Darren Lehmann

[Darky]

Another fine one-day innings from Lehmann today, 63 off 44 balls with 4 fours and 4 sixes. Made me think that after gettung his national call-up about 6 years too late, he was dropped pretty quickly and I still can't work out why. Especially from the one day team where he averaged over 30 and had a good strike rate. I don't recall a particularly bad run of form or anything, and the shockers they replaced him with aren't any better (Martyn, Moody, S.Lee, Harvey are all VERY inconsistent). Hell, Lehmann has even taken four pretty cheap wickets with his left arm slowies! What have the selectors had against this bloke for the last 10 years?

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Take no prisoners, take no shit!!!

 

[Guest]

Darky,

I don't even want to start. I could have a bitch about about how seven of the top ten run scorers in the sheffeild sheild/pura cup have played for south australia and yet we haven't had the representation and......Baaahhhh.

 

[Darky]

I know that over the last 10-12 years there have been many platers who have excelled at Shield level and haven't been given opportunities internationally because of the strength of the Aussie side.
Names that come to mind are:
QLD - Law, Love, Maher and until recently Hayden
SA - Lehmann, Siddons
WA - Langer and Martyn (until recently), Moody (when he was at his peak in the early 90s)
TAS - Cox, Hills, DiVenuto, Young
NSW - Bevan (neglected for tests because of a weakness against short pitched stuff)
Of all those I think Lehmann, Law and Siddons have been the stiffest. How many times do these blokes dig their state teams out of trouble with big 100s or quick 50s. Law had one test replacing S.Waugh and made 54 not out, but made way again when Waugh came back.
Problem is now that these guys are all getting older, they will be overlooked in favour of younger guys who have a chance to play for 8-10 years. Not denying that guys like Katich, Maher, Richards, Symonds etc deserve to be rewarded, but it just goes to show how stiff some of the older blokes have been.

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Live by the sword, or die by the law!

 

[Grendel]

Darrens only problem is he is a seventies cricketer (ie fat and slow fielder) playing in a Millenium competion. All the others you named are brilliant fielders. That, and only that is the reason why he isnt in the team.

 

[Darky]

If Boof does have a weakness it IS his lack of speed in the field, but he has safe hands and a good arm, and is a good fielder close in. I still think by weight of runs alone, being a decent-without-excelling fielder shouldn't exclude him from Test selection or from holding his spot in the one day team. He pulled off a nice save or two in todays game, and was smart enough as captain to bring on a garbage bowler (Blewett) to entice the WA batsmen to slog themselves silly and get themselves out.

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Live by the sword, or die by the law!

 

[ant]

I take offence to the term garbage bowler, when you mention Blewett there Darky. He's a handy, partnership breaker. Sure, he goes for some runs but he can bowl a bit of reverse swing and has taken key wickets in one day internationals and tests before. It was a good move though (in the end) by Lehmann to bowl out some of his better bowlers and leave Blewett to the end. A gamble that paid off.

 

[servo]

When Steve Waugh took over the captaincy of the Test side, just before the world cup, he had a press conference and said that South Africa are the most competitive team in the world. He sasid they have fairly good bowlers and some handy batsmen but what sets them apart is their fielding. He said that is what he is going to build his Test & ODI teams around, exceptional fielding.

At that time Lehmann was in both teams. I new then we would never see him in another test team. The next series was the World Cup in which he played a cameo role and we will not see him there again.

At least all the players Darky mentioned got to have at least one test to tell their grand kids about. All except Siddons and the Tassie players. I have always been a great fan of Jamie Siddons and his snubbing by the selectors for many many years is a disgrace.

 

[NICK THE PIE MAN]

Its a real shame about Lehmann. He's a fine batsmen. Not to mention he scored the winning runs in the world cup final aginist Pakistan last year at lords. Didn't the selectors give him some bullshit reason that it was about his weight for a reason to drop him or some shit? I hope he will be back in the one-dayers this summer.