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Ponting's replacement

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FRUMPY said:
It used to be that when a new batsmen came in he would bat at no.6. Then if he showed enough he would be moved to 3/4/5. Pretty sure punter started at 6. I would think bring in Doolan/Kawaja and bat them at no.6. Move Clarke/Hussey up 1 spot or Hussey to bat no.4.

Lessens the pressure on the new guy and lets him find his feet batting at 6.
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I don't like this attitude that the lower middle order is an easier place to bat, and you should put the better batsmen up the top.

They're very different jobs. In some ways batting in the lower middle order requires a better batsman because the job requires more versatility. You might find yourself having to face a very old ball, or the second new ball. You may be batting with an opener, or having to farm the strike and protect tailenders. You may come in with 300 runs on the board, or less than 50. You might need to bat out the day to save the Test match, or pile on some quickfire runs before a declaration. One of the reasons I oppose moving Clarke and Hussey up the order is because they are so good at working the ball around, farming strike and playing spin. They are ideal lower middle order players - just like Steve Waugh was.

Top order players will always face a new ball and pace bowling, they will always have the best of the pitch, and they will pretty much always have the freedom to play their innings the way they want to. The guy up the end can take care of himself and doesn't need protecting. Openers need to be solid defensively but especially in modern cricket, 1-4 are the places for the expansive strokemakers.
 
klinger.png


Not much love for Michael Klinger.
 
Probably bias here, but I reckon leading up to an English ashes series Dave Hussey could be a viable option
Been in terrible shield form this year, with some decent one day form
Replaces experience with experience, and has scored a ton of runs on english pitches

Don't want to ruin a young players career by taking him to england when he isnt ready
 

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Hughes in and Watson to 4 would be my choice (alternatively Watson to 5 and clarke to 4).

Also wouldn't mind Ussie or Doolan.

Is Bailey in the mix? he seems a selectors pet
 
Caesar said:
I don't like this attitude that the lower middle order is an easier place to bat, and you should put the better batsmen up the top.

They're very different jobs. In some ways batting in the lower middle order requires a better batsman because the job requires more versatility. You might find yourself having to face a very old ball, or the second new ball. You may be batting with an opener, or having to farm the strike and protect tailenders. You may come in with 300 runs on the board, or less than 50. You might need to bat out the day to save the Test match, or pile on some quickfire runs before a declaration. One of the reasons I oppose moving Clarke and Hussey up the order is because they are so good at working the ball around, farming strike and playing spin. They are ideal lower middle order players - just like Steve Waugh was.

Top order players will always face a new ball and pace bowling, they will always have the best of the pitch, and they will pretty much always have the freedom to play their innings the way they want to. The guy up the end can take care of himself and doesn't need protecting. Openers need to be solid defensively but especially in modern cricket, 1-4 are the places for the expansive strokemakers.
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You don't like this attitude that the lower middle order is an easier place to bat, and you should put the better batsmen up the top? What are you talking about? There are no other options to choose. You've made batting sound way more complicated than what it is. Regardless of the situation, you'd want any of your batsmen, anywhere in the order, to play accordingly. The best batsmen have to go futher up because they're the best batsmen, they will be facing the most threatening bowlers. They're not different jobs. If you're intending on batting long enough, you'll will be faced with most of the situations/conditions in one innings anyway. Since it won't be known til the toss, and how the following batsmen will initially react to the current pitch/conditions/bowler, there's no distinct pattern of what the pitch/conditions a particular batsmen in a specific position in the order, will have to deal with.

Clarke could go higher up, but has pooed himself and he's not up to it, at the moment. It's hard to believe. knowing the trend that has been of a top order collapse and he's been great, that he doesn't attempt to stem the probable upcoming situation and take the initiative to go up anyway (Similar to what Dhoni did in the WC final). Hussey made the Australian team by opening the batting, but was only put in the middle order because those positions were taken already. So, since when has he become, along with Clarke, "ideal lower middle order players"? What's happened now is, unlike before, he now has seniority in the team and has chosen the comfort of not having to open the batting, that's all that it is, he's now "comfortable". When it doesn't suit him, he's fragile and can be dominated. It's pathetic, what those two are doing/have done. Compare Smith to Clarke as characters, despite Smith flaws, he poos all over Clarke. Smith is a limited batsmen (especially compared to Clarke), yet he doesn't shirk the responsibilty of opening the batting, There's that stat, every match Smith scores a ton, SA don't lose (17-9-0). Clarke will get nowhere near that record, even if you count scores/wins against completely disinterested touring Indian teams. If opening the batting was easier, there's no doubt the Clarke/Hussey types will stamp their authority and open the batting, but it isn't.

Caesar said:
Openers need to be solid defensively but...1-4 are the places for the expansive strokemakers.
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So, which one is it? How is this different to when 5-6 bat? By this comment, are you supporting the long established notion that the top 4 are where the best 4 batsmen bat, and that 5-6 is the place for slightly inferior players? If that's the case, I and everyone else, agrees.
 
I think I have made it pretty clear what my position is.

The top of the order is best suited to batsmen with expansive, aggressive styles who like the ball coming onto the bat quickly and the freedom to play their own innings in their own way.

The lower middle order is best suited to batsmen who are adaptable to a range of conditions, like playing spin, can work the ball around and are experts at shepherding less experienced players.

To see the truth of it, you have to look no further than the recent test between England and India. Gambhir is a fine opening bat who played a wonderfully gritty innings under tough conditions, much like du Plessis did in Adelaide. The difference was that unlike du Plessis, he was all at sea when batting with the tail. Completely failed to farm the strike, exposed his partners unnecessarily to the dual spin of Panasar/Swann and let the Englishmen mop up the final few wickets for hardly any runs.
 
Hughes is the best of the lot with Shield form and record but always will be that worry about b. Martin c. Guptil. Doolan probably is ahead of Khawaja, if he gets another 100 I can see him taking the spot.

I didn't like the Quiney selection and wouldn't pick him as Ponting's replacement but do find it rough having your stamp marked on a couple of test. With hindsight we missed the opportunity to chuck Hughes or Khawaja back in to see if they had improved since they were dropped.
 

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Jack Package said:
Is Bailey in the mix? he seems a selectors pet
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Bailey is the bolter, he has more chance than Doolan at the moment I think.

They plucked him for the T20 captain on the back of a mediocre T20 record, then filtered him into the one day side where he has averaged 40. That's the old selectors conveyor belt for the test side. Have a look at them in the shorter formats and push them through, much to everyone else's chagrin when they used to overlook shield form. The new selectors seem to be a little more conventional in their methods.

Bailey has only averaged 28 in the shield this year though. Hughes has to be the standout, then there would be a big group of chances behind him if they worry for Hughes in England.
 
clearly hughes, khawaja, dooland are the top three candidates, most probably in that order.

if hughes gets picked, and i think he will, you'd have to see it'll be close to his last crack. and at least this time he'll have no excuses. he's in the best shield form he's been in since he was first picked. i haven't seen much of him bat but he's technique is still pretty loose. that's fine. he relies heavily on eye so when he's out of form (like when he was last picked) he's never gonna score runs. he doesn't have enough to fall back on, unlike guys like Cowan and Khawaja who should still eek out some handy runs when they're not hitting the ball well.

After years of teasing Henriques has finally strung some good performances together but way too early. If he's still doing it this time next year then he'll rocket right into calculations.

But it's just so frustrating - Hussey and Ponting are clearly in the very end of their careers (Ponting obviously gone now), Warner has been flirting with getting dropped about 4 times in a 12 test career, Cowan was also struggling to hold his place until that ton and even still that isn't going to hold him in the team forever. Even Watson has battled with the bat for 12-18 months now and I don't know if we can carry a top order batsmen just for his bowling if he's only gonna average in the low 30's (32 is his average since the start of the last ashes series. 14 tests no 100's. 24 is his average since the end of the series. 9 tests)

If that doesn't provide some inspiration that theere are spots open and ready to be taken but no one is banging the door down, Phil Hughes is about as close as it gets back 500 runs at 50 but that is merely saying "i'm ready for test cricket again" not "you have no choice but to give me a shot under a weight of runs" the way Matt Hayden, Darren Lehmann and Simon Katich once did many years ago.

The talent is there - Joe Burns, Chris Lynn, Nic Maddinson, Kurtis Patterson, Marcus Harris, Mitchell Marsh, Travis Head, Peter Handscomb amongst others but they're just not putting up the performances. A couple of those guys aren't even getting a run in shield cricket any more. Maybe I/we've just massively overrated the talent in that group but I don't think so. They've all shown it in glimpses and it's definately there somewhere.
 

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Scotland said:
Any left field options for young batsmen?

The selectors showed faith in Starc, Cummins & Pattinson who are all very young. Why not do the same for some 19 year old batsman from somewhere?

Mitch Marsh is only going to get worse playing for WA, give him a shot.:)
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Marsh isn't a batsmen so not worthy.
 
DREAM TEAM BUFF said:
Watson's replacement at best
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even that is laughable. The guy has scored one first class century and until recently has struggled to take wickets. There are better all rounders currently playing in the Shield. How the guy even got an ODI game is laughable with a ListA average of 25 with the bat and 40 with the ball..
 
happy_eagle said:
Probably bias here, but I reckon leading up to an English ashes series Dave Hussey could be a viable option
Been in terrible shield form this year, with some decent one day form
Replaces experience with experience, and has scored a ton of runs on english pitches

Don't want to ruin a young players career by taking him to england when he isnt ready
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He wasn't in crash hot Shield form last year either. And by the time the Ashes comes around, he'll be 36. We won't win, so we might as well get some experience into some of the younger players rather than wasting a spot on a player who is past it.
 

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