches, however a record of 79 wickets in 22 matches suggests that he is quite useful.

Where to from here? (Part 1)

In my last cricket post I suggested that the problems with Australia's batting were as much systemic as anything else.  This means that the solutions are not easy and will take time.  But what does that mean for the team right now?  What should Lehmann, and the rest of the leadership do now?

Firstly, and I can't believe I am saying this, but we need to realise that the current Ashes are not everything -after all we have a series against the world's best coming up next year.  Not that we give up.  We should fight out this series and the next.  However, we have spent the last couple years putting band aids on our problems, and taking risks especially in selection to try to pull off an amazing win.  This goes way beyond the batting, and it hasn't worked.  Now we need to take a longer term view - realising that it may cost us matches in the short term.  However, if we used the same sort of short term thinking we have in the recent past, we will need to settle in for a long time in the middle of the pack, maybe even lower.

Short of wholesale systemic change, the main area we need to change the way we work is in selection.  Our selection policy is all over the place at the moment.  Two of the eleven picked for the first test were not even in the 16 player squad.  They effectively leap frogged at least seven players to get into the team.  It is this sort of panic selection that exacerbates the problems the team is having.

In this post we will look at the selection of the batsmen, who form our biggest problem.  In the next post we will look at the bowlers, who have performed reasonably well in spite of some poor selection decisions.

Lords: Preview

The Queen has been and gone and the play is about to start.  The Aussies have made a couple of changes.  Khawaja is in for Cowan and Harris for Starc.  Cowan being dropped is not a surprise.  His performance in the first test was not at all inspiring.  As a fan, I am disappointed at the way he played that test.  He had been one of the very few players to be better at the end of the Indian series than at the beginning.  Yet he looked all at sea at Trent Bridge.  I thought he might have had one more test to prove himself (See here), and to give Warner a chance to dislodge him.  If he was going to go earlier, I wondered if Faulkner wouldn't get a chance.  Still Khawaja looks good at the crease, and hopefully he will grab his chance.  The Aussies need it.

As for Starc, he may have missed out because Siddle took a five-for last match.  I think they may have been thinking that Harris would come in for Siddle, given his warm up games.  Harris is one of the best bowlers Australia has when he is fit.  Using him in two or three tests, picking the grounds that will suit him, is a good idea.  His injury prone nature is another reason I would have preferred Faulkner to Khawaja.  Three of the Aussie bowling line up are injury prone, and it would have been nice to have a quality back up.

Bresnan in for Finn is a good move from England, though the Aussies won't be too unhappy.  Finn at his best is way more dangerous than Bresnan, but he gives more four balls too.  He was the player that released the pressure on the Aussies in the last match.

It is a shame for the match that the English won the toss.  I think the game would have been much more interesting if the Aussies got to bat first.  Still, if the Aussies can get a few early it could be very interesting.

Batting upside down

In 1937, faced with a sticky wicket, Australian captain Don Bradman decided to reverse the batting order and sent in the weaker batsmen first to give the pitch a chance to dry out and for conditions to improve.  In 2013, I wonder if the Aussies have done it again, but on a more permanent basis.  The weaker batsmen (or the tail) are sent in early to take the shine off the ball and encourage the opposition, leaving the stronger batsmen to bat lower in the order and clean up the mess.  Ashton Agar's fine knock yesterday was just the latest example.  The last five Test innings for Australia (most recent first) have had as their top scorers:
Agar 98
Siddle 50
Siddle 51
Hughes 69 (occasionally a tailender will top score, and as he showed by sticking around with Agar, he is handy especially when he has a decent batsman at the other end)
Starc 99.

Now if we can just get Rogers to swing the ball, and Cowan to work on a flipper...

Thoughts on the World Cup Squad

So the Aussie team for the world cup is out. I've had a few hours to digest the team list and here is the initial reaction:

The things that worry me:
1. We are taking five players who are or recently have been injured. Tait and Ponting missed the last match through injury. M. Hussey injured himself in that match, and is in a race to recover from surgery. And finally Lee, Bollinger and did I mention Tait are all trying to reestablish themselves at international level after significant injuries.
2. We have a bowling attack that could go horribly wrong. Johnson is notoriously brilliant or bad. Lee, Tait and Bollinger are all struggling to recapture the form that their reputations are built on, and at the pace they bowl the margin between unplayable and boundary balls is fairly small. Worse than that, there is the constant worry that one of them will break down again. I don't think we should have all four of these in the squad. Perhaps someone like McKay or Siddle for Tait would have been better (Harris if he was fit but...). Hauritz is perhaps the pick of the bowlers - a sentence that that in itself worries me.
3. The two people who have, at least in theory, the most influence on the team are both struggling for form. Captain and vice captain have both struggled all summer to put together much of a score. As these two are almost certainly the first two picked that puts pressure on the rest of the team. I am not sure that Clarke should be in the squad at all given his form in the two short forms of the game over the last year or two.

It is not all bad news though. Things I like include:
A. This is a versatile team. Both wicketkeepers have the potential to play as batsmen. Watson, Hastings, Smith and David Hussey are all effectively allrounders in this form of the game. White and Clarke are more than useful part-timers with the ball. Add to that the fact that Lee and Johnson can both hit the ball a mile on a good day, and most of the squad can be useful in more than one area. This has been the secret to Victoria's success over the past five or so years.
B. It is good to see that there are a few Victorians in the team. Victoria has been in 13 of the past 15 finals across the three disciplines in the last 5 years. I just hope it is not too little too late. They still haven't found room for Hodge- the best domestic one day player going around. You wonder what he did to the selectors. Hastings gets a run, but at best will have eight internationals under his belt when he starts the World cup.

Overall a mixed bag. The question is whether we can win with this combination. I think we can, if all our risks pay off. If Lee, Johnson and co bowl to potential, and Ponting and the batsmen find form, then this team will be hard to beat. However I think in reality it is between South Africa and India, with England, Sri Lanka and the Aussies as outsiders.