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Failing leadrship

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SugarHealey

SugarHealey

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Failing Leadership

This team looks to me like a side on the skids.

I've been gradually losing interest in Aus test cricket for some time, & talking with someone in a doctors waiting room recently, He agreed.
then I realised it's been during Pontings reign.

The boyishness of the new leaders is poor to me. Clarke is worse to me.

IMO we need to find a more of a Mans Man. Warnie would have been close, but a bit too reckless off-field.

Does anyone understand & feel the same?

Who have we got to bring on for the future?
 
A leader has to be inspiring (I know, I am soooo imaginative). Who is going to be the one who lifts the side in the field, in situations like this where we can't buy a wicket for love or money? Or save a Test a la the Punter in the 3rd Test 2005 (or Tugga Waugh in every match he played)?

Clarke - nooo way.

I'm struggling for answers. I still reckon Katich is the (Punter aside) toughest nut out there.
 

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Thermonuclear said:
Sounds like your after White tbh
Click to expand...
I don't have a personal bias re which state or territory our skipper is from.

My favourites where Steve Waugh & Tubby Taylor, & I'm Victorian.

My main reason for posting on a cricket forum is because I'm concerned where Aus cricket is going & because I'm am finding it boring. I'm losing interest since the last 5 Yrs or so & am wondering why.

I wonder if it is To do with the Captain, &, if so, I don't think clarke is the answer. He seems too, Bling.

Give me someone I'd willingly follow. where are they?
 
Johnson#26 said:
A leader has to be inspiring (I know, I am soooo imaginative). Who is going to be the one who lifts the side in the field, in situations like this where we can't buy a wicket for love or money? Or save a Test a la the Punter in the 3rd Test 2005 (or Tugga Waugh in every match he played)?

Clarke - nooo way.

I'm struggling for answers. I still reckon Katich is the (Punter aside) toughest nut out there.
Click to expand...


I think you've got part of it, I agree the leader needs to be inspiring, but I think tthey need to inspire when Off field as well.

We bowled really well in the first dig, except Mitchell,,, but we know he, can produce when he's ontop of things. the kid spinner was serviceable, & hilfenhaus was quite good, but looks sore already, in the ankles.
comne the start of the 2nd dig,,, & where is it all gone? It seems it was left in the dressing room,, after a great batting effort. Where was the bowling MOJO?
What happened in the rooms when we batted that killed the team spirit?

I think that something is wrong with this side OFF Field!
Punter has been around playing forever. Time to give up the reigns Ricky, you look stale like 3 day old bread.

Clarke is Too, to. Not for me, if you know what I mean. He IS No Tugga Waugh.

It's time we got some spirit & leadership going from within this team.
Bring in Warne, for a Summer, move Ponting sideways, drop clarke down the order a bit & start a progressive overhaul. The writing is on the wall.

These players can do better than what they are producing, & I reckon there's poor rapport in the side. This is stale leadership failing.
 
I think there's a lack of belief and courage by the Australian players. Bowlers too afraid to pitch it up full and straight beacuse they are afraid of going for runs and bang it in too short and end up going for runs any way.

Either this or poor captaincy and/or poor coaching.

I don't think it's a lack of skill or ability except for Johnson who can't stand the seam up but even he's lost pace.

Our two greatest pace men ever. Lilly and McGrath bowled the length to hit the top of off stump. Our bowlers bowl to get it a foot above off stump, except for Siddle in the 1st innings who bowled full and straight and funny enough got wickets. Then in the second innings he and Hilfenhouse bowled a lot shorter.

Is ponting too gutless to set fields to allow the bowlers to bowl full?

Are Cooley and Nielson complete duds?


This is exactly what our bowlers are doing wrong

The plan with the new ball used to be to load the slips and gully up and stop straight safer shots, Bowl full and straight and try and hit the top of off and try to move the ball and bowl the odd yorker.

Get the batsman driving and on the front foot.

Then suprise the batsman with a short of length delivery that comes through at hip height. Because we'd bowled full we'd have the batsmen camped on the front foot and set up for a bouncer or short of a length delivery and catch them on the wrong foot and often nick them out this way.

What we are doing now is bowling that short of a length delivery as a stock delivery. This doesn't work as it has the batsman camped on the back foot which is not what you do in Australia or any where for that matter. This just mean the extra bounce here in Australia is used against the bowler instead in their favor.

What we are doing is the equivilant of a leggie getting a bag of wickets with his wrongun and then deciding his wrongun is to be his stock delivery. It's stupid. The short of a length ball is a suprise ball, not a stock delivery. You can't swing it and if you do swing or seam it the batsman can play it easily. We are not trying to get the batsman on the wrong foot and are not trying to set batsmen up in any way.

By bowling short of a lenght all the time instead of using this length as a suprise ball we are rendering any movement useless as well as rendering slowe balls and bouncers useless. It even renders yorkers useless as the difference between the lenght of the yorker and stock delivery length is too great and easily picked by batsmen.

Tactically dumb cricket from our Captain and Bowlers. I really don'r believe that the guys we have can't keep a full and straight line and lenght. I really don't believe all our bowlers have this 1 problem, I believe they are doing it deliberatly and stupidly.
 
gbatman you've just summed it up perfectly for me.
Too timid to attack the top of off and allow the batsmen to be far too comfortable. Geez even in grade cricket I wish bowlers would be giving me so many short ones......
 

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Whilst Ponting is a pretty reactive captain, the short of it is its hard to set attacking fields for erratic bowling for any length of time. He used to set 7-2 offside fields when we had a team of champions but that quickly becomes 6-3 these days with a deep square fielder either side of the wicket trying to cut off the 4 ball our guys seem to want to bowl at least once an over.

I think its a bowling issue and not a tactical one taken by Ponting.
 
Hayesuel said:
Whilst Ponting is a pretty reactive captain, the short of it is its hard to set attacking fields for erratic bowling for any length of time. He used to set 7-2 offside fields when we had a team of champions but that quickly becomes 6-3 these days with a deep square fielder either side of the wicket trying to cut off the 4 ball our guys seem to want to bowl at least once an over.

I think its a bowling issue and not a tactical one taken by Ponting.
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I think that is crap TBH, sure the bowling is alot worse than McGrath and Warne but still he rarely sets the right fields. Mid off and Mid on are often too deep and his love affair with short cover and midwicket is pathetic.
 
If that's the case then it's simple. Ponting has lost faith in the bowlers and is too gutless to back them and have attacking fields. That and the selectors are getting it wrong. Surely we have 3 decent accurate bowlers.

Harris should be in as he moves it both ways, in the air and off the deck and has good pace and is accurate. Siddle sometimes bowls the right areas. Bollinger seems to be getting worse. Watson is very accurate. Hilfenhaus has lost the plot and doesn't bowl the right areas.

Johnson shouldn't be in the side at all.
 
gbatman said:
I think there's a lack of belief and courage by the Australian players. Bowlers too afraid to pitch it up full and straight beacuse they are afraid of going for runs and bang it in too short and end up going for runs any way.

Either this or poor captaincy and/or poor coaching.

I don't think it's a lack of skill or ability except for Johnson who can't stand the seam up but even he's lost pace.

Our two greatest pace men ever. Lilly and McGrath bowled the length to hit the top of off stump. Our bowlers bowl to get it a foot above off stump, except for Siddle in the 1st innings who bowled full and straight and funny enough got wickets. Then in the second innings he and Hilfenhouse bowled a lot shorter.

Is ponting too gutless to set fields to allow the bowlers to bowl full?

Are Cooley and Nielson complete duds?


This is exactly what our bowlers are doing wrong

The plan with the new ball used to be to load the slips and gully up and stop straight safer shots, Bowl full and straight and try and hit the top of off and try to move the ball and bowl the odd yorker.

Get the batsman driving and on the front foot.

Then suprise the batsman with a short of length delivery that comes through at hip height. Because we'd bowled full we'd have the batsmen camped on the front foot and set up for a bouncer or short of a length delivery and catch them on the wrong foot and often nick them out this way.

What we are doing now is bowling that short of a length delivery as a stock delivery. This doesn't work as it has the batsman camped on the back foot which is not what you do in Australia or any where for that matter. This just mean the extra bounce here in Australia is used against the bowler instead in their favor.

What we are doing is the equivilant of a leggie getting a bag of wickets with his wrongun and then deciding his wrongun is to be his stock delivery. It's stupid. The short of a length ball is a suprise ball, not a stock delivery. You can't swing it and if you do swing or seam it the batsman can play it easily. We are not trying to get the batsman on the wrong foot and are not trying to set batsmen up in any way.

By bowling short of a lenght all the time instead of using this length as a suprise ball we are rendering any movement useless as well as rendering slowe balls and bouncers useless. It even renders yorkers useless as the difference between the lenght of the yorker and stock delivery length is too great and easily picked by batsmen.

Tactically dumb cricket from our Captain and Bowlers. I really don'r believe that the guys we have can't keep a full and straight line and lenght. I really don't believe all our bowlers have this 1 problem, I believe they are doing it deliberatly and stupidly.
Click to expand...

Nice mini-article, gbatman. Do you want to post it to CA? Not that they would pay any attention to the fans.
 
gbatman said:
If that's the case then it's simple. Ponting has lost faith in the bowlers and is too gutless to back them and have attacking fields. That and the selectors are getting it wrong. Surely we have 3 decent accurate bowlers.

Harris should be in as he moves it both ways, in the air and off the deck and has good pace and is accurate. Siddle sometimes bowls the right areas. Bollinger seems to be getting worse. Watson is very accurate. Hilfenhaus has lost the plot and doesn't bowl the right areas.

Johnson shouldn't be in the side at all.
Click to expand...

To give Punter his due, if I had been captaining a bowler with so little control over how he bowls and his emotions, I'd probably be knee-jerk defensive as a tactician as well. Except that I think he is naturally defensive and Johnson has accentuated it.
 
Bring back Warne as captain, and pick a team of under 25's.
 

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Ponting cant be all to blame for field placements as im sure the bowlers have a fair say into the fields that they want and if not than they should have the discipline and control to bowl to any fields that there given. Bar Hilfy and Watson none of our bowlers can bowl six balls in the right place let alone bowl to a field.
The biggest problem Ponting has with captaining this side is that now after years of having blokes like Warne,McGrath,Gilchrist and Hayden by his side he now actually has to captain, he dosent have anyone helping him and hes struggling. Gone are the days where we have 6 or 7 captains in the one side.
But who do you replace him with? Clarke hasnt a strong enough presence in the team and Whites not good enough for test cricket.
 
if you can't bowl to a field at the top level then what the f*** are you doing there in the first place.

If I was punter, I'd let the bowlers get hit and not bowl them until they get booted off the side if they can't bowl the right areas. Thing is I don't believe it's the bowlers fault. The bowlers are consistantly bowling in the one spot but it's too short. If they can bowl the one spot then surely they can bowl accurate. Their just bowling the wrong spot although Hilfenhaus is a bit all over the place. Not protect them with shithouse defensive fields.
 
Some of the comments here are hilarious.

It's simple. You could be the best captain in the world but if you don't have the cattle you're not going to get the results. Or to put it more technically, if your bowlers are incapable of bowling to a plan, your fielding positions look hopeless.

I see someone talked up Border as a captain. We've got short memories. At one point in the mid 80's his captaincy was regarded as that poor that several media commentators hypothesised that Dirk Wellham could be parachuted into the team - he was not in the team at the time - to relieve Border and allow him to focus on his batting.

Captain Grumpy eventually grew into the job and...... surprise surprise........he looked a better captain as his bowling stocks improved.

Steve Waugh looked utterly bereft of ideas and quite uninspiring on the odd occasion he didn't have McGrath and/or Warne to call on.

Oh, and even Tubby Taylor, who I regard highly as a tactician seemed incapable of stemming the tide of runs when Australia toured India in the late 90's without McGrath.
 
dont worry fellas. marcus north will be the next captain of australia (as soon as he works out how to bat)
 
Ponting seems reluctant to change things up when things aren't going his way.

Why wouldn't he set a leg side dominant field (7-2) and attack leg stump for a couple of overs just to see what happens?

Why wouldn't you bowl an over of short and wide outside off with a stacked offside field (8-1)?

He needs to start asking some more questions of the Poms!
 
Ruck Machine said:
Ponting seems reluctant to change things up when things aren't going his way.

Why wouldn't he set a leg side dominant field (7-2) and attack leg stump for a couple of overs just to see what happens?

Why wouldn't you bowl an over of short and wide outside off with a stacked offside field (8-1)?

He needs to start asking some more questions of the Poms!
Click to expand...
Thats an interesting thought,,, & it goes hand in hand with the theory of an over the hill captain going safe & defensive to protect his image & stats,, rather than being creative & taking it on.
I always thought this was the difference between he and Warne, who was quite inventive.

So, in short, the problem may be, that dare I say it,,, Us Aussies are playing without BALLS.

PS I have been a big Ponting fan since prior to his first Test match.

But times have changed & this team is teetering.
 

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