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Ashes 2019

Up the Guts

Steve Williams (59)
Yeah Paine was terrible with the DRS but the umpiring was pretty bloody poor. It’s that much harder to get your reviews right when the umpires frequently make howlers because you start questioning every decision.
 

Lindommer

Steve Williams (59)
Staff member
I won't be surprised at all if both Warner and Khawaja are among the top run scorers in Shield cricket again next summer.

That's if they play Shield cricket this coming summer. There's so much other cricket scheduled the top blokes play bugger all Shield matches. Surely those contracted by the ACB don't need the money to play in the one day and T20 matches, direct them to play in every first class match they can.
 

barbarian

Phil Kearns (64)
Staff member
All of this coaching analysis relies on the assumption that we'd score 450 every innings if only we picked the right line-up.

Drop Warner, and Burns will no doubt be dominant. Put Khawaja out to open, and he'd somehow work out how to score runs, despite the fact he was coming in at 1/5 every innings and looking completely clueless.

And if THOSE players don't work, simply drop them for other players who can score bulk runs against the swinging duke.

It's really quite simple, and the selectors would have us at #1 in a matter of weeks if they simply read our expert analysis from time to time.
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Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Khawaja's record in the last couple of years and particularly away from home is also terrible. I certainly don't think there's anything to suggest he would have done better opening and should have been persisted with in that position at the end of the series.

Khawaja's test average away from home is 24.36. His average in England from 6 tests is 19.66.

I think Burns and Patterson should have both been in the squad. Burns ahead of one of Harris or Bancroft and Patterson instead of Neser or Marsh if you aren't going to increase player numbers. There is nothing to suggest those players would have definitely done better though. Given the number of failures through the series I think they would have been worth giving an opportunity.

Our issue is a lack of good players. Burns scored 180 in his last test but still only has a test average of 40. He's played 16 tests and been dropped a bunch of times through poor form. Aside from after his 180 against Sri Lanka, he generally has deserved to be dropped.
 

Finsbury Girl

Trevor Allan (34)
Khawaja's record in the last couple of years and particularly away from home is also terrible. I certainly don't think there's anything to suggest he would have done better opening and should have been persisted with in that position at the end of the series.



Khawaja's test average away from home is 24.36. His average in England from 6 tests is 19.66.



I think Burns and Patterson should have both been in the squad. Burns ahead of one of Harris or Bancroft and Patterson instead of Neser or Marsh if you aren't going to increase player numbers. There is nothing to suggest those players would have definitely done better though. Given the number of failures through the series I think they would have been worth giving an opportunity.



Our issue is a lack of good players. Burns scored 180 in his last test but still only has a test average of 40. He's played 16 tests and been dropped a bunch of times through poor form. Aside from after his 180 against Sri Lanka, he generally has deserved to be dropped.


Scored a 170 in NZ saved Aus bacon, got dropped. Top score in the debacle in Jo'Burg, got dropped. Scores big 180 got dropped.

You are kidding right? Steve Waugh averaged less after the same amount of tests. The bloke has 4 hundreds & 4 50s from only 28 innings.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Scored a 170 in NZ saved Aus bacon, got dropped. Top score in the debacle in Jo'Burg, got dropped. Scores big 180 got dropped.

You are kidding right? Steve Waugh averaged less after the same amount of tests. The bloke has 4 hundreds & 4 50s from only 28 innings.


He didn't get dropped after that 170 in New Zealand. He played the next two tests Australia played in Sri Lanka in the middle of that year. He got dropped for the third test against Sri Lanka after scores of 3, 29, 0 and 2. You could definitely make a case that he deserved more time after scoring a 170.

He scored 4 and 42 in Jo'Burg and whilst the 42 was the top score amongst the Aussies in the second innings, 3 Australians scored 50s in the first innings. I hardly think 46 runs in a test demands selection in the next match.

The underlying point here is that whilst I would have had Burns on the Ashes tour and picked him to open in the first test, there's no guarantee he would have done a huge amount better. He should have had the opportunity though.
 

John S

Desmond Connor (43)
He didn't get dropped after that 170 in New Zealand. He played the next two tests Australia played in Sri Lanka in the middle of that year. He got dropped for the third test against Sri Lanka after scores of 3, 29, 0 and 2. You could definitely make a case that he deserved more time after scoring a 170.

He scored 4 and 42 in Jo'Burg and whilst the 42 was the top score amongst the Aussies in the second innings, 3 Australians scored 50s in the first innings. I hardly think 46 runs in a test demands selection in the next match.

The underlying point here is that whilst I would have had Burns on the Ashes tour and picked him to open in the first test, there's no guarantee he would have done a huge amount better. He should have had the opportunity though.

On that basis, Warner should have been dropped.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
On that basis, Warner should have been dropped.


Sure, and he quite well could have been if the person at the other end and the number 3 to start the series also weren't failing left, right and centre.

The reality is that Warner's test record and his 21 test centuries means he is going to get more time to recover his form than other players in similar circumstances. It's a fact of life. I pretty much guarantee he'll play the first test of the Summer even if he barely scores any runs in the two Shield games he should get to play prior to the first test.

It was a truly dire series for Warner and pretty much no one else in the side would have been afforded the chance to fail that many times. A substantial reason why that was allowed to take place is that multiple other batters deserved to be dropped too.
 

Finsbury Girl

Trevor Allan (34)
He didn't get dropped after that 170 in New Zealand. He played the next two tests Australia played in Sri Lanka in the middle of that year. He got dropped for the third test against Sri Lanka after scores of 3, 29, 0 and 2. You could definitely make a case that he deserved more time after scoring a 170.



He scored 4 and 42 in Jo'Burg and whilst the 42 was the top score amongst the Aussies in the second innings, 3 Australians scored 50s in the first innings. I hardly think 46 runs in a test demands selection in the next match.



The underlying point here is that whilst I would have had Burns on the Ashes tour and picked him to open in the first test, there's no guarantee he would have done a huge amount better. He should have had the opportunity though.

All of those innings are proof he is a test match player. Unlike others actually IN THE TEAM he is averaging a lot more and has scored plenty of runs under pressure overseas against very good bowling attacks. I can confidently say he would've outperformed Warner, Bancroft and Harris EASILY.
 

Lindommer

Steve Williams (59)
Staff member
Dean Jones' remark years ago the Australian cricket team was/is harder to get out of than in to rings true in this discussion. I realise physical conditioning has changed quite a bit since Dean's time, but, Warner is a wink off turning 33, which is what he'll be next test match. A drop in form at that age has to be looked at with some trepidation and a concerned eye for the future of the Oz batting lineup. Some would say a slump at this stage of Warner's career is fatal. I'd agree.
 

Tex

John Thornett (49)
Here's Geoff Lemon's series review: https://www.theroar.com.au/cricket/...ime-thats-the-story-of-the-2019-ashes-864291/

He comes up with some funny lines, this one is my favourite where he's talking about how Archer is the first cool cricketer England has had:

He was, in short, cool. Which means you can forgive England for getting excited about Archer, because England had never had a cricketer who was cool. For a century the closest it came was haughtily stylish exponents of noblesse oblige, playing in their time off from running the East India Company.
Even the vaguely dashing ones were schoolmasters or died in various wars. Laddish swashbucklers like Ian Botham and Freddie Flintoff came closest, but young Botham inspired The Office’s insufferable lead character David Brent and has since matured into a kind of gently sweating chunk of Brexit left in the dashboard sun. Flintoff the television presenter is now at least half Jersey Shore.
 
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