Overnight Justin Langer has come out and told us all he has complete faith in Aaron Finch. Very brave guy. He must be the only guy in the country to have this belief. Even Finch himself knows he is not up to Test Cricket standard the nervous way he pokes and prods at the ball. Both their heads should be on the block if Finch is retained as an opener.
ICC Test Rankings have been updated in the 1st post after the ICC released them yesterday Pat Cummins is a positive story, He achieved a career high ranking (3rd) in the bowlers rankings Khawaja is up to 11th in the batsmen rankings He is our best by a long way of the current squad, Next best to Khawaja in 11th is Shaun Marsh in 36th position The bowlers rankings don't make for good reading overall At 1 point Hazlewood, Starc and Lyon were all in the top 10 now none of them are AUSTRALIAN BATSMEN RANKINGS 3. Steve Smith 6. David Warner 11. Usman Khawaja 36. Shaun Marsh 45. Tim Paine 48. Peter Handscomb 56. Travis Head 64. Cameron Bancroft 69. Matthew Renshaw 78. Mitchell Marsh 81. Aaron Finch 84. Joe Burns 90. Marcus Harris 92. Pat Cummins 96. Mitchell Starc AUSTRALIAN BOWLERS RANKINGS 3. Pat Cummins 11. Josh Hazlewood 14. Nathan Lyon 18. Mitchell Starc 39. Peter Siddle 56. Jackson Bird 66. Mitchell Marsh 67. Marnus Labuschagne AUSTRALIAN ALL ROUNDER RANKINGS 7. Pat Cummins 9. Mitchell Starc 20. Nathan Lyon 26. Josh Hazlewood 40. Mitchell Marsh 47. Steve Smith 54. Marnus Labuschagne 82. David Warner 88. Jackson Bird * ICC list is limited to the top 100
Ashwin has failed his fitness test and won't play https://www.cricket.com.au/news/ind...shwin-pandya-shami-border-gavaskar/2019-01-02
From cricket.com.au Opening batsman Aaron Finch is set to be dropped for the fourth Domain Test and Mitch Marsh could also be on the outer for Australia's must-win clash with India, according to reports. News Limited is reporting Finch has been axed from Australia's Test XI for Queensland batsman Marnus Labuschagne, while Peter Handscomb is set to replace Marsh to combat India's spinners on an SCG pitch that is expected to turn. There is no official word from the Australian camp, with Test captain Tim Paine saying on match eve the national selectors would make a call on the final XI after inspecting the pitch one last time on Wednesday afternoon. https://www.cricket.com.au/news/pet...-dropped-reports-india-sydney-test/2019-01-02
Interesting comments from Justin Langer that the selectors are struggling because “Most of our batters who are knocking on the door are averaging in the 30s” Their career averages may be in the 30s but their form this year is great and their averages this year are in the 40s Also add to that list below Marcus Stoinis (42.57) Moises Henriques (41.20) Alex Carey (75)
Kholi has the luck of the devil winning the toss yet again and batting. Nicks, play and misses nothing going our way. Poor old Tim Paine. In the last six Tests he has won just one and that resulted in the win in Perth.
Really disappointing day for Australia The tactics were poor, The constant short stuff gave little return and was predictable and the field placements were puzzling at times The guy selected as the second spinner bowled 4 overs out of 90 and none of those were any good Pujara looking like he could bat all day tomorrow
Looks like we’re going to lose this test and as a result lose the series 3-1. We need to sack all the selectors and pick some batsman who are in form to play against Sri Lanka. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Bad day but not unexpected, toss was very important, bowling and tactics a bit Suss. New bloke, can't spell it, was very poor, surely we would have been better off with Head trundling a few or selecting someone like Maxwell even if another offy. 300+ is hard to overcome, 400+ impossible especially on our past batting experience. If anything good comes out of this it will be a complete change of players, selection criteria etc, hopefully this team will be completely overhauled with at least 3-4 changes even if some bat well, past performances should be taken into consideration, we have dropped Finch and M Marsh but others, that new bloke, S Marsh , Head and Hanscombe on very shaky ground, at this stage can't think of a reason to retain them, just not good enough.
Banning Smith and Warner was always going to result in us not being good enough to compete with the best. No point sacking the poor mugs we have thrown to the wolves in this series - we don't have anyone better, or we do, but won't pick them.
Bowling was way off target yesterday. Some 8.5% of the balls bowled in 89 overs would have hit the stumps. Hard to get lbw or bowled decisions like that.
ODI squad vs India Aaron Finch (c) Jason Behrendorff Alex Carey (wk) Peter Handscomb Usman Khawaja Nathan Lyon Mitch Marsh Shaun Marsh Glenn Maxwell Jhye Richardson Peter Siddle Billy Stanlake Marcus Stoinis Adam Zampa - They have dropped Travis Head, Chris Lynn, D'Arcy Short, Ben McDermott and Ashton Agar who played in our last ODI series against SAF - They are resting Mitch Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins - They have selected both Marsh brothers as usual - Peter Siddle gets a go despite having a crap ODI record and not having played ODI cricket since 2010, This is an Australian record for the longest time between ODIs
Australian Team last time Siddle played ODI cricket (5/11/2010) Shane Watson Brad Haddin Ricky Ponting (c) Michael Clarke Cameron White Michael Hussey Steve Smith Mitchell Johnson Nathan Hauritz Clint McKay Peter Siddle Peter Siddle ODI career Games - 17 Wickets - 15 Average - 38.73 Strike Rate - 50.06 Economy Rate - 4.64 Best - 3/55 Peter Siddle List A career Games - 52 Wickets - 57 Average - 34.7 Strike Rate - 45.8 Economy Rate - 4.54 Best - 4/27 * Peter Siddle has not played Domestic One Day Cricket since October 2017, In that game he got 1/76 from 10 overs
Test match is gone, India will win or at very least draw, Aust can't get out of this as unlikely to score 300 once let alone twice with current line up and quality bowling opposition. Outplayed. ODI will likely follow same path if picking player like Siddle, a whole hearted player but past his best which was never quite good enough in one dayers. Selectors don't seem to have any idea, I can go along with Mitch bowling and batting but older brother no thanks.
Well this test is over, Australia to make less than 300 again and India to wrap this up inside 4 days
