definitely close contests. Nothing wrong with whitewashing a home summer, but we literally didn't lose a session all summer, every test was over by Day 1, just got so stale as the contest was non-existent. Need to at least have some contest between bat and ball too.
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Test AUSTRALIA v SOUTH AFRICA Third Test. Jan 4-8: SCG, 10.30am AEDT
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Australia will have a month away from red ball cricket before beginning the most difficult assignment in world cricket: beating India in India.
How annoying and frustrating is this CA obsession with BBL. That is a month when we need to be honing our red ball skills instead of playing T20 cricket. CA knew that we were touring early this year so should have rescheduled to give us optimum red ball preparation to pull off a rare win in 'the last frontier'. I am hearing too that India isn't even offering us a warm up match?
How annoying and frustrating is this CA obsession with BBL. That is a month when we need to be honing our red ball skills instead of playing T20 cricket. CA knew that we were touring early this year so should have rescheduled to give us optimum red ball preparation to pull off a rare win in 'the last frontier'. I am hearing too that India isn't even offering us a warm up match?
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It would be great if the Test squad could go back to Shield cricket for the month, would be as good a prep as they could get.
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Then for diplomacy sake the skipper should say nothing rather than give the bloke false hope. Pat is on record now saying he is confident Agar will be in the India squad.
Precisely what I was alluding to about CA rescheduling. Our Test boys need some cricket to really test them as they have had things a bit too easy this summer.
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I am sure they are talking internally and are well aware of where everyone sits.
Also he is absolutely going to be in the squad, it’s the final 11 I hope we don’t see him in
Scorpus
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I think the best cricket is both sides playing well, which would lead to a close contest
If Australia is playing well and the other side is struggling due to that, I think that can also be good viewing
What isn't good is when Australia is playing badly but smashing the opposition because they're even worse. Or when it's a close contest because both sides are playing terribly
Rabish Binney
Left out overnight
Did you say that after we whipped the Poms last year?
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Disagree, it was flat and slow, offering nothing to the bowlers and making for slow batting at times. It’s a poor pitch and has been for a while now.
I love the contest of course, but in general I just love watching quality players display their skills. I have always got more out of Test cricket than just watching runs, wickets, catches, I love to study the game and look for positives as well as areas where a player can improve.
If the opposition are weak in comparison to Australia, then I still enjoy watching Australia win. It used to annoy me back in the Warne, Gilchrist era when people complained that the Aussies won all the time. FFS!! We were watching perhaps the greatest assembly of Australian cricketers of all time. To watch them was a rare pleasure, and all some people could do was whinge.
It's all about the great players and the enjoyment of watching their exquisite skills. There is more to Test cricket than just winning or losing.
Grand Uncle Horace
Shake down the thunder
Spot on. Win, lose or draw there are always contests we can savour between bat and ball. Like him or not Anderson, always presents a test for batsmen, even on our pitches that are not conducive to his bowling. Runs against him are hard earned.
Funnily enough, as good as Anderson is, the thing that annoys me most about him is he dishes out the sledges by the bucket full, but the moment he cops it he goes running to the press about it. If you give it, you should be able to take it. Always been more of a Broad fan.
Grand Uncle Horace
Shake down the thunder
hehe. I am the opposite. Broad too readily tosses in the towel when conditions are not dialled in for him.
It's a good question. My answer is reflective of the era I grew up in. When I grew up, Australia losing a test match was a surprise and Australia losing a test series was a huge shock. Those who were following Australian cricket when Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh retired would have seen Australia win 1 or 2 test series until the 1989 Ashes series.
A few weeks after I turned 8, Australia won the WACA test of the 2002-03 Ashes test inside 3 days and I remember feeling sad that the test was over so quickly. None of that sadness was Australis's fault it was more disappointment that England really, really stunk. From the aforementioned WACA test onwards, I just wanted to see competitive test cricket and if the match was drawn or Australia lost, so be it.
I never willingly wanted Australia to lose but I wanted to see test cricket where the outcome wasn't inevitable come the end of day 3. The only cricket I had access to on TV until 2006 was whatever channel 9 showed and the more cricket on TV at that time the better as far as I was concerned.
The first time Australia lost a home test series in my lifetime was in the summer of 2008-09, just after I had turned 14. South Africa's test series win here that summer didn't disappoint me that much because I had witnessed something happen in Aussie cricket for the first time in my lifetime. It was a new experience looking at an Aussie side outplayed in their own conditions, looking at how and why that happened, thinking about who should be dropped, who should keep their place etc.
It also has to be said too that South Africa were very impressive in the 2008-09 summer here and it's safe to say they left here with the respect of the Aussie public unlike the Indian side who left here at the end of the 2007-08 summer. I have had no such issues with India since then it has to be said.
I regard England, South Africa and India as Australia's true cricket rivals of my lifetime and I would rather see competitive cricket when we take on any of those 3 countries so that will explain why I have been a bit disappointed by England and South Africa's most recent performances here.
I'd rather see Australia win but if they don't win, so be it. However, If I live through an era when Australia really struggles to win a test series over a 4-5 year block, I'll probably have a different outlook.
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I prefer high quality cricket first, contest second.. If we smash someone due to playing high quality cricket and other side not up to it, I still enjoy it but love it even more if there quality cricket by both sides. I grew up watching the World Series Cricket in late 70's. That was my first taste of cricket and it was high quality cricket by West Indies, Australia and The World XI. We probably lost most matches but was fun trying to beat the might of the West Indies and a World XI side. If you won a match it felt awesome as was real challenge. Beating South Africa and West Indies this summer has not felt like much of a challenge. I did enjoy some of the quality bowling by Aussies and also a few spells by Nortje and the Josepth for West Indies. That was about the only time the contest was near what I wish for. It was like the reverse of mid 80's when we were really s**t and smashed by West Indies in a 5 Test series there and then here too.
I look forward to playing South Africa and West Indies the most as pine for those great challenges their best sides can give. Sadly, we not seen it from West Indies for decades and South Africa recently have incredibly s**t batting and poorly run cricket admin there that I do not have the contests I want to really see. Apart from the World Series Cricket series and early 80's the next best period was late 80's to mid 90's for contests.
Notably it was real contests to have South Africa in Test cricket for first time in my life and West Indies starting to become within reaching distance of beating in the early 90's.
I probably enjoyed the contest in West Indies in early 90's the most as a series in last 30 years. We still lost but I now believed we could beat them any year now and we finally did in 1995.
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I enjoy the constant ebb and flow that pure cricket brings. I have the feeling that I am not merely watching a cricket match I am being absorbed into one. You dont get that with white ball cricket. As Tests are played over five days there is plenty of scope for one side to appear to be in control but then for the other to wrest back the advantage with a special spell of bowling or a resilient time in the middle with the willow. There can also be a change of momentum with a brilliant piece of out fielding, a pin point run out or a slick stumping. The most enthralling Test matches are those that go the full five days and are decided in the final session. The people that run our game should be striving for those to keep bums on seats plus the joy of watching a great sporting contest, but above all else keeping alive the only pure form of the greatest summer sport on the planet.
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Gough
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It's a game that rewards effort and concentration for spectators as much as players, there's nothing more thrilling than having sat through five days of cricket you go to tea on the last day with all results still in play.
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So did I. As a matter of fact I am watching some old grainy footage of WSC games at the moment. Pity some one has not remastered them as they are the very best of cricket nostalgia.
WSC was a turning point in the evolution of cricket. A time when one man snubbed his nose at the super arrogant people running Test cricket in that era. It gave the sport a shot in the arm and never before entertainment between two teams of 11 men. It gave under paid cricketers the money they deserved and some of the best cricketers in the world all in one venue to enthrall the masses as the people deserved. It gave the sport such innovations as evening cricket under tall towers illuminating the ground as if day, a white ball and some of the most unstylish clothing ever seen on a cricket field. It gave paying punters two formats of the game in a complete package.
World Series Cricket changed cricket forever and revolutionized the sport.
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20,470 turning up on day 5 seems to be an unbelievably good crowd even considering it was a gold coin donation to get in? When was the last day 5 crowd to be bigger than that?
There were 11,660 at day 5 of last years Ashes for example and the entry conditions were exactly the same and there was arguably a better game scenario on for that game (Australia needed 10 wickets on day 5).
Similar circumstances back in 2017 against Pakistan (Australia needed 9 wickets on day 5) and there were 12k there from memory.
There were 11,660 at day 5 of last years Ashes for example and the entry conditions were exactly the same and there was arguably a better game scenario on for that game (Australia needed 10 wickets on day 5).
Similar circumstances back in 2017 against Pakistan (Australia needed 9 wickets on day 5) and there were 12k there from memory.
The Australian cricket team has got to be the only major sports team in the world whose fans get pissed off when they win by too much too often. I get there’s a variety of reasons for it, but it’s an interesting phenomenon nonetheless.
And lets to be real when people say they want close contests they mean close contests at home where we always prevail, people here were slitting their wrists when india beat us at home but overall it was actually a tight series.
I say this every time and never get clear answers when people talk about these "best era's" the more competitive times for test cricket what time do they actually mean? and what games in what countries? the era when we didnt lose at home for 16 years? the era when west indies didnt lose a single test series home or away for 15 years? how was that good for cricket but us winning a home is bad for the game now?
I say this every time and never get clear answers when people talk about these "best era's" the more competitive times for test cricket what time do they actually mean? and what games in what countries? the era when we didnt lose at home for 16 years? the era when west indies didnt lose a single test series home or away for 15 years? how was that good for cricket but us winning a home is bad for the game now?
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Can anyone confirm whether Ussie was on the ground for the whole match (excluding rain breaks)? Did he go off the ground for any overs whilst we were bowling? I don't recall this happening whilst I've been watching cricket. I remember Mark Taylor in his record breaking match against Pakistan come close but was dismissed late in the match.
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He definitely went off the field for a couple of overs at least on day 5.
David Warner did it when he made his 335* against Pakistan although I assume he also went off at some point while fielding.
Alistair Cook in the Boxing Day Test of 2017 too.
Kraigg Brathwaite did it in this match:
PAK vs WI Cricket Scorecard, , 3rd Test at Sharjah, October 30 - November 03, 2016
Get cricket scorecard of 3rd Test, PAK vs WI, West Indies tour of UAE 2016/17 at Sharjah Cricket Stadium dated October 30 - November 03, 2016.
Tom Latham in this one:
NZ vs SL Cricket Scorecard, , 1st Test at Wellington, December 15 - 19, 2018
Get cricket scorecard of 1st Test, NZ vs SL, Sri Lanka in NZ 2018/19 at Basin Reserve, Wellington dated December 15 - 19, 2018.
Basically any match where an opener carries his bat in the 1st innings of a large total its going to happen in.
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He definitely went off the field for a couple of overs at least on day 5.
David Warner did it when he made his 335* against Pakistan although I assume he also went off at some point while fielding.
Alistair Cook in the Boxing Day Test of 2017 too.
Kraigg Brathwaite did it in this match:
PAK vs WI Cricket Scorecard, , 3rd Test at Sharjah, October 30 - November 03, 2016
Get cricket scorecard of 3rd Test, PAK vs WI, West Indies tour of UAE 2016/17 at Sharjah Cricket Stadium dated October 30 - November 03, 2016.www.espncricinfo.com
Tom Latham in this one:
NZ vs SL Cricket Scorecard, , 1st Test at Wellington, December 15 - 19, 2018
Get cricket scorecard of 1st Test, NZ vs SL, Sri Lanka in NZ 2018/19 at Basin Reserve, Wellington dated December 15 - 19, 2018.
Basically any match where an opener carries his bat in the 1st innings of a large total its going to happen in.
Great info. Thanks.
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