Cricket

Chris O'Connor said:
India didn't make as many as I thought they would due to their long tail being skittled for nothing, but the damage was done and chasing 323 is well beyond the compass of this Australian side.

As I've said on more than a few occasions, the Aussie batting without their suspended trio is well below par, so I fully expect them to collapse as soon as and India to finish it off tomorrow morning.

(Overnight score Australia need another 219 runs and are 104-4.)

It must be disappointing to see there looks to be about 17 people there in this 50,000 stadium - it's just a sea of empty seats.

So why the sparsely supported test matches and almost complete disinterest from the Australian public?...

We wouldn't see an English ground, first test of the summer, with empty seats like this on a weekend day.

India would be a headline series, but not even the first shorter series; Sri Lanka, West Indies etc would be like this.

While we in this country are far more likely to support a side who are going through a tough period, the Aussies as a rule just won't. They've hardly mentioned cricket or more specifically how the team is playing since the ban, other than about the ban itself, it's almost as if it doesn't exist. I have a good friend who lives in Melbourne and a cricket fanatic and he was astonished at their indifference. The only time it was news was when the possibility of the ban being lifted was mooted.

The Ashes is a completely different case and has a far higher profile, the Gabba on the first day is always packed as would be Adelaide, the WACA, the MCG and SCG but unless it's England it largely depends on their own teams prospects.

The Aussies detest losers and the Aussie public have had this team's number for months now, they'll only be bothered about cricket again with the ashes when their talismen are back and they can compete properly again.

Lose this and its five defeats in their last six, and some by massively heavy and humiliating margins too, it's little wonder a so called iconic series hardly registers with a public who much prefer winners, other sports will hog their attention until next August.

Their only draw was a quite heroic backs to the wall drawn test too, it could so easily could have been six defeats on the spin.

They just see a never ending series of defeats and won't support losers.

Some Indians on cricinfo are trying to compare this Aussie Indian series to the ashes and doing their level best to convince themselves that they are somehow both of the same level or as prestigious as each other.....too ridiculous for words tbh, they are only about a level or sixty seven apart lol
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Cricket is completely on the nose to the by and large public. I've just been through a bunch of Country towns and it's still as keenly followed there.
Two reasons we hate it now. 1. We are completely gash and have no household names anymore. The 3 cheaters ruined the credibility of the team, and the game and theres no depth in talent or personality. 2. Channel 9 have held the rights to cricket since day dot. It's just moved over to 7, and dividing it up with the free to air Foxtel has destroyed it. People were horrified that they couldn't watch it on free to air and had to get a subscription for the one-dayers / T20 or whatever its called. Massive Backlash.
 
India completed a notable and worthy victory on the stroke of tea to win a surprisingly tense and close fought last day after seeing off a hugely unlikely fightback from the Australian bowlers only this time disguised as batsmen. This is a vital psychological barrier overcome for India and they are now surely well set to dominate this series.

Their bowlers shared the wickets with three each for Ravi Ashwin who took the crucial wicket of number eleven Hazlewood, Bumrah and Shami, Ishant chipping in with the early breakthrough of Travis Head. The story of the game has been the Indian attack being to much for this Aussie batting line up who have simply collapsed in a similar manner to that shown time and again recently.

While the Aussie players picked for batting provided little resistance and as largely expected, collapsed to 187-7 chasing 323 to win, the ones picked for bowling with a helping hand from the captain keeper Tim Paine fought an unlikely battle when all seemed lost, eventually closing to within only 32 runs of victory.

Nathan Lyon the spinner made a very commendable and unbeaten 38 to add to his 24 in the first innings and eight wickets with the ball, and there were useful contributions from Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and even Josh Hazlewood

The man of the match though had to go to the man who held India together with the bat and did more than anyone to set up the victory Cheteshwar Pujara, his was easily the standout performance and a huge step towards a historic series victory for India, one I think they'll achieve extremely comfortably.
 
McBain said:
Cricket is completely on the nose to the by and large public. I've just been through a bunch of Country towns and it's still as keenly followed there.
Two reasons we hate it now. 1. We are completely gash and have no household names anymore. The 3 cheaters ruined the credibility of the team, and the game and theres no depth in talent or personality. 2. Channel 9 have held the rights to cricket since day dot. It's just moved over to 7, and dividing it up with the free to air Foxtel has destroyed it. People were horrified that they couldn't watch it on free to air and had to get a subscription for the one-dayers / T20 or whatever its called. Massive Backlash.
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Yes I've been reading about Channel 9, fond memories of that doyen of all cricket commentators Richie Benaud, Bill Lawry (also recently retired I think) and the late Tony Greig with his Goodnight Charlie send offs, those were the halycon days and we hoped they'd continue, sad to read of the current situation although times change and money always talks.

For me personally who can remember how dreadfully poorly the game was covered by the BBC in the late 1990s, the move to sky in the UK has brought on not only the quality of the coverage, but the way its covered, in leaps and bounds, it really was poorly served by the main terrestrial channel with constant interruptions for racing and other sports plus a whole morning lost for trooping of the colour.

Its regrettable its on pay per view but the coverage is 100% better and the technology vastly improved. Channel four did a great job in 2005 but the BBC's efforts were painfully poor and amateurish.
 
StreetEndBlue said:
Always great to see the Aussies lose. More of the same all the way to next years Ashes and beyond please.

Australian cricket is still in total disarray.
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Unfortunately their trio of batting stars will be back including their talisman Steve Smith, who as one of the top batsmen in whole cricketing world can virtually on his own completely transform a side's prospects, it will be a vastly changed and far stronger Australian line up that faces England, not the pale shadow of it that's currently playing.

Their lack of batting reserves is quite shocking, there are no good substitutes to come in for the banned trio.
 
England have resisted the temptation to call up the widely touted Jason Roy into their test squad to tour the West Indies, instead sticking with the exact same squad that were so successful in Sri Lanka (minus Ollie Pope).

Joe Denly despite not featuring in any of the tests keeps his place while Ollie Pope drops out following the emergence of Ben Foakes as both a batsman and wicketkeeper.

Squad : Root (c), Ali, Anderson, Bairstow, Broad, Burns, Buttler, Sam Curran, Denly, Foakes, Jennings, Leach, Rashid, Stokes, Stone, Woakes

Morgan (c), Tom Curran, Hales, Plunkett, Roy and Willey will come in for the ODI's.

Other news is Sri Lankan star spinner Akila Dananjaya has been banned with immediate effect from bowling in international cricket having been found to have an illegal action, he will now have the option to undertake remedial work in the hope that he can be retested some time in the future.
 
Chris O'Connor said:
Unfortunately their trio of batting stars will be back including their talisman Steve Smith, who as one of the top batsmen in whole cricketing world can virtually on his own completely transform a side's prospects, it will be a vastly changed and far stronger Australian line up that faces England, not the pale shadow of it that's currently playing.

Their lack of batting reserves is quite shocking, there are no good substitutes to come in for the banned trio.
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Bancroft doesn't give me any worries. Warner seems to be persona non grata in Australian cricket right now so I'm not sure he'll even get picked for the tour and who knows how Smith will come back after a year out of top level cricket.

Australia have had a poor record in England for quite sometime now so with or without those three we shouldn't fear them.
 
StreetEndBlue said:
Bancroft doesn't give me any worries. Warner seems to be persona non grata in Australian cricket right now so I'm not sure he'll even get picked for the tour and who knows how Smith will come back after a year out of top level cricket.

Australia have had a poor record in England for quite sometime now so with or without those three we shouldn't fear them.
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Definitely no fear, but Bancroft won't have any difficulty getting back in considering their current crops performances. Smith will have adequate time to get up to speed and is bound to vastly improve them.

We hope they won't reintroduce Warner and surely that's a step too far but i wouldn't put my mortgage on it.

This new Aussie setup may for the moment be putting decency and reform top of the agenda and saying all the right things but it's not a completely normal state of affairs for a hugely competitive nation who in the past have always put winning first. Reverting to type is still very possible and Warner would undoubtedly improve their cricket and competitiveness even if it might make them outcasts.

Even just Smith and Bancroft will vastly improve them, especially Smith, you don't lose world beating talent in a year, and both will have preparation time and not be straight to the ashes.

We can win regardless and there's definitely no fear but undoubtedly it will be a far better Australian batting outfit in opposition than the pale shadow performing against India.
 
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The second test between India and Australia starts tomorrow and it'll be the first test match taking place at the new stadium in Perth.

I just saw a photograph of the pitch on twitter and it was green, so I guess that's a kind of admission that the Aussies feel the only way they can beat India with their present team is to win the toss, stick India in and hope for plenty of movement before the grass dies.

It feels quite risky to me, as India have a good pace attack themselves and are missing Ashwin for this game, so seeing a strip like this may have forced them to load up on pace bowlers anyway.

Perhaps their thinking could be clearer and moving Finch down to number six with Khawaja opening instead of three more sensible, but tbf their batting is always likely to be exposed whatever the strategy. What they can't do is just panic and go England's 1990's route of trying some other batsman and adopting a revolving door policy involving one test wonders and forgotten prospects.

These current batsmen are largely just kids but have at least shown some fight out in the first tour test in Abu Dhabi and again just recently in almost miraculously winning against all odds and rescuing a seemingly lost cause in Adelaide, if they believe they have the character to succeed eventually then they should persevere.

The quality and stars have gone, there are no easy solutions if the talent is just is not there atm, it's a holding job until the ban ends and their talismanic former captain Steve Smith and the banned trio come back in, the ashes are the target and meanwhile they should use this series to develop for the future and give these kids a chance of some valuable experience.
 

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