Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

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re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

Series lost? They lost in England with what was regarded as the no1 team in the world 4 years ago, now the new side didnt do any worse, the old blokes helped lose the series v South Africa at home, the new attack went to South Africa and won

So far they are 1-1, won a very tough away series and lost the same series the no1 Aussie side lost 4 years earlier, no shame in that. They have a bloody cakewalk of a draw so the new guys can keep learning and the side will keep winning, South Australia could win all of Australias test series in the next 12 months, its the best time to blood them rather than rely on the old stagers who will then turn to shit when the good teams arrive again
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

im sorry.. but i cant take your argument seriously.

it may be half working, but when i watch them play, even if they win, it still looks quite terrible. the way the team has been playing and operating in general is uninspired and overall very poor. its been a lot of luck that has won the few games that they have.

if just mcgrath retired, would there be such a fallout? no there wouldnt. johnson would have come in and the team, even after losing what is called the best pace bowler australia has ever had, (EDIT: posted accidentally) the team would have recovered and kept winning. instead, because of bad luck, four players went at once, one of them warne and the other two, two of the best batsman of the last 10 years. then goes the most successful wicket keeper ever and what i call the third best opener ever. all in quick succession. then two injuries to the two best bowlers in the country (at that time they were, and probably still could be). so thats 8 players gone before the next ashes, which after losing it due to being outplayed and having bad form and selection at the time (no comparison to now). how can we compare this team to the team that won 16 matches in a row? the same as bradmans team, and the more present team didnt have a bradman in it to do that. that was a legendary team, in 50 years people will be looking back thinking how good that team was.

it is a stupid idea to do it. you cant doubt 80 years of cricketing knowledge. i didnt notice it till my grandfather pointed it out, never noticed it wasnt normal.

the transition period should never have to happen. obviously its unlucky that that many have retired and gotten injured, but there are ways of beating that.

remember that i am talking theoretically. dont worry about names and actual people. so no arguments against lee and clark. but would you rather two tried and tested bowlers that offer consistency and wins or two newbies fresh off domestic sorta kinda successes. who know what they could do.

when there are four bowling spots open four newbies shouldnt fill them. bring in a former test bowler. but it is also sad that they havent been set up. big mess.

having four people all learning at once offers slow learning.

the team is crap at the moment. its not right.
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

But those so called tried and great bowlers played last year when Australia was getting their arses kicked, it was only when they finally got injured the selectors replaced them and the team improved, its not ideal but it happens and in the case of those older blokes, they werent the greatest players Australia have ever seen so they dont automatically get their spots back when those who replaced them have been doing well

Although if they dont inspire you whilst beating the 2nd best side in the world on their home patch then yeah they should go back to the guys who would have lost the series
3-0 if they played
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

hey i know lets never have a transition period again. That's easy we just stop picking say langer early, then six month later drop mcgrath and we still have hayden and warne to keep us going while some young'uns learn their trade, then out goes hayden and in comes another young'un and then the same with warne.

Get real the reason there is a transition period is that the best players available all retired around the same time. The notion that this sort of thing should not happen is a flight of fantasy, it would be nice if it hadn't happened but it has and it is time to move on.

Tried and tested.. really... that's what's important is it? That is rubbish. Pick the best players for the future of the team. Right now it should be treated like a football team, we are down and need to build a team who can prosper together.

Transition has never happened before according to a couple of fine sages of big cricket. That's fine, but australia has been rubbish between bradmans era and the recent dominant australian team. So maybe the transition period will work more rapidly to return australia to being one of the best cricketing nations, if it has not happened before how can any know this wont work?
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

actually Australia dominated in the early 60's and the mid 70's before WSC. this last period of domination was about as long as the WIndies from the early 80s to mid 90s. the last period where there was a good balance between nations was probably that period just after WSC (say 1980-83) when WIndies, England and Australia were all pretty strong (although you could argue England was led well rather than being a strong team) and Richard Hadlee and Martin Crowe and Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar and Imran Khan and Javed Miandad made their respective teams competitive.
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

Guys - Let me from the outset say I am a foreigner. The truth is that the transition period happens in all parts of human behaviour. It is called aging. We all get older, change occupations bla bla but we forget that professional sports also have it. The composition of the sides are humans of a variety of ages. Think Of a 16 year old Sachin Tendulkar and Hylton Ackerman and Herschelle Gibbs making their international and first class debuts. They share changerooms with much older players and there for can learn from them.

The transition process goes hand in hand with domination. The teams cannot stay at the top forever, we wish they could. The consistent thin in all the dominating teams is that they have players from a similar age group.The Dominant West Indies, The Invincibles and the 90's Australian side show that under closer investigation.

I agree fully that 2 of the 4 players were one in a generation. I doubt whether they would ever re-emerge in other countries.

@Boris mate - I hate saying but your argument is flawed. In general I agree with most of your ideas but not his time. I think the truth is that Australians were in a similar state that professional golf went through. When Tiger lead on the Saturday night that was it. The same goes for Federer pre Nadal , Jimmy Johnson currently in NASCAR etc. Players will come and go and a talent will burst on the scene and suddenly everyone is baffled by him/her. That is one of the unique things about sport. Think about it like this and I am not going to debate it but if politics did not interfere with South Africa due to certain inhumane things and conditions, the dominant generation was there. Have a look at Barry Richards, Mike Proctor and others .. As a supporter it is heart breaking when your team lose (ask me I support the ultimate choking side currently) but it happens. Think about all the other nations people feeling like you when the Baggy Greens dominated, for the true fan it was poetry but like the Joker for the national supporter. Stick with the Aussies, they will get back there but it will take time.

Professional Sports is a cycle and sometimes it feels like you are being ridden by it..
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

BTW just on the point about there never being a transition period in the past, wouldnt that be because Australia never had such a dominant side before that the team barely changed for a long period and the older players kept playing and the younger players never got a chance

Now all the top players are gone, the smart move is to start fresh, the senior players around Australian cricket outside the team are not that great they demand selection ahead of younger players, they missed their chance, some have played alot more than they deserved to already, others not as much but it was just bad luck, its time to move on

I would be interested to know what the West Indies did when their top players all went?
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

  1. Philip Hughes
  2. Simon Katich
  3. Ricky Ponting
  4. Mike Hussey
  5. Michael Clarke
  6. David Hussey
  7. Tim Paine
  8. Shane Watson
  9. Brett Lee
  10. Mitchell Johnson
  11. Stuart Clark
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

eddiesmith;367891 said:
BTW just on the point about there never being a transition period in the past, wouldnt that be because Australia never had such a dominant side before that the team barely changed for a long period and the older players kept playing and the younger players never got a chance

Now all the top players are gone, the smart move is to start fresh, the senior players around Australian cricket outside the team are not that great they demand selection ahead of younger players, they missed their chance, some have played alot more than they deserved to already, others not as much but it was just bad luck, its time to move on

I would be interested to know what the West Indies did when their top players all went?
Click to expand...
To be honest the Aussies were unbeaten for 15 years and were a bit like the current day Geelong team in the AFL. Didn't lose that many games.
Every team has to rebuild and there is no hassles with doing so. Even your team had to rebuild, Eddie.
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

schwab2clarkson;367922 said:
  1. Philip Hughes
  2. Simon Katich
  3. Ricky Ponting
  4. Mike Hussey
  5. Michael Clarke
  6. David Hussey
  7. Tim Paine
  8. Shane Watson
  9. Brett Lee
  10. Mitchell Johnson
  11. Stuart Clark
Click to expand...
We would have won the Ashes 4-0 against that side :D
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

okay maybe i havent stated my argument as clearly as i have liked.

the fact is that there HASNT been a transition period like this before in australian cricket history. it has never happened.

say tendulkar retires from the indian team tomorrow. what happens? they replace him with another player. yes they will feel his loss, but the whole team doesnt have to have 30 tests until they are 'ready' to start putting their whole into things.

now it is unfortunate that all these players have retired at once. whose fault is it? you would say nobody's, but its the selectors of many years ago. they selected those 6 players from the same age group. yes, it was just the way it happened, but it is happening over and over again. now that half the team has retired, 6 more players from the same age group are picked. whats going to happen in 15 or so years? 6 players are going to retire at once. what happens then? another unneccessary transition period.

the youngest players dont have to be picked just because they are young. thats just like picking someone because they are good at making a beer in my opinion. the statement i saw a bit back "the best players have to be picked for the future of the team" and the rest of that argument is a bit unthought through. if you follow through with that, you would be dropping every player once they get into their first drop in form (which means for all you ferguson lovers, he is already dropped using that theory.). then they never play again. its just a constant rotating of young players. the oldest player would be 30. thats looking ahead to the future, but we are living in the present.

if you are constantly looking in the future you wont win anything. you are pretty much saying, in ten years we will be good, but we dont care about now. let our ranking slip way less then what we actually are. then in ten years someone has been dropped and someone has retired and it all starts again.

it has to be half and half. no use starting 6 newbies at once. just to go over the problems:

1. they are all likely to be young. therefore they are all likely to retire at the same time.
2. many games will hang by a thread as to whether the team wins due to inexperience.
3. not all the players will succeed. look at mcgain for example. then another player has to come in and start from scratch. with 5 others like that the probability is high. bad circle to get into.
4. 6 players cant gain experience as well. the best players ever started with players that were even better. look at ponting. he grew up in the cricketing world with captains like taylor and waugh. along side batsman like that. and he came into the side by himself. you have to agree hes a success.

im not saying never select young players. thats just stupid and looking backwards. but we cant just look to the future and say we will be good then. we have to be good now and then. thats not being greedy, thats playing sport in a commercialised world.

half and half. look at the openers:
katich took langers spot. older player who has lots of experience.
hughes took haydens spot. young player looking hopeful.

look at the bowlers:
johnson took mcgraths spot.
hauritz took warnes spot.
siddle took clarks spot.
hilfenhaus took lees spot.

one half experienced guy there (with a lack of maturity IMO). oh geez we are going to win games with that. the bowling attack has been crap almost constantly. only occasionally are their sparks. that is classic young player inexperience syndrome. fine if there is someone to back them up, but there isnt.

the batting is the only thing that has held the team together. but that has just been inconsistent anyway.
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

Yeah drop Siddle, the best young player in world cricket this year :D

Its just the way things worked out, the last 2 were expected to be in the side, instead they played like crap, got injured and their replacements did a better job, its the way things happen

On one hand you say you cant drop people when they lose form, then you say they have to drop the new guys who are performing because the older guys deserve more game time so they dont have another transition period
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

I think we are doing as well as we can in this period of transition, or whatever you want to call it.

We could have easily won the Ashes, some even say we were the better team. We need a spinner, sure, but Hauritz has improved out of site and perhaps he could play a Tim May type role for the next few years. Averaging mid 30's with the ball and being a handy lower order batsmen.

Ponting is the right man for the job to captain this team, his got the backbone and the thick skin for this job. I have no doubt he'll keep playing until he thicks this team is capable of standing on its own feet without him, I dont see that arriving for another 2 or 3 years.

We have a lot of promising cricketers, people need to stop taking it so seriously.
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

to move off the topic of transition mostly.

ponting cannot retire soon. neither can hussey. hussey has to be dropped before retiring. lee or clark cannot either. katich is in the same boat.

they cannot afford anymore retirements. especially of ponting and hussey that hold the team together.

i know they might want to, but they do have to think of the team as well. hayden did when he retired, he noticed that the selectors gave him a bum deal with dropping him from the ODIs, so he left, noticing he would never get into form before south africa or the ashes.

the same has to be of ponting. he cant leave until he has prepared another player for the captaincy and the team isnt reliant of his batting.

only 3 games have ever been lost by the aussie side when ponting scores a century. and he has scored 30 odd. the team cant afford to lose that with nobody else to back him up.

he has to help the team get over the 'transition' after he leaves.
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

eddiesmith;368103 said:
Yeah drop Siddle, the best young player in world cricket this year :D

Its just the way things worked out, the last 2 were expected to be in the side, instead they played like crap, got injured and their replacements did a better job, its the way things happen

On one hand you say you cant drop people when they lose form, then you say they have to drop the new guys who are performing because the older guys deserve more game time so they dont have another transition period
Click to expand...

i didnt see this post...

siddle got that on figures, not on how he actually played. i will come to respect him, and its slowly going up, but i cant help but think there is always a better player when every 1 in 3 spells is absolute crap.

and since when did clark and lee play crap, then get injured?! lee was the best bowler in the world for over a year. he got 63 wickets in a calendar year. thats more then stein and johnson in the last count. clark was about 5th on that list, which is extremely good for a non wicket taker. they had averages of 15 and 12 respectively after mcgrath and warne retired. they both stood up for themselves.

then clark gets injured, plays a couple of pretty average games in india and suddenly they played crap? lee gets sick and also injured and he gets the same bad rap?

i cant work it out. what were, with johnson, the scariest bowling attack then is suddenly thrown out for the most inconsistent front line bowler i have seen in a while in that of siddle and hilfenhaus. i really dont get it.

if neither of them got injured that would be the attack of today. instead some people have short memories and dont want to let what could be the best bowlers in australia back in the side because they want to look to the future. it only takes one bowler to develop now to look to the future.
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

It's pretty obvious that we can't afford to lose guys like Ponting, Hussey, Katich, Lee or Clark any time soon. The depth isn't as strong as it once used to be. There are no Bichel's or Kasprowicz's waiting in the wings, no Lehmann's or Martyn's watching on. The talent is scarce and we have to be careful in the next 2-3 years with the management of our team in all forms of the game.

Who replaces Katich? Ponting? Hussey?
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

The thing is back then those guys were reared as the 'wing men'. They came in for injuries, but as soon as the other guy was fully recovered he was gone again. They rested players occasionally to give these guys a go. They came on all the tours. They were prepped for the big life in tests.

But what about now? Siddle and Hilfenhaus come in for injuries. What do they do? Stay in the side and push out the guys that the whole team used to rely on because of their greatness with the ball and consistency. Now they become the wing men, but because they are 'so old' every time they come back in people complain because it's 'not looking to the future'. So pretty much their career is over, the only thing that saved them is poor performances again and again by the bowling attack which let Clark back in in the Ashes.

It was the same with the batting. There was Jaques and Lehman and Martyn and others that all got their chance at the big time, but spent most of their time thrashing the domestic scene to keep up appearances. If someone suddenly retired they would be the ones to come into the team. Now instead they don't let them into the team until they want to keep them. Hodge is the only batsman in reserve, but he won't get a game, even if it is just a fill in game, because he is 'too old'.

It is very stupid the way all this transition stuff has effected the minds of the selectors. Quickly we must prepare ourselves for twenty years down the track!!... doesn't work. And then there are people that encourage them to do so.
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

1.Phil Hughes. Attacking and young, exactly what we need to go with the patient katich.
2.Simon Katich. proven test player, performs under pressure, and allways keeps the runs ticking.
3.Ricky ponting.speaks for itself.
4.Michael Clarke. second best batter and again proven record.
5.Michael Hussey. Have to stick with him, show signs of his good days in the champions trophy and his last test knock was a hundred under HUGE pressure.
6.Shane watson. as the all-rounder Can bat for a long time, and can blast for a slog, also hits big 6's something we need, and his bowling his underrated i believe.
7.Brad Haddin. Attacking .....Attacking ......Attacking.
8. Mitchell Johnson. Don't even need to explain his selection.
9.Brett lee. handy with the bat, gets reverse swing and bowls quick.
10.N.hauritz. Not once has he let the team down and very handy with the bat.
11.B.hilfenhaus .chose him over siddle only because the bowling attack needs control and swing with the new ball.
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

Slip;369490 said:
1.Phil Hughes. Attacking and young, exactly what we need to go with the patient katich.
2.Simon Katich. proven test player, performs under pressure, and allways keeps the runs ticking.
3.Ricky ponting.speaks for itself.
4.Michael Clarke. second best batter and again proven record.
5.Michael Hussey. Have to stick with him, show signs of his good days in the champions trophy and his last test knock was a hundred under HUGE pressure.
6.Shane watson. as the all-rounder Can bat for a long time, and can blast for a slog, also hits big 6's something we need, and his bowling his underrated i believe.
7.Brad Haddin. Attacking .....Attacking ......Attacking.
8. Mitchell Johnson. Don't even need to explain his selection.
9.Brett lee. handy with the bat, gets reverse swing and bowls quick.
10.N.hauritz. Not once has he let the team down and very handy with the bat.
11.B.hilfenhaus .chose him over siddle only because the bowling attack needs control and swing with the new ball.
Click to expand...
Would have lost the Ashes 4-0
 
re: Australian Test XI - Selection Thread

eddiesmith;369493 said:
Would have lost the Ashes 4-0
Click to expand...

How the only real change is a real wicket taker in lee for siddle.

Hauritz who we should have played in the last test.

And the young hughes over the ageing haddin.

Would have won 4-0.
 
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