Why The Panic?

[OzBomber]

What's the deal with all the criticism of Australia and the fact that our time at the top is over? We've lost one game. Sure, we got smashed but we dominated the first game.

I don't believe it's time for changes like the Ashes after one test. Binga has had problems off the field. You can't drop Haydos after all he has done for us. Heck, it was only 8 months ago when Haydos was tearing it up against India at home.

Hayden and Haddin are the only batsman (I'm counting White as a bowler) who haven't scored a 50 this series. If we get smashed over the next 2 tests, then yes, maybe it's time for changes. But there is no point panicking after one loss.

Thoughts?

[Cousin Jed]

What have you done for me lately.

[likka]

Too many people around here have grown up and only known Aussie dominance on the cricket field. Public expectations are incredibly high, sometimes correctly, but IMO too high for this series.

Also many flogs on BF that barrack like the bogon yobbos they are... they have no interest in the game if we are not spanking an opposition side.

I grew up with us doing okay in the 70s then getting absolutely flogged during most the 80s... not too many around here have experienced that sort of pain.

[sherb]

Too many people around here have grown up and only known Aussie dominance on the cricket field. Public expectations are incredibly high, sometimes correctly, but IMO too high for this series.

Also many flogs on BF that barrack like the bogon yobbos they are... they have no interest in the game if we are not spanking an opposition side.

I grew up with us doing okay in the 70s then getting absolutely flogged during most the 80s... not too many around here have experienced that sort of pain.
I hear ya.

I have been following cricket since the 70/71 Ashes tour. :)

[Kruuuuuuuuuuezer]

I for one don't mind terribly that we lost.
The fact that was no longer just dominating teams like we have done in the past makes for some very enjoyable cricket.
Don't get me wrong i love seeing us winning but i like the fact that we can lose. Makes the cricket so much more enjoyable to watch

[YOTC]

The dominance is over.

The wins will still come, but they won't be the team where having a bad game was winning by less than an innings.

[Gunnar Longshanks]

Look at the other Test nations.

Which ones have a better bowling attack than us?

You could make an argument for three or four.

That is the reason people are now less bullish about Australia's chances.

[The Sim Dog]

What's the deal with all the criticism of Australia and the fact that our time at the top is over? We've lost one game. Sure, we got smashed but we dominated the first game.

Did not win it and never looked like racing away with it.

I don't believe it's time for changes like the Ashes after one test. Binga has had problems off the field.

And it would appear they are flowing on to the field. I can cop the shit figures but not the sooking on field and arguing with the captain. Looks bad. Is bad.

You can't drop Haydos after all he has done for us. Heck, it was only 8 months ago when Haydos was tearing it up against India at home.

I don't think he did that well at all and struggled in the one day series. He is what 36? No one plays forever no matter how good they once were, it is time for him to retire. Should not have played again after his recent injury.

Hayden and Haddin are the only batsman (I'm counting White as a bowler) who haven't scored a 50 this series. If we get smashed over the next 2 tests, then yes, maybe it's time for changes. But there is no point panicking after one loss.

Thoughts?

Of the guys who have scored 50, apart from Hussey they have all done stuff all else. One decent innings in four is pathetic. And I don't care where White is coming in or what he is picked as he is more of a batsmen and therefore his performance has been disgusting.

[Iron Gloves]

Here we go again, assassination by media:eek:
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,24562378-23212,00.html


EVERYTHING seems lost even before the third Test between Australia and India in New Delhi has begun.
Brett Lee cannot bowl fast, Stuart Clark might not be able to bowl at all, Matthew Hayden - who has made 42 runs in four innings - thinks that India bowler Zaheer Khan is vulnerable and, God forbid, the nation might need to play its No.1 spinner Jason Krejza.
Just how such a dominant nation has come to the edge of so meekly relinquishing its position is damning of Australia's cricket administration. In the first Test Ricky Ponting's side could not impose itself on the Indian tail and a chance of victory petered out. In the second Test everybody agrees - Australian captain to Indian skipper - that the tourists were outplayed in every element of Test cricket.
It is almost that Australia are in denial. Hayden, who has made 0, 13, 0, and 29, has said that he believes he has Zaheer Khan on the back foot. For the record the Australian opener has made 17 fewer runs than Zaheer, who bats when no one else can. And who has batted half as many times. With the ball Zaheer has taken 10 wickets - more than any Australian and second only to Ishant Sharma - at the very good average of 26.
Hayden's diagnosis that Zaheer is on the point of a nervous breakdown is based on the bowler's abuse of him when the Australian was dismissed for 29 in the second innings of the second Test. Hayden apparently had brought Zaheer to this brink when he charged his first ball of the second innings. That the ball was mis-hit and looped dangerously close to mid-off was, it seems, a victory for Hayden and not the bowler.
Said Hayden: "Zaheer Khan has been put under pressure a lot by myself and Gilly (Adam Gilchrist) in all the tournaments we've played in one-dayers. I have also tried to emulate that when we've played Tests. I just feel he is vulnerable when he's like that."
Not only is it such graceless gibberish, it is also foolish. Unable to bully India as it has in the old days, the veterans of the team hanker for the good times when they could back up their words with significant deeds. Times change. Australia have no response to losing other than a childish attempt to bully its way back to the top. In victory they have learnt to gloat and nothing else.
Then you read, almost in disbelief, that the Australia coaching brains trust think that Lee's lack of wickets is due to a loss of ability to bowl fast. Said the skipper Ricky Ponting: "Because he's been a bit underdone he's been bowling a bit at half- and three-quarter pace at training, concentrating on his technique trying to do everything right. But by doing that he's probably taught himself to bowl slow.
"For the next week he'll be doing that dynamic stuff. When he bowls at training he'll be bowling off his long run to train that back into his body again."
Colleague Malcolm Conn reported that the team's fitness adviser Stuart Karppinen, a former West Australian fast bowler, wanted Lee to do 11 varied sessions in the week leading up to Wednesday's third Test.
"We want to mimic the movements that happen when he bowls," Karppinen said. "We're trying to promote speed."
Let's think about that. Lee is 31 and has bowled 57,863 balls in Test, first-class and all limited-over forms of the game. That's 57,863 at flat-out speed. The coaches think that a few weeks working more on technique than speed has robbed him of the ability to bowl over 150km/h. Whatever are they thinking?
Fast bowlers are naturally quick. It is their action and their build that combine to make them deliver the ball faster than others. You can pick it off a couple of paces. A fast bowler releases the ball at great speed without exerting himself. Others could run 20 metres and not generate such pace.
If it was just a matter of exercising muscles that make a bowler quick then the world would be full of bowlers hurling the ball down at 160km/h. You might refine them, but you don't build them. They are born quick.
Over time a fast bowler will lose his pace as his body slows. For a while that will be countered by some tricks he has picked up over the journey. Eventually, though, fast bowlers bowl with passion and passion alone.
Lee has not reached that point. He has not even got close. Lee has lost the rhythm that allows a quick bowler to release the ball at great speed. The fast bowler's action flows from beginning to end smoothly and in sync. No particular movement gets in the way of another. A quick bowler might be big and brutal but it is the manner he collects all that force that is the key to his speed.
Even a violent action is a delicate mechanism that can be interrupted by mundane things like an uneven run-up, a strong wind, sloping ground. Importantly in Lee's case it is often - and devastatingly so - caused by psychological distress.
A bowler will often say the ball "came out well" from the hand. He means everything arrived at the point of release at exactly the right time. With great fast bowlers like Glenn McGrath it happened almost without fail, with lesser bowlers like Steve Harmison it happens much less frequently.
With most sportsmen and women - Shane Warne the exception - personal problems infect their sport. They clutter the mind, prove distractions that become obstacles to the message from the brain reaching its required target. So a bowler runs in hard, aims for the off stump and bowls below pace down the leg side. Without rhythm, the body short circuits. It can return as quickly as it disappeared.
Lee is trying to bowl as quick as he has in the past, is trying to pinpoint the spot on the pitch that he used to be able to hit with his eyes closed but his rhythm has been emotionally hijacked. Lee will think he is doing everything as he should and he is. But no longer in the perfect sequence that allowed him to be the quickest bowler in the world. He could spend the next six months working on his "fast muscles" but unless he comes to terms with his new life then nothing will change.
Lee might also be able to tell you the day he woke up and could no longer bowl as he once did. And it might be the day he realised cricket was not the most important thing in his life.


Can this guy be more annoying in Summer than Winter? A friggin expert on everything.:thumbsd:

[groverjones]

I grew up with us doing okay in the 70s then getting absolutely flogged during most the 80s... not too many around here have experienced that sort of pain.
In terms of BF, that is absolutely correct.
Test match cricket, while it's great to see Australia win, is about the contest. The result in the end is not so important.

[dr nick]

In terms of BF, that is absolutely correct.
Test match cricket, while it's great to see Australia win, is about the contest. The result in the end is not so important.

thats loser talk.

england mentality.

[Cousin Jed]

Here we go again, assassination by media:eek:
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,24562378-23212,00.html



Can this guy be more annoying in Summer than Winter? A friggin expert on everything.:thumbsd:

Mistake number 1. Reading an article by Fatprick Smith.

[LIONS then DAYLIGHT]

LOL at everyone running around thinking our dominance is over.

Can't blame you to be honest considering many knowledgable and respected journos (maybe not pat smith but others) have been spouting the same thing.

Lets just remember all this hyperbole was based on one test match when we lost a vital toss and then crumbled against an attack buoyed by the fact that they had 450 runs on the board.

Yes our attack looked lifeless but it has performed before.

I tell you want if Australia do win this 3rd test, there are going to be some very foolish looking journos going around. Mike Coward, Pat Smith and others.

Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it.

[Danny MacGill]

The dominance is over on subcontinent pitches because we have no spinner.
Simple as that, every batsman will struggle against a decent spinner on a turning wicket.
I'm 90% sure India would not be 1-0 up in Australia, the Australian side may still be the best in the world, but if you don't have variety, when you play away the groundman can exploit your weaknesses which is what is happening.

Yes the dominance is over, yes we will struggle to beat India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka away from home, panic or not there is no quick fix for the situation, we have to face that we don't have the bowling attack to match it with India on their soil.
Batting is not the problem IMO.

[Danny MacGill]

An example i forgot to mention was Bangladesh vs New Zealand, if it wasn't for Vettori who IS a world class spinner, Bangladesh would most likely have won the 1st test and maybe the one day series.
If played in New Zealand however it would be very one sided.

[Cousin Jed]

Yes the dominance is over, yes we will struggle to beat India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka away from home, panic or not there is no quick fix for the situation, we have to face that we don't have the bowling attack to match it with India on their soil.
Batting is not the problem IMO.

That was true even when we were dominant

[Danny MacGill]

That was true even when we were dominant
No doubt but it stands out like dogs proverbials now we don't have Warne.