Problems with the attack

[The Fonz]

Had this game been played 10 years ago, Shane Warne would have bowled every second over in South Africa's chase. Compare this to the three of Nathan Lyon.

When Australia was at it's peak, it could call on McGrath, Gillespie and Lee. In the wings were Kasprowicz, Bichel, Miller, Bracken, Clark and MacGill.

Not one of the current Australian bowlers is as good as any of these guys. Is either Bollinger or Hilfenhaus any better? No wonder, they can't take 20 wickets. Mitch is damaged goods.

Do they need to go straight to Copeland and Cummins? What about Jayde Herrick?

 

[King Elvis]

Mitch is mentally weak; it's time to acknowledge it and move on. He's done his best, but he just folds under pressure everytime - we cannot rely on him; our opening batsman is more of a go to than Mitch.

Harris, Bollinger worth persisting with... Maybe we need to get Cummins, Hazelwood and Pattinson in frame and ease them into it.

Siddle, he's a toiler, lion hearted, but lacks weapons; if he can bowl smart, he's worth having in the squad, but shouldn't be a walk up start, not by a long shot.

 

[Belnakor]

Anyone but Mitchell "hit me for 4" Johnson

 

[happy_eagle]

Siddle = Runs in, bowls fast, only variety ball is a bouncer
Johnson = Has a good spell once per year, and will either bowl it short outside off, or full down leg
Harris = Only bowler capable of moving the ball around. Questions over fitness, and effectiveness with the old ball
Lyon = Havnt seen enough to comment as yet, but if he is an agressive spinner then he should have time to prove himself. Dont want another defensive Hauritz

Copeland can move the ball as well, so I think he needs to be apart of that lineup
Bollinger is probably a slightly better version of siddle. still very little variety to his bowling
Beer is untried, but appears to be the second best spin option that we have



Cummins, Pattinson, McDermmot, Hazlewood, Coulter Nile, Starc are the next crop of younger players to be tried

Cutting, Butterworth, Herrick, George would also be able to provide enough at test level I feel

We do have the bowlers out there

 

[King Elvis]

George is an interesting one - has a bit of a feel about him, that he could take to Test cricket quite comfortably.

 

[happy_eagle]

He's played a few ODI's hasnt he ?
Always up there in the Sheild rankings for bowlers

 

[Bucking Beads]

We have no real balance in our attack. Don't really have a leader with the ball. We don't even have a world class quick in our side anymore. We used to have 3 ffs.

 

[Doodlesweaver]

And the selectors can't make players up. They aren't Frankenstein. I cant' see us moving from 4 for a while as the Indian batsmen always like batting in Aus. Even the old barstewards.

Especially the old barstewards.

 

[Bucking Beads]

Reality is we don't have the cattle anymore but we have not helped ourselves with poor selections, coaching and administration. Our bigger problem is probably with the batsmen TBH.

 

[Bucking Beads]

George is an interesting one - has a bit of a feel about him, that he could take to Test cricket quite comfortably.

I think you're right about George, we certainly need a tall line and length bowler in our set up. Copeland is the equivalent at the moment.

 

[Wallaby]

It's pretty clear that Shield cricket is not much good as an indicator of bowling ability. We don't wait for a bowler to have a dozen 5-fors over a few years or so - we pick a young promising kid and hope he learns at Test level. The risk is, if they don't come good we might wind up with a bowler who isn't even first-class standard.

It's becoming a bit like AFL football. Sure, you could put together a team of old reliables and mature-age recruits from the VFA that would probably finish position 10-13 (ie not completely disastrous), but they wouldn't get any better. You have to roll the dice with the young kids and hope you find the stars - the risk is, while they are learning, they are rubbish, and they might be rubbish anyway - you don't know for a couple of years.
Occasionally, if completely stuffed, we pick an old reliable like Ryan Harris for a particular job.

 

[Phone]

and it boggles the mind anyone is actually willing to play MJ and Siddle in the same attack full-time right now. It's like they haven't paid any attention to the results of australian cricket. You can't have a pace attack where 2 of the bowlers only perform once every five matches. even if the one performance is brilliant.

ark ark ark

hauritz wasn't a defensive spinner

harris, copeland/bollinger, siddle/mj/pattinson/cummins/the most recent U23 player to have a decent performance in the shield. fairly simple i would have thought. we've got the basic sketch, and then pick it on performance. i point out that MJ's batting has nothing to do with it and indeed i'd take siddle's batting

 

[damochandler]

they need someone to dry up one end. and that's copeland.

cummins has to wait another year or 2. bringing him in now isn't the answer

cutting pattinson would be sound choices right now

 

[Carbine Chaos]

Lyon = Havnt seen enough to comment as yet, but if he is an agressive spinner then he should have time to prove himself. Dont want another defensive Hauritz

Beer is untried, but appears to be the second best spin option that we have

Cummins, Pattinson, McDermmot, Hazlewood, Coulter Nile, Starc are the next crop of younger players to be tried

Don't want another Hauritz??? The guy averaged around 35 with the ball when he played, we'd kill for that at the moment. The guy did very well when he played, end of story.

Beer is a better option than Lyon, but Steve O'Keefe is the best option by a country mile. FC bowling average of 24 speaks for itself, yet they refuse to try him.

Cummins is unproven and needs to be playing for NSW, and I don't think Starc is that good to be honest. I do like Pattinson, Coulter-Nile, and Hazlewood out of that young list; as well as Duffield when he is fit.

 

[Special88]

Bring North back as our main spinner.

Let him bat at 7/8.

 

[Bucking Beads]

O'Keefe isn't the bowler his stats suggest IMO.

 

[Tassieboy]

O'keefe doesn't excite me too much; his bowling is average at best - a bowling average in Domestic Cricket better than Warne flatters him and demonstrates the lack of quality.

 

[Tassieboy]

O'Keefe isn't the bowler his stats suggest IMO.

Agree

 

[Doodlesweaver]

Cummins, Pattinson, McDermmot, Hazlewood, Coulter Nile, Starc are the next crop of younger players to be tried

Cutting, Butterworth, Herrick, George would also be able to provide enough at test level I feel

We do have the bowlers out there

McDermott is aroung 130ks max. It's far too early to be thinking of him. And Starc is yet to prove that he has much to offer at Shield level.

 

[CAS79]

The problem we all have with spinners is were expecting another Warne or Mcgill, who if Warne wasnt around would have been regarded as a very good spinner.

Weather it be Hauritz, Lyon, Beer, Smith whoever we cant expect them to open up the opposition batting attack on third day pitches. There job in their early matches is to keep it tight, bowl maidens and discover their craft on the fourth or fifth day against middle orders.

But we the fans lack patience and are expecting them to blast open top order batsman on good pitches our fast men have been unable to do.

Lyon so far has bowled a decent length and line and was disciplined in Sri Lanka in an unfamiliar environment. He actually looked all right in his first over last night but you cant turn to a young spinner when the horse has bolted and expect them to catch it.

Lyon needs at least to the end of the NZ series before we judge him and to get some rythem into his bowling.

Also im sick of people dissing the Shield cricket. Like any form it goes up and down but over the history of cricket has proven to be the foremost of first class cricket in the world and the best proving ground for any potential recruit. Johnson was plucked from the shield before he was a refined bowler and has played little but international cricket since, little time to use any other form of the game to get the overs in to refine his line or the ability to consistently bring the ball back in. For a while batsman struggled with his unique style but are figuring it out. Shield watchers know Johnson was erratic when picked for the Australian team.

Harris refined his art in the shield game and the time in the game has allowed his ability to consistently hit the line and length required to trouble the batsman. Notice the South African fella who got man of the match on debut has over 200 first class wickets. The Saffies are onto the formula were neglecting.

Right now the shield bowling cupboard is bare, or some players are overlooked in favour of young bowlers who can bowl a good twenty/20 line are given a contract squad over red ball specialists. That's a selection issue but we also need to learn, the golden era is over and we need to find fighters again like McDermott and Bright, you find them in shield matches. were not going to roll teams on talent alone.

 

[Jimthegreat]

Batting lost us this Test but the bowling line up again failed when it mattered. Siddle and Johnson bowling together have been, in tandem, part of many major bowling disasters, and I do mean disasters. They can't play together the idiots keep going back to them. Siddle's a trier and real good team man but you're struggling when you have to play him. Johnson's had his chances and now the wickets have dried up, that's it. If ever there was a "Copeland" type pitch, this was it.

Harris is a must, as we saw in the first innings and will bowl well with better support. Expect for one Test Bollinger has a terrific Test record, alot better than Siddle, and must play. This allows us to look into a new era and play Pattinson, my choice, or Cummins/Copeland. Watson, to me, now replaces Ponting at No.4 and bowls more. Lyon I haven't had the chance to get an opinion on yet so keep playing him now he's there.

Harris
Bollinger
Pattinson (or Cummins, or Copeland)
Watson
Lyon

 

[Phone]

well the shield right now is a bit shit. Because Australian lost it's ****ing mind after Warne etc retired, ruined the 2nd XI comp and the states started panicking and picked players based on being in U19 teams and didn't make them earn their spots (from S. Marsh down). It'll change because it seems teams like QLD are going back to just picking the best team along with TAS and VIC who have been successful by picking the best team

 

[Bomber Bears]

Still think Hazlewood will be very good, was impressed with his bowling at the shield the other day. Couple of years (at least) off at this point, doesnt take beyond 2-3 wickets and innings once he starts breaking through to those bags he'll flourish IMO.

 

[Radical Roo]

There is nothing wrong with the australian bowlers they are more than capable of being equal best with England. The only difference is the australian bowling structure is not as well defined as that of england or south africa. The australian line up seems to change its lead bowler from time to time.

If we look back to the past era we have easily identifiable lead bowler. In 70s to 80s we have Lillee, in 80s to early 90s we have McDermott, then we have McGrath, after McGrath retired we had Lee as lead bowler for a while but after Lee we seemed to have a rotating policy in regards to the lead bowlers. We had Johnson as lead bowler in 08/09 then it seemed to change to Bollinger in 09/10 then to 10/11 Harris became the lead bowler.

The role of the lead bowler does not have to be a superstar player but someone that is fit, and depending on the nature of that bowler either keep the opp at bay and let the rest attack or attack while the others work around him. In Harris, Siddle, Bollinger and Johnson we have enough quality fast bowling. Talk of Copeland, Cummings, Pattinson are at least 3 years away.

 

[frankrizzo]

harris is quality but he's injury prone, the selectors to have put a line though bollinger at test level.

As for siddle and johnson...well they have been our main bowlers in back to back ashes failures and it's fairy obvious they are nowhere near the english quicks.