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I would have Nesser in for Murphy..I like him but it is clear Cummins won't use him in any meaningful way so better to have another form seamer who can bat than carry a tail ender who might give us 10 overs. Head can bowl those.
Lose nothing punting Warner and using Green or Marsh as openers.
 
Doashuey said:
I would have Nesser in for Murphy..I like him but it is clear Cummins won't use him in any meaningful way so better to have another form seamer who can bat than carry a tail ender who might give us 10 overs. Head can bowl those.
Lose nothing punting Warner and using Green or Marsh as openers.
Click to expand...
Has green ever been an opener?
 

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Doashuey said:
I would have Nesser in for Murphy..I like him but it is clear Cummins won't use him in any meaningful way so better to have another form seamer who can bat than carry a tail ender who might give us 10 overs. Head can bowl those.
Lose nothing punting Warner and using Green or Marsh as openers.
Click to expand...

You open with Marsh or Head. Green is a bit out of confidence and isn't up for it at this stage.

Head is a bit like boof in that he can bat pretty much anywhere in the line up, will do pretty well and score at a decent click. (In Travis' case regularly more than a decent click)
 
given how cautious the team has been restricting Green's bowling, it's hard to see them bringing him back in especially with Marsh doing so well.
 
Tugga27 said:
I know you're not a fan, but I'd be surprised if he wasn't straight back in.

Not at for Marsh however.
Click to expand...

I am not, not a Cam Green fan, I want to believe but at some point, he has to deliver. he also has to be used, not kept in cotton wool. He's 24 now and has been in the Aus team for nearly 3 yrs (debut Dec 2020).

That said, with the weak coaching / selection, I can see the only change being Hazelwood in for Boland and then Green coming back in for the 5th test if Marsh doesnt perform.
 
matthew_s said:
I am not, not a Cam Green fan, I want to believe but at some point, he has to deliver. he also has to be used, not kept in cotton wool. He's 24 now and has been in the Aus team for nearly 3 yrs (debut Dec 2020).

That said, with the weak coaching / selection, I can see the only change being Hazelwood in for Boland and then Green coming back in for the 5th test if Marsh doesnt perform.
Click to expand...
Perhaps your expectations are just too high.
It's his first trip to England.

He's played 23 tests and is averaging a respectable 34 with the bat including a ton and has taken 28 wickets at 36.
Compared to other all-rounders, his numbers stack up well.

In this series, he hasn't done that well with the bat but is averaging not much less than Warner, Carey and Labs.

His fielding is a huge plus as well.
 
matthew_s said:
Perhaps the hype was just way, way too high.


Agreed. In a series where both teams havent been at their best in the field, Green and Carey have been real standouts.
Click to expand...
The hype was probably due to the fact Australia haven't produced a quality all-rounders for years, if ever.

And they saw a 21 year old with a lot of potential.
 
Tugga27 said:
The hype was probably due to the fact Australia haven't produced a quality all-rounders for years, if ever.

And they saw a 21 year old with a lot of potential.
Click to expand...
Shane Watson was quality, people's expectations were just too high. Hopefully Cam doesn't suffer for the same reason.
 

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Would be interesting to see Neser in for Boland and Green in for Murphy if its a green top. Murphy not being utilized anyway.

Warner
Khawaja
Labuscagne
Smith
Head
Green
Marsh
Carey
Neser
Starc
Cummins

Huge batting lineup with Starc, Cummins, Neser, Green and Marsh to bowl.
Would rely on Head and Labuscagne to bowl some spin but looks tempting.
 
Personally Id rather risk Marsh losing form than Head losing form. Head has cemented himself in the middle order, why risk making him open? Marsh can earn a permanent spot in the team if he does well opening.
 

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Manbearpig77 said:
God damn pay wall.
Click to expand...
Malcolm Knox.

Australian selectors caught in the cult of Warner​


It’s not David Warner’s responsibility to live in the real world. With each of his failures in England, over four tours since 2013, he has shown no sign of recognising a pattern. It’s always one good ball, one piece of bad luck.

The goldfish memory is an attribute of many great cricketers, Warner included: the ability to forget every moment except the next is a sign of mental strength. So Warner can’t be blamed for his extreme subjectivity or his indomitable optimism.

Objectivity should come from the “adults”: selectors, team leaders, management, even occasionally the media. But in the four years since Warner’s return from his ban, some strange quiescence has happened. No leaders have dared prick his bubble. Indeed, the adults seem to have moved into the bubble with him, sharing the magic of his self-created self-confidence that the big Ashes-influencing innings that has eluded him for a decade in England is just around the corner. It’s almost like a cult.

A month ago, Warner was given a last chance. He hasn’t convincingly taken it, but now the sands have shifted to a new argument: it is too late in the series to drop him. Who knows, maybe that once-in-a-lifetime innings will come at Old Trafford, The Oval? Without evidence, there is always magical thinking. Like a stopped clock, Warner’s form in England might possibly come good.

My questions are not so much about the surreal tiptoeing now taking place over whether Warner should be dropped. My questions are more about why he has become a unique figure in Australian cricket, retained not just for a dry patch but for a drought lasting years.

Warner’s career, unprecedented in the dynamism of its successes, has also become unprecedented in the duration of its failures. No Australian cricketer, perhaps no cricketer anywhere, has been given so many chances to turn their form around.The evidence is painfully clear to everyone except Warner and his bubble-mates. In England, a batting average of 25.54 over four tours.

Overseas, an average of 31.40 in 49 matches. Since Warner’s return from his 2018-19 ban following the sandpaper scandal, his batting average is 14.75 in England and 18.33 overseas. The Stuart Broad hex is just one instance of an enduring pattern.This substantive body of evidence alters Warner’s retention from the anomalous to the truly bizarre. Normally, Test cricketers don’t get the chance to build such a record for so long. They get dropped first. Even the best.

In 1981, Doug Walters was denied a fourth tour of England. He had averaged 25.68 there. Different times? Yes: the prevailing tide of batting averages was considerably lower then than now. Walters had done better than Warner.

Yet his career was ended.Mark Waugh, with a similar career record to Warner’s, went into a decline for his last 12 months before being dropped in October 2002. He played 12 Tests in that period and averaged 30.47 with four half-centuries. In other words, Waugh’s decline was short, yet his output was one that Warner would gratefully take now.


Remember Steve Waugh’s “career-saving” century at the SCG in 2002-03? Leading up to it were scores of 103 not out, 7, 12, 34, 53, 77 and 14. Yet he found himself under immense pressure, mainly because he was in his late 30s. During their memorable slumps, Greg Chappell and Mark Taylor — both shouldering the extra burden of captaincy — came under selection pressure after weeks or months. Even they would not have been given years.
Something has changed.

Or at least, something has changed specifically for David Warner. An exception has been made for him that has not been made for any other player in the history of Test cricket.

What’s really going on? Warner’s own argument — that there is nobody better waiting in the wings — has been contradicted on two levels. For him to retain his place at Old Trafford, one of Cameron Green, Mitchell Marsh or Todd Murphy is the likely sacrifice. Each offers value, while Warner offers hope.

Secondly, Warner’s defence that there are no other worthy opening batters was wiped out by Cameron Bancroft’s form last summer. Bancroft was the Sheffield Shield leader in runs (945), centuries (three), balls faced (2102), and his average of 59.06 was second to Peter Handscomb. Yet not only was Bancroft omitted from the Ashes touring party, the back-up batting spot was given to Marcus Harris (601 Shield runs at 37.56), as if to reassure Warner that a lesser threat was hovering at his shoulder. Bancroft is also a right-hander, which might help now.

But apparently the selectors doubted Bancroft’s ability to score runs in England. This was speculation. Instead they went for 10 years of hard evidence of Warner’s inability to score runs in England.

In the absence of evidence, and the evidence of absence, we can’t help ask what has really giving the Warner case such singularity. Why are the “adults” now repeating Warner’s own talking points, saying his slips catching and his dressing-room influence are indispensable, or listing his partnerships with Usman Khawaja at Edgbaston and Lord’s — 29, 61, 73 and 63 — as if by some magic they have become Warner’s own scores? (Less is being said about Headingley.) How can the line of “There are no alternatives” still get trotted out for a fourth year? For whom else has this ever been done?

The obvious speculation is to look at Warner’s singular role in the sandpaper scandal. Convicted for being a “ringleader” – itself without precedent – he served his time and didn’t rat on anyone. But if he gets credit for not ratting, does that mean there was someone to rat on?
Warner’s manager has dropped enough hints that Warner was owed a debt by his teammates. No other players have admitted any knowledge of the plot, but nor has Warner sacked his manager for implying otherwise.

So Warner is not a rat. Inside the bubble, you can call his silence loyalty, putting the team first. In the outside world, you might call it a transaction: I give you loyalty over 2018, and you give me loyalty in 2023.

This is the kind of speculation that flows into a vacuum created by illogic. The selectors have been acting like they are worried about a house of cards collapsing if they drop Warner, which, if they were following evidence instead of crossed fingers and prayers, they would have done at the beginning of the last Australian summer, to give Bancroft or other candidates a chance to partner Khawaja, the best opener in the world, against weak visiting attacks on Australian pitches (a chance Warner himself was only able to take in one innings out of eight).

Instead, the selectors have frozen. They had their chance after India, where Australia’s best performances took place after Warner came home. The selectors kept kicking the can down the road until it has stopped where it was always going to stop. Now they can enjoy their panic where they chose to situate it: in England, with the Ashes hanging in the balance.

It’s been a weird old time. This one issue has separated Australians outside the bubble, who have access only to the evidence, from those inside, who seem to know something else.

Whatever the weirdness, Australia have staked their Ashes on what has operationally become a 10-man batting order. It’s a sizeable gamble. It may come off despite Warner, it may come off with his belated assistance, or it may crash and burn again, as it did at Headingley where Australia were just one good opener’s innings away from a 3-0 lead. Warner may succeed in Manchester and London, and Australia still lose. Any combination is possible.

But if it costs Australia the Ashes, the fault won’t lie with David Warner’s self-belief, which is a known quantity. It will lie with those who didn’t take adult responsibility.

Nobody knows the future, and Warner may still emerge as the hero. Good luck to him! What a remarkable twist that would be! But whatever the win-or-lose outcome, the logic leading up to it has been utterly confounding. Such a startling exception to reason leaves a real truth-shaped hole that is waiting, in time, to be filled.
 
Tugga27 said:
Malcolm Knox.

Australian selectors caught in the cult of Warner​


It’s not David Warner’s responsibility to live in the real world. With each of his failures in England, over four tours since 2013, he has shown no sign of recognising a pattern. It’s always one good ball, one piece of bad luck.

The goldfish memory is an attribute of many great cricketers, Warner included: the ability to forget every moment except the next is a sign of mental strength. So Warner can’t be blamed for his extreme subjectivity or his indomitable optimism.

Objectivity should come from the “adults”: selectors, team leaders, management, even occasionally the media. But in the four years since Warner’s return from his ban, some strange quiescence has happened. No leaders have dared prick his bubble. Indeed, the adults seem to have moved into the bubble with him, sharing the magic of his self-created self-confidence that the big Ashes-influencing innings that has eluded him for a decade in England is just around the corner. It’s almost like a cult.

A month ago, Warner was given a last chance. He hasn’t convincingly taken it, but now the sands have shifted to a new argument: it is too late in the series to drop him. Who knows, maybe that once-in-a-lifetime innings will come at Old Trafford, The Oval? Without evidence, there is always magical thinking. Like a stopped clock, Warner’s form in England might possibly come good.

My questions are not so much about the surreal tiptoeing now taking place over whether Warner should be dropped. My questions are more about why he has become a unique figure in Australian cricket, retained not just for a dry patch but for a drought lasting years.

Warner’s career, unprecedented in the dynamism of its successes, has also become unprecedented in the duration of its failures. No Australian cricketer, perhaps no cricketer anywhere, has been given so many chances to turn their form around.The evidence is painfully clear to everyone except Warner and his bubble-mates. In England, a batting average of 25.54 over four tours.

Overseas, an average of 31.40 in 49 matches. Since Warner’s return from his 2018-19 ban following the sandpaper scandal, his batting average is 14.75 in England and 18.33 overseas. The Stuart Broad hex is just one instance of an enduring pattern.This substantive body of evidence alters Warner’s retention from the anomalous to the truly bizarre. Normally, Test cricketers don’t get the chance to build such a record for so long. They get dropped first. Even the best.

In 1981, Doug Walters was denied a fourth tour of England. He had averaged 25.68 there. Different times? Yes: the prevailing tide of batting averages was considerably lower then than now. Walters had done better than Warner.

Yet his career was ended.Mark Waugh, with a similar career record to Warner’s, went into a decline for his last 12 months before being dropped in October 2002. He played 12 Tests in that period and averaged 30.47 with four half-centuries. In other words, Waugh’s decline was short, yet his output was one that Warner would gratefully take now.


Remember Steve Waugh’s “career-saving” century at the SCG in 2002-03? Leading up to it were scores of 103 not out, 7, 12, 34, 53, 77 and 14. Yet he found himself under immense pressure, mainly because he was in his late 30s. During their memorable slumps, Greg Chappell and Mark Taylor — both shouldering the extra burden of captaincy — came under selection pressure after weeks or months. Even they would not have been given years.
Something has changed.

Or at least, something has changed specifically for David Warner. An exception has been made for him that has not been made for any other player in the history of Test cricket.

What’s really going on? Warner’s own argument — that there is nobody better waiting in the wings — has been contradicted on two levels. For him to retain his place at Old Trafford, one of Cameron Green, Mitchell Marsh or Todd Murphy is the likely sacrifice. Each offers value, while Warner offers hope.

Secondly, Warner’s defence that there are no other worthy opening batters was wiped out by Cameron Bancroft’s form last summer. Bancroft was the Sheffield Shield leader in runs (945), centuries (three), balls faced (2102), and his average of 59.06 was second to Peter Handscomb. Yet not only was Bancroft omitted from the Ashes touring party, the back-up batting spot was given to Marcus Harris (601 Shield runs at 37.56), as if to reassure Warner that a lesser threat was hovering at his shoulder. Bancroft is also a right-hander, which might help now.

But apparently the selectors doubted Bancroft’s ability to score runs in England. This was speculation. Instead they went for 10 years of hard evidence of Warner’s inability to score runs in England.

In the absence of evidence, and the evidence of absence, we can’t help ask what has really giving the Warner case such singularity. Why are the “adults” now repeating Warner’s own talking points, saying his slips catching and his dressing-room influence are indispensable, or listing his partnerships with Usman Khawaja at Edgbaston and Lord’s — 29, 61, 73 and 63 — as if by some magic they have become Warner’s own scores? (Less is being said about Headingley.) How can the line of “There are no alternatives” still get trotted out for a fourth year? For whom else has this ever been done?

The obvious speculation is to look at Warner’s singular role in the sandpaper scandal. Convicted for being a “ringleader” – itself without precedent – he served his time and didn’t rat on anyone. But if he gets credit for not ratting, does that mean there was someone to rat on?
Warner’s manager has dropped enough hints that Warner was owed a debt by his teammates. No other players have admitted any knowledge of the plot, but nor has Warner sacked his manager for implying otherwise.

So Warner is not a rat. Inside the bubble, you can call his silence loyalty, putting the team first. In the outside world, you might call it a transaction: I give you loyalty over 2018, and you give me loyalty in 2023.

This is the kind of speculation that flows into a vacuum created by illogic. The selectors have been acting like they are worried about a house of cards collapsing if they drop Warner, which, if they were following evidence instead of crossed fingers and prayers, they would have done at the beginning of the last Australian summer, to give Bancroft or other candidates a chance to partner Khawaja, the best opener in the world, against weak visiting attacks on Australian pitches (a chance Warner himself was only able to take in one innings out of eight).

Instead, the selectors have frozen. They had their chance after India, where Australia’s best performances took place after Warner came home. The selectors kept kicking the can down the road until it has stopped where it was always going to stop. Now they can enjoy their panic where they chose to situate it: in England, with the Ashes hanging in the balance.

It’s been a weird old time. This one issue has separated Australians outside the bubble, who have access only to the evidence, from those inside, who seem to know something else.

Whatever the weirdness, Australia have staked their Ashes on what has operationally become a 10-man batting order. It’s a sizeable gamble. It may come off despite Warner, it may come off with his belated assistance, or it may crash and burn again, as it did at Headingley where Australia were just one good opener’s innings away from a 3-0 lead. Warner may succeed in Manchester and London, and Australia still lose. Any combination is possible.

But if it costs Australia the Ashes, the fault won’t lie with David Warner’s self-belief, which is a known quantity. It will lie with those who didn’t take adult responsibility.

Nobody knows the future, and Warner may still emerge as the hero. Good luck to him! What a remarkable twist that would be! But whatever the win-or-lose outcome, the logic leading up to it has been utterly confounding. Such a startling exception to reason leaves a real truth-shaped hole that is waiting, in time, to be filled.
Click to expand...
Very interesting.
 
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