Problems with the attack

[Jimthegreat]

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.

The OLD selectors have put it a line through Bollinger. Remember it's a new panel. He's played one bad Test. His Test record reads so much better than Siddle's. Actually, statistically at least, it's outstanding. He averaged 23 before that last Test he played against England blew it out to 25, at over 4 wickets per Test for 12 Tests at a strike rate of 48.

 

[ManWithNoName]

When we got bowled out for 47 the FIRST THING I thought of was "Far out our bowling attack sucks. DROP EVERY BOWLER AND KEEP ALL THE BATSMEN"

 

[frankrizzo]

The OLD selectors have put it a line through Bollinger. Remember it's a new panel. He's played one bad Test. His Test record reads so much better than Siddle's. Actually, statistically at least, it's outstanding. He averaged 23 before that last Test he played against England blew it out to 25, at over 4 wickets per Test for 12 Tests at a strike rate of 48.

Hopefully you're right, i should have added im a big bollinger fan.

He was our only consistent bowler in the year leading up to the ashes, his treatment by the selectors was ridiculous especially considering how many senior players have played with injuries without facing repercussions in the last few years.

 

[dan warna]

the thing about o'keefe is while he isn't turning the ball at right angles he bowls with discipline.

People are looking at o'keefe wish he spins prodigiously and smashes through batting line ups.

What he does do is pin down a batsman building pressure IMO. Given most of our bowlers are struggling to hit the pitch, a bowler with a bit of discipline isn't bad.

what is wrong with discipline in bowling? too many folks are looking at who can bowl the fastest and who can spin the ball the most.

McGrath in the latter part of his career won over batsmen because of discipline while brett lee was throwing down pies. Stuart Clark was much the same as McGrath.

Too many bowlers are trying to take a wicket with every ball, making it impossible for a captain to set a field.

Kreja COULD turn the ball a mile, but was basically rubbish. (oh except in THAT pakistan game....)

That is also why I like Khawaja, he is capable of building an innings, while everyone else is trying to smash the ball out of the ground after 2 overs.

IMO get McGrath as a bowling coach (not mcdermott) and any bowler who refuses to pay attention, send them home irrespective of 'talent' or 'potential'.

Now excuse me while i go throw up for defending a NSW players

 

[Doodlesweaver]

When we got bowled out for 47 the FIRST THING I thought of was "Far out our bowling attack sucks. DROP EVERY BOWLER AND KEEP ALL THE BATSMEN"

Made me laugh when Clarke complained about how badly the bowlers did in the second innings. What about the effing catching, Clarkey? Two easy catches were spilled while the match was still live. By batsmen I might add.

The whole team was in shock, how can you expect a team to pick themselves up and bowl like champions when they've just humiliated themselves on that sort of grand scale?

That match loss was down to our spectacularly stupid batsmen.

 

[Radical Roo]

All the talk of dropping johnson is rubbish, if you look back to the 2007 series against India Johnson debuted against india and did very well, in 2008 home series against sa he did well again. On both occasion Johnson wasn't the lead bowler but the support bowler so the pressure wasn't on him. After Lee broken mid series vs sa, johnson continued to do very well and led the attack in away series in sa, his confidence was up and was able to just do his job. Fast forward to the ashes series 2009 where the team depended on him, he fell apart.

Solution, just let johnson do what he is good at, which is bowling and hitting the ball hard. Forget about team strategy, mental attitude and all the other crap, let him bowl.

 

[Phone]

We have been letting him bowl. Turns out quite often he's sucky at all. But then on some rare days he isn't sucky at all. It's a pretty sucky situation for all.

He was our only consistent bowler in the year leading up to the ashes, his treatment by the selectors was ridiculous especially considering how many senior players have played with injuries without facing repercussions in the last few years.

The whole Bollinger thing, from the Champions League to now, just makes pretty much no sense, but I can understand them being hesitant in picking him again after Adl...But that's about the only thing I can understand. if you're not gonna pick a person for tests because you're concerned about his fitness, you can't then drag him out of his pre-season to play ODers in SL and drag him away from the first FC matches of the season to play T20 and ODers in SA. You either blacklist him from all forms, or no forms. You can't have it each way.

 

[Doodlesweaver]

We have been letting him bowl. Turns out quite often he's sucky at all. But then on some rare days he isn't sucky at all. It's a pretty sucky situation for all.





The whole Bollinger thing, from the Champions League to now, just makes pretty much no sense, but I can understand them being hesitant in picking him again after Adl...But that's about the only thing I can understand. if you're not gonna pick a person for tests because you're concerned about his fitness, you can't then drag him out of his pre-season to play ODers in SL and drag him away from the first FC matches of the season to play T20 and ODers in SA. You either blacklist him from all forms, or no forms. You can't have it each way.

CA can. They can choose lop-sided squads and make the schedules more and more ridiculous each year if they choose. And they do choose.

 

[The Speaker]

Right, so, I decided to look through the Shield squads and see what our bowling options are.

I'm using pretty lose criteria: Average approx. under 30, played 10+ matches and/or has played for Australia.

Here we are:

NSW - Bollinger, Copeland, Cummins, Hauritz, Hazlewood, O'Keefe
Qld - Cutting, Feldman, Harris, Hopes, Magoffin, Swan
SA - George, Lyon, Putland
Tas - Butterworth, Faulkner, Hilfenhaus, Krejza
WA - Beer, Cameron, Coulter-Nile, Duffield, Hogan, Johnson, Marsh
Vic - Hastings, Herrick, McKay, McDonald, Pattinson, Siddle

A few names there that can be discounted, and a couple of young guys not included there, but surely there's a Test attack in there somewhere?

 

[Doodlesweaver]

Right, so, I decided to look through the Shield squads and see what our bowling options are.

I'm using pretty lose criteria: Average approx. under 30, played 10+ matches and/or has played for Australia.

Here we are:

NSW - Bollinger, Copeland, Cummins, Hauritz, Hazlewood, O'Keefe
Qld - Cutting, Feldman, Harris, Hopes, Swan
SA - George, Lyon, Putland
Tas - Butterworth, Faulkner, Hilfenhaus, Krejza
WA - Beer, Cameron, Coulter-Nile, Duffield, Hogan, Johnson, Marsh
Vic - Hastings, Herrick, McKay, McDonald, Pattinson, Siddle

A few names there that can be discounted, and a couple of young guys not included there, but surely there's a Test attack in there somewhere?

Cheers for doing that. Interesting squad lists. You could make up a couple of attacks which could probably hold their own with a few of the lower ranked teams at least. Not so sure against England or SA pace attacks.

Bollinger, Cutting, Coulter-Nile and Beer - good variety

Harris, Pattinson, Hazlewood, Hauritz - like the look of this attack

If you take the top 4 bowlers from the Shield aggregates - you've got Herrick, Hogan, Cutting and Marsh - but that's a purely form attack.

 

[Jimthegreat]

All the talk of dropping johnson is rubbish, if you look back to the 2007 series against India Johnson debuted against india and did very well, in 2008 home series against sa he did well again. On both occasion Johnson wasn't the lead bowler but the support bowler so the pressure wasn't on him. After Lee broken mid series vs sa, johnson continued to do very well and led the attack in away series in sa, his confidence was up and was able to just do his job. Fast forward to the ashes series 2009 where the team depended on him, he fell apart.

Solution, just let johnson do what he is good at, which is bowling and hitting the ball hard. Forget about team strategy, mental attitude and all the other crap, let him bowl.

Solution. Don't pick him. He been terrible for a long time and part of many bowling disasters.

 

[Jimthegreat]

When we got bowled out for 47 the FIRST THING I thought of was "Far out our bowling attack sucks. DROP EVERY BOWLER AND KEEP ALL THE BATSMEN"

Thing is too not only did we make 9/21 but after that, and after SA got rolled for all of 96, they chased 236 for the loss of just 2 wickets. That part has been forgotten in the aftermath of that 47. We failed on many counts in this game. On that pitch, even after making 47 if we had a half-decent bowling line-up we still should win. Problem was once the two destroyers of the first innings didn't fire as well as in the first innings we had no back up. Hence change 2 bats, 2 bowlers and the keeper when back here.

 

[Phone]

Right, so, I decided to look through the Shield squads and see what our bowling options are.

I'm using pretty lose criteria: Average approx. under 30, played 10+ matches and/or has played for Australia.

Here we are:

NSW - Bollinger, Copeland, Cummins, Hauritz, Hazlewood, O'Keefe
Qld - Cutting, Feldman, Harris, Hopes, Swan
SA - George, Lyon, Putland
Tas - Butterworth, Faulkner, Hilfenhaus, Krejza
WA - Beer, Cameron, Coulter-Nile, Duffield, Hogan, Johnson, Marsh
Vic - Hastings, Herrick, McKay, McDonald, Pattinson, Siddle

A few names there that can be discounted, and a couple of young guys not included there, but surely there's a Test attack in there somewhere?

This is pretty cool. To look at it another way, these are the seamers who since 07/08 have had at least two decent seasons (eg 20 wickets) and are still playing

Steve Magoffin (07-08. 08-09. 09-10)
Peter Siddle (07-08. 10-11)
Mark Cameron (07-08. 10-11)
Peter George (08-09. 09-10. 10.11)
Chris Swan (08-09. 09-10. 10.11)
Ryan Harris (07-08. 08.09)
Trent Copeland (09-10. 10.11)
Ben Hilfenhaus (07-08. 08-09. 10.11)
Luke Feldman (09.10. 10.11)
Michael Hogan (09.10. 10.11)
Luke Butterworth (08-09. 10.11)
Dan Christian (08.09 09-10. 10.11)

Andrew McDonald (08-09. 09-10. 10.11) (10.11 below 20 wickets, but below average of 25 and above 10 wickets)
James Hopes (08-09. 09-10. 10.11) (09-10 below 20 wickets, but below average of 25 and above 10 wickets)

Doug Bollinger (07-08. 08.09. 10.11) (08.09 and 10.11 below 20 wickets, but below average of 25 and above 10 wickets)
Clint McKay (07-08. 08-09. 09-10) (07-08 and 09-10 below 20 wickets, but below average of 25 and above 10 wickets)
John Hastings (08-09. 09-10. 10.11) (08.09 and 10.11 below 20 wickets, but below average of 25 and above 10 wickets)

In summary, Steve Magoffin <3

 

[Hellgood]

I think no matter what the attack is, Copeland has to be there. How could he get dropped? He took regular early wickets in Sri Lanka and kept the runs down so the more attacking bowlers like Harris benefited at the other end. Cannot have Siddle and Johnson in the same side, because more often than not they have disasterous days which lose us test matches. And when Harris has a bad day/test too which is much rarer, but happened here and in the Adelaide Ashes test, we are well and truly stuffed.

I am at a loss with what to do with Johnson. FFS we've seen how talented this guy is, but if he doesn't produce it, then he doesn't deserve to be there. I've been a supporter of him, because when he is on song he is one of the best cricketers in the world, but he is just a liability. Would the best thing for him be to drop him back to WA for the rest of the year where he either definitively proves that he is a class above that level or that he is inconsistent no matter what the level he plays at?

Siddle.... was almost our best player in the Ashes and we all know how hard he tries with bat and ball, thanks to the commentators reminding us of this every few minutes (actually I am very impressed with his batting, looks rock solid), I just don't think he is smart enough or has the consistency to be good enough to lead our attack. There are too many tests where he just does not even look like taking a wicket.

Surprised that Clarke refused to bowl Lyon, seam clearly wasn't working in the fourth innings, so why not try something different and see what happens. If it works we are in with a shot to win the test match, if it doesn't then he probably is not the best man for the job. Nothing was proven or lost, so now he will automatically be a fixture in the second test. I my opinion I think Beer has the form at the moment to be our number one spinner, not that it means much going by our spin stocks.

So for the second test, I would like to see:
Harris
Copeland (MUST)
Johnson (not particularly happy with it, but would rather carry him than Siddle)
Lyon (would prefer Beer, but he will not be dropped yet)

It's funny how the moment players are out of the Australian set up they are seen as the messiah again. I can't ever see Hilfenhaus and Bollinger playing tests again and the way they have bowled this yearhas reflected this. Bollinger took one wicket for the match against South Australia, Hilf hasn't done much more than that either.

Unless they smash down the door like Katich did when he was dropped a couple of years back, they shouldn't return. Hopefully we will see guys like Cutting, Cummins, Hazlewood, George, Coulter-Nile and Pattinson continue to take wickets and bowl well and take that next step from initial promise to putting genuine pressure on the players in the international team.

 

[The Speaker]

In summary, Steve Magoffin <3

Not too sure how I forgot him.

 

[Phone]

he's 31, doesn't have a state contract anymore because micky arthur is a **** and has never been in the frame before, so it's understandable. but **** i'd pick him before pattinson and cummins.


i've also finally stopped calling him Shane Magoffin

 

[The Speaker]

he's 31, doesn't have a state contract anymore because micky arthur is a **** and has never been in the frame before, so it's understandable. but **** i'd pick him before pattinson and cummins.


i've also finally stopped calling him Shane Magoffin

He has been playing for Queensland though.

 

[Bucking Beads]

He has been in the frame before I'm pretty sure. Flew over to South Africa as cover one tour I believe. It is too late for him now though.

 

[Doodlesweaver]

he's 31, doesn't have a state contract anymore because micky arthur is a **** and has never been in the frame before, so it's understandable. but **** i'd pick him before pattinson and cummins.


i've also finally stopped calling him Shane Magoffin

I'm sure he got called over to South Africa during the tour of 2009 when all bowlers bar Johnson were breaking apart, but generally he's just the sort of bowler our last lot of selectors scorned.

Consistent and reliable but no 'X-factor' and not fast enough.

 

[Phone]

He has been playing for Queensland though.

yeah but he wasn't given a contract by QLD. hence why you probably missed him. not sure if he'll be part of their full strength attack. he should be. Swan, Magoffin, Cutting and Hopes is one hell of an attack. Rough on luke feldman though so I assume he'll be the unlucky one.

 

[dumb]

now that our brain-dead bowlers have been told to pitch it up to swing, i'd think about giving hilf another go if he shows some shield form.

 

[danielnajdek]

Yep our bowlers cost us that Test

 

[dan warna]

yeah was the same complaints under the middle of the taylor reign. Slats, taylor, m.waugh, a young martyn, heals towards the end were a little brittle.

Haydo's, langer, punter at his peak, s.waugh, martyn, lehmann, gilchrist etc were a much stronger batting line up.

Taylor had the best of the bowling though, a young brett lee, mcdermott, hughes, fleming, gillespie, mcgrath and warne amongst his arsenal.

 

[The Passenger]

as said in another thread at least one of pattinson and hazlewood should be lining up at the gabba. possibly both. Cummins to spend the season for NSW with a view to debuting 2012/13. Harris to lead the attack (pretty much is now) and Cutting and Copeland to be around the squad and first in line for a spot when injury hits.

It's young and raw and inexperienced, but a quick bowling unit of Copeland, Cutting, Harris, Cummins, Pattinson and Hazlewood gives me a lot more confidence for the 2013 ashes.

siddle and johnson are killing us because if they don't turn up we're in massive trouble. and they don't turn up most tests. if they take a 5 for every 5-6 tests and they tend to do now, and still contribute 2-3 wickets a test in those interim, then that would be fine, but they usually struggle along at about 1 a test.

 

[The Passenger]

Yep our bowlers cost us that Test

the frustrating thing is that we've at least got options with our bowlers. you can see there is a test quick bowling unit somewhere between harris, johnson, siddle, copeland, hilfenhaus, cummins, hazlewood, pattinson, cutting, george, faulkner, coulter-nile, duffield, bollinger, starc, herrick and co.

if we can't get a quick bowling unit out of that lot then i'll go heave.

magoffin got a mention in this thread and he'd be more than reliable.

at least the selectors have got some excuses with the batting. the talent at the top is thin, and the depth is even thinner. the trouble with our spinners is obvious.