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May 5, 2016
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Never seen such fu**s like that in that period when 8 wickets down. You kidding yourself to think others in same period did the same with such a tailender.
Remember Border brilliant effort with Thomson the decade before where he did what a middle order bat should do and try to milk the strike and get most of runs at same time. Martyn did everything wrong and opposite to what you should and the most complete fu** up I ever seen in similar circumstances.

There is only one way that a team GETS 8 wickets down.

Why do the players who made that happen get assauged of responsibility?

its Like blaming the second change bowler for letting a team win from 8-down needing 100, and they come on and give away the last 15 runs in one over. Did they screw up? Yes. Was the result THEIR fault and theirs alone? No way
 
I'm not pointing the finger only at him but there nobody deserved dropping more than him right then and there. It was horrific what he done.
Well, yes you are pointing the finger, because you aren't talking about anyone else who contributed to that collapse.

I don't see you talking about Boon and Taylor, experienced players who got Australia to 1-51 and were set, only to both get out within sight of stumps on the 4th day.
 
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There is only one way that a team GETS 8 wickets down.

Why do the players who made that happen get assauged of responsibility?
That your crazy assumption.
They are responsible for what happened before and he responsible for his bigger crime at end.
Trying to pretend he did not deserve dropped is laughable to me. His was the biggest crime on that day, by a long shot.
Others ****ed up too but nothing to extent of his.
 
May 5, 2016
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That your crazy assumption.
They are responsible for what happened before and he responsible for his bigger crime at end.
Trying to pretend he did not deserve dropped is laughable to me. His was the biggest crime on that day, by a long shot.
Others f’ed up too but nothing to extent of his.

Why is that a bigger crime? A young player failing under pressure, compared to a 30 year old failing under none?
 
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Even in the border example he allowed Thomson to face 63 balls and make 20 odd runs.
Chalk and cheese. Martyn barely scored a run and was massively outscored by McDermott that was ridiculous in circumstances. Border farmed the strike and was not scared to give Thomson some strike as we needed over 70 runs so it not like it only 20 or 30 runs to get and you can hide him totally away every over.
 
May 5, 2016
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During the famous Adelaide chase, Justin Langer if my maths are correct, scored 8 of the 42 runs he and Tim may put on for the ninth wicket, before Langer was dismissed trying so smash a pull shot off Ian Bishop.

now, rightly, Langer was lauded for a tough 54 off about 150 balls or something. But it doesn’t diminish the fact that a) he let May do the bulk of the scoring - a man with 92 test runs in his career before that day - or b) he played a bludger of a shot to get out.
What makes one a worse crime than the other?
 
May 5, 2016
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Chalk and cheese. Martyn barely scored a run and was massively outscored by McDermott that was ridiculous in circumstances. Border farmed the strike and was not scared to give Thomson some strike as we needed over 70 runs so it not like it only 20 or 30 runs to get and you can hide him totally away every over.

McDermott faced 38 balls for the innings. It’s not like he was given 15 overs to bat and squeezed out 29 runs. He was facing no more than his fair share and simply happened to nail a handful of boundaries.
 
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McDermott faced 38 balls for the innings. It’s not like he was given 15 overs to bat and squeezed out 29 runs. He was facing no more than his fair share and simply happened to nail a handful of boundaries.
He was facing more than his fair share in circumstances and ******* Martyn barely scored a run, FFS. I got no idea what the * Martyn was thinking to allow that to go on. FFS, McGrath in next, if we going to win , you as specialist bat got to take on the scoring and try to get bulk of runs yourself.
 
May 5, 2016
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He was facing more than his fair share in circumstances and ******* Martyn barely scored a run, FFS. I got no idea what the fu** Martyn was thinking to allow that to go on. FFS, McGrath in next, if we going to win , you as specialist bat got to take on the scoring and try to get bulk of runs yourself.

Do you think a kid playing his sixth test match surrounded by teammates who had won a World Cup, won the ashes back, and dragged Australian cricket out of the mire, is going to
Know exactly how to play in that situation when he has never been in it?

20 years later and still the criticism of him swings between ‘why did he not attack’ and ‘why did he play an attacking shot’ and that’s from
ONE person. Imagine what would have been going through his head
 
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Do you think a kid playing his sixth test match surrounded by teammates who had won a World Cup, won the ashes back, and dragged Australian cricket out of the mire, is going to
Know exactly how to play in that situation when he has never been in it?

20 years later and still the criticism of him swings between ‘why did he not attack’ and ‘why did he play an attacking shot’ and that’s from
ONE person. Imagine what would have been going through his head
If you not ready for the heat, GTFO. This is Test cricket, not tiddlywinks.
 
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So what is the excuse for all the players that had been around the side for years and made equally bad mistakes.

your argument has no logic and makes no sense
Your argument makes no sense to me to be trying to get him off the hook.
This assumption of equal mistakes I not buying for one moment so trying to repeat it changes nothing to me.
Way too soft and glad selectors had way more steel than you would have showed at the time.
Which one of reasons why within a few years we ended up best in world because we picked the right guys to have us rise above such piss poor efforts.
 
May 5, 2016
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Your argument makes no sense to me to be trying to get him off the hook.
This assumption of equal mistakes I not buying for one moment so trying to repeat it changes nothing to me.
Way too soft and glad selectors had way more steel than you would have showed at the time.
Which one of reasons why within a few years we ended up best in world because we picked the right guys to have us rise above such piss poor efforts.

It’s cutting off your nose to spite your face. The ‘steel’ the selectors showed did nothing but cost australia one of the best players of spin of his generation, same as their point blank refusal to give Darren Lehman a game until 8 years after he was first picked in the squad.

you’re making excuses for experienced test cricketers while crucifying a player starting out in his journey and who paid more heavily for a mistake than any player I can remember.

maybe they should have dropped Nathan Lyon for 6 years for failing to cleanly take a ball on the bounce at headingley.

Any logic that says ‘a player in his 7th year of test cricket can make a mistake and not be punished but someone else in his first should be excommunicated for six years’ under the antiquated umbrella of ‘toughness’ is not logic at all.
 
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you’re making excuses for experienced test cricketers while crucifying a player starting out in his journey and who paid more heavily for a mistake than any player I can remember.
That's your comprehension and flawed thinking, not mine. I'm just satisfied of him getting dumped as he should have as it was ******* pathetic at the time.
He rightly paid heavily for such a crime of that time.
 
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That's your comprehension and flawed thinking, not mine. I'm just satisfied of him getting dumped as he should have as it was ******* pathetic at the time.
He rightly paid heavily for such a crime of that time.

There was nothing right about it and your continual lack of willingness to acknowledge or even explain why similar treatment wasn’t meted out to others who had failed probably tells me that stubbornness is the only reason you’re still arguing it
 
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There was nothing right about it and your continual lack of willingness to acknowledge or even explain why similar treatment wasn’t meted out to others who had failed probably tells me that stubbornness is the only reason you’re still arguing it
Nothing to acknowledge other than what happened was what he deserved. I am stubborn for sure when it deserved. He ****ed up so bad, nothing I seen made me as angry at one of our middle order bats in such a situation.
 
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Nothing to acknowledge other than what happened was what he deserved. I am stubborn for sure when it deserved. He f’ed up so bad, nothing I seen made me as angry at one of our middle order bats in such a situation.

Is there any chance at all of you acknowledging the myriad other examples of an Australian brain explosion costing them a test match and explaining why you think they are somehow less guilty or should I just leave it?
 
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Is there any chance at all of you acknowledging the myriad other examples of an Australian brain explosion costing them a test match and explaining why you think they are somehow less guilty or should I just leave it?
You can continue to bang your head against a wall with this flawed thinking that any others ****ed up as bad in my eyes or just accept nothing I seen in all my time has made me as angry in such circumstances.
 

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Interesting, but painful, to revisit the 1994 Sydney Test.

Query whether there was cause-and-effect between Martyn's second innings failure and him not playing in the 3rd and final Test of the series in Adelaide a few weeks later.

Remember that Martyn toured England in 1993 and did not play a single Test in the 6 Test series. The top 6 of Taylor, Slater, Boon, M Waugh, Border and S Waugh was unchanged for the entire Ashes series and then the 3 Test series against New Zealand at home in 1993-94. Steve Waugh was injured in an ODI in December 1993, which opened up the middle-order spot for Martyn to fill. Martyn played in the first two Tests of the home series against South Africa and S Waugh soon returned to full fitness. Waugh returns to the side for the 3rd Test in Adelaide and makes a big hundred in the first innings.

The upshot is that there is a good chance that, even if Martyn had batted well in the 2nd innings in Sydney after scoring a 50 in the 1st innings, he would have lost his place to the returning Steve Waugh for the next Test.

What is more significant is that Martyn was not picked to tour South Africa for the series in early-1994 and for the tour of Pakistan later in the year. The selectors might have been influenced to a degree by Martyn's 2nd innings performance in the Sydney Test. I also seem to remember that Martyn had some personal issues around this time that affected his form and/or attitude in the dressing room.

In any event, Martyn was a talented batsman, particularly overseas, and he should probably have played a decent number of Tests between January 1994 and his eventual return to the Test side in New Zealand in early-2000.
 

BronCrow

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Interesting, but painful, to revisit the 1994 Sydney Test.

Query whether there was cause-and-effect between Martyn's second innings failure and him not playing in the 3rd and final Test of the series in Adelaide a few weeks later.

Remember that Martyn toured England in 1993 and did not play a single Test in the 6 Test series. The top 6 of Taylor, Slater, Boon, M Waugh, Border and S Waugh was unchanged for the entire Ashes series and then the 3 Test series against New Zealand at home in 1993-94. Steve Waugh was injured in an ODI in December 1993, which opened up the middle-order spot for Martyn to fill. Martyn played in the first two Tests of the home series against South Africa and S Waugh soon returned to full fitness. Waugh returns to the side for the 3rd Test in Adelaide and makes a big hundred in the first innings.

The upshot is that there is a good chance that, even if Martyn had batted well in the 2nd innings in Sydney after scoring a 50 in the 1st innings, he would have lost his place to the returning Steve Waugh for the next Test.

What is more significant is that Martyn was not picked to tour South Africa for the series in early-1994 and for the tour of Pakistan later in the year. The selectors might have been influenced to a degree by Martyn's 2nd innings performance in the Sydney Test. I also seem to remember that Martyn had some personal issues around this time that affected his form and/or attitude in the dressing room.

In any event, Martyn was a talented batsman, particularly overseas, and he should probably have played a decent number of Tests between January 1994 and his eventual return to the Test side in New Zealand in early-2000.
Great post. In all likelihood Steve Waugh would have come back for the final test regardless of whether Martyn got us home or not. Failing in the First Test probably didn't help matters.

Despite that, it is obvious he was scapegoated because of that test. Losing 9/60 to lose is on the whole team, not just him. Considering he was replaced by Dean Jones, who arguably should never have been dropped for Martyn in the first place before the 92/93 series against the Windies, it was a waste to drop Martyn all the same unless Deano was going to play. When Martyn wasn't picked, another young middle order batsman should have been picked in his place, i.e. Lehamann, Law or a young bloke called Ponting to get some experience touring overseas.
 
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