Test The Ashes Fourth Test December 26-30 1000hrs @ The MCG

[Linda Lovelace]

Jeez the batsman from both sides are escaping so much scrutiny here. Feel sorry for Matt Page. Yeah ok, bowler friendly pitch, but unplayable? Come on!!

Australia in 1997 5th test made 194 all out at the WACCA against the West Indies, a pitch that is remembered for the cracks being a major factor and that "grubber ball" from Ambrose to Blewett. 194 all out, against Ambrose, Walsh and Bishop, bowling on cracks that wide Ian Healy put his glove in one of them! Batsman have had it easy with flat pitches for a very long time, so spare me when the pitch shows a bit a royal commission is getting called to explain why a bit of green was on the wicket!

Yep, it was clearly a difficult pitch to bat on but it was a non-dangerous, consistent pitch that gave no clear advantage to either side.

It's just not in the same conversation with many of the inconsistent, f*cked pitches that have either been genuinely dangerous, been full of cracks that made some balls unplayable or deterioated so quickly as to give the team batting last zero chance of victory.

The reaction to this pitch has been completely hysterical.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

I wonder if the challenge as a junior scout is that they are going to be absolute tonkers, because they're so far ahead of the rest of the kids.

That was fine 15 years ago, you could just take the tonkers and teach them proper defense. Now those kids are in the t20 generation, where you can make a shitton of dirty money (i dont blame them) being grade cricketer level and you don't have to learn how to be a good batter. Why would you bother?

I'm younger than quite a few of the Aussie test squad, and my junior cricket coaches would be sickened by the shit that happened this test.

CA needs to up the Test contract pay, play more test cricket (like England) and create better test pathways instead of just general pathways to lose players to franchise slop. I guarantee they won't use a single dollar from the fake coffer crisis, where they sell the BBL, to put into Test cricket pathways. And in 10 years CA will be shocked that our test team is dogshit while MI Melbourne are in the finals of the BBL.

I detest the fact Sheffield Shield cricket is like the relative that lives in the attic and nobody talks about. When the season starts there are all sorts of meaningless one day events taking place robbing the SS of most of its good players.

Furthermore, I detest the fact we have reached the 5th Test desperate to find some batting talent, and there is no Sheffield Shield being played for nigh on 2 months. All Cricket Australia cares about is the Big Bash, and they wonder why batsmen develop poor techniques for Test cricket.

 

[ABAB]

At least we can expect next year's MCG pitch to be an absolute lifeless road.

7mm was good last year but leaving nearly 50% more grass was way too much. It favour the side who won the toss first at a massive advantage to bowl first especially when cloudy. England was shit and we bowled them out with a lead of 40 runs but then we were shit in the 2nd innings so England chased a low score as the pitch started to flatten out late in day 2.

 

[HoldMyBeer]

Pommie Captains hahahahahahaha

Lord Harris (Trindad), Tim O'Brien

22

Tim O'brien

Age

31

Ht

193cm

Wt

92kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

10.1

3star

K

6.7

3star

HB

3.4

3star

M

3.6

4star

T

1.9

4star

MG

163.8

3star

D

5.9

1star

K

4.4

2star

HB

1.4

1star

M

2.6

3star

T

2.1

3star

MG

119.4

2star

D

7.2

2star

K

3.6

2star

HB

3.6

3star

M

2.2

3star

T

2.8

5star

MG

307.0

5star

(Ireland), Plum Warner (Trinidad), Fred Fane (Ireland), Douglas Jardine (india), Cyril Walters (Wales), Gubby Allen (Australia), Freddie Brown (Peru), Don Carr (Germany), Colin Cowdrey (India), Ted Dexter (Italy), Tony Lewis (Walrs), Mike Dennes (Scotland), Tony Greig (South Africa), Allen Lamb (South Africa), Nasser Hussein (India), Andrew Strauss (South Africa) and Kevin Pieterson (South Africa) Ben Stokes (New Zealand)

 

[Saint12]

I played cricket with a guy for years, he was a mate of mine, but whenever he got out it was always because it did something strange off the wicket, the pitch was 2 paced, or it was the greatest ball he ever faced, etc. It was never because he played the wrong shot to the wrong ball ... which he did on many occasions.

Steve Smith?

 

[darcytiger]

I detest the fact Sheffield Shield cricket is like the relative that lives in the attic and nobody talks about. When the season starts there are all sorts of meaningless one day events taking place robbing the SS of most of its good players.

Furthermore, I detest the fact we have reached the 5th Test desperate to find some batting talent, and there is no Sheffield Shield being played for nigh on 2 months. All Cricket Australia cares about is the Big Bash, and they wonder why batsmen develop poor techniques for Test cricket.

Should be utilising Darwin and NQ and playing long form cricket year round. It’s a competitive advantage that no other country (maybe South Africa?) can do.

Doesn’t rain for 5 months in Townsville. There should be a carnival up there with a couple of back to back games. Could do the same thing in Darwin/Mackay.

 

[swingdog]

Now this is how to bat on an MCG shit tip, against a considerably better attack:

 

[Leon Higgins]

Whoever won the toss wins the game. Sorry this was not a test quality pitch.

Saying that, Australia’s batting has been abysmal for years.

Being a ‘mate’ is not a good enough reason to keep someone in the team.

 

[sherb]

Bad batters blame the pitch.

Both sides were scoring over 3 an over, which for test cricket is good going, and only Head's dismissal, from a brilliant delivery that swung off the pitch to clean bowl him could be put down to the pitch, there might have been others.

Test wickets are meant to be challenging, batters were getting out playing aggressively, and to balls they were pushing at that could have been left, or they could have looked to drive or cut.

Had someone taken the Steve Waugh approach to batting, they could have made a 100 on that pitch. It was the sort of pitch that needed patients and good shot selection. The MCG, in my time of watching cricket has always been a lower scoring pitch compared to Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth.

Could it? I just rewatched it and any movement off the pitch wasn't anything that couldn't be negated.

What did Head in as much as anything else was his lack of foot movement. He is flatfooted when he plays at the ball and just pokes his bat at it. Any significant feet movement comes after he has played at the ball.

He is technically as suspect as anyone in the side but it is his great eye which allows him to collar attacks. I still think he is better suited at #5 given his technical deficiencies.

Otherwise, I am totally in agreement with your post. The batting on the pitch was frankly embarrassing, and rewatching all the dismissals you are struggling to find too many which could be blamed on the surface.

 

[sherb]

Now this is how to bat on an MCG shit tip, against a considerably better attack:

Yep, I made a reasonably detailed comparison with that match earlier in the thread.

Even Terry Alderman lasted nearly an hour (and helped get Hughes to his 100).

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

A wise man who I had the fortune to play with (played a Test) had this to say;

“We play 12 games per year, allowing for wash outs and second innings you will get about 12 hits per year.

On average you will get 1-2 good balls a year that will be a bit to good for you.

You will have one piece of shit luck, either a run out or a freak catch.

You will get fired by the Ump once, that’s cricket, it happens.

That leaves you with 8-9 times where the main person responsible for your dismissal is you.

If you think that you’re getting 5/6 good balls a year or fired by the umpire, you are either delusional or playing a level of cricket above your ability”

Never known it not to be correct.

What is the lesson? 85% of the time you will get yourself out so if you can minimise that you’ll improve your runs.

Bowlers, you just have to be consistent and perfect your stock ball, most batsmen get themselves out so don’t worry about bowling 6 different balls an over, just get it in the right spot consistently.

I got the odd howler from the umpire, but as I never believed in walking and was given not out when I feathered one, I took the rough with the smooth. In general, I took full ownership of my dismissals and rarely, if ever, blame anyone but myself.

I was a left arm pacer, minus the extraordinary gifts of an Akram or a Starc, so I had to think batsmen out, based on the theory that batsmen get themselves out most of the time. So, I adopted a theory by Dennis Lillee about grouping. By this I mean you would bowl one ball just wide of the off stump. The next ball a fraction wider, the third a little wider, etc, until you notice the batsman is starting to play away from the pad. Once the gap was there, you would bring the next ball back in hoping to find the gap or trap the batsman in front. Sounds simple, but oh, so effective. I saw Lillee dismiss so many batsmen LBW using this method.

Your point about

 

[sr36]

In saying that, he had 4 seasons where he averaged more than 55. That's gotta be more than just riding your luck.

It's the conditions.

Root and Smith are two of the best accumulators that the game has ever seen, yet they just never look set. Saying they don't have the patience to accumulate is just ridiculous. The ball is darting around and they're going to snick one or one will deck in and catch them LBW.

On a pitch like that, you can't bat the way that everyone seems to think is the only way to bat. It's a combination of traditional Australian bounce and English green top seam movement.

Head is the best at the moment on Aussie pitches because he plays a virtual cut shot at balls that everyone else tries to play conventionally with a high elbow - the ball seams and bounces and they're cooked.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

Yep, I made a reasonably detailed comparison with that match earlier in the thread.

Even Terry Alderman lasted nearly an hour (and helped get Hughes to his 100).

Ian Chappell once described it one of the greatest Test 100s he'd ever seen.

 

[Themanbun]

Part of the problem with batting development starts at the grassroots level. They don't have the luxury of five day games. You get your 80 odd overs per innings.

All it takes is one or two aggressive bats from the other side to put on a first innings score that forces the other side to play aggressively.

No one has the 'bat all day' patience and if they do, then they'll lose their team matches in anything short of Premier Cricket.

 

[sherb]

Ian Chappell once described it one of the greatest Test 100s he'd ever seen.

It's certainly one of the best I've seen.

 

[Cleavy]

Dont be daft

well well well

Webster, Inglis released from Test squad to play BBL | cricket.com.au

Australian Ashes Test squad members Beau Webster and Josh Inglis will turn out for the Hurricanes...

www.cricket.com.au

 

[Stax on the mill]

Ian Chappell once described it one of the greatest Test 100s he'd ever seen.

One of the few times that Chappell had anything positive to say about Hughes.

 

[sherb]

It's the conditions.

Root and Smith are two of the best accumulators that the game has ever seen, yet they just never look set. Saying they don't have the patience to accumulate is just ridiculous. The ball is darting around and they're going to snick one or one will deck in and catch them LBW.

On a pitch like that, you can't bat the way that everyone seems to think is the only way to bat. It's a combination of traditional Australian bounce and English green top seam movement.

Head is the best at the moment on Aussie pitches because he plays a virtual cut shot at balls that everyone else tries to play conventionally with a high elbow - the ball seams and bounces and they're cooked.

Root's scores this series:
0, 8, 138*, 15, 19, 39, 0 & 15

With one exception, he's been in ordinary form.

So maybe his performance in this Test wasn't because of the evil pitch, maybe it was simply a reflection of his current form?

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

It's certainly one of the best I've seen.

Yep, it is high praise from someone such as Chappelli when you consider the number of Test 100s he would have seen as a player and commentator over the past 60 years. Hughes' 100 was a gem, it put runs on the board to enable an Australian victory, as well as Dennis Lillee's record-breaking wicket.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

One of the few times that Chappell had anything positive to say about Hughes.

You'd be very surprised.

 

[western royboy]

Now this is how to bat on an MCG shit tip, against a considerably better attack:

My first day of Test Cricket live…still the best innings I’ve ever seen, he was in a completely different class to everyone else.

 

[sherb]

My first day of Test Cricket live…still the best innings I’ve ever seen, he was in a completely different class to everyone else.

On a dodgy pitch against Holding, Roberts, Garner & Croft thank you very much.

 

[sr36]

Root's scores this series:
0, 8, 138*, 15, 19, 39, 0 & 15

With one exception, he's been in ordinary form.

So maybe his performance in this Test wasn't because of the evil pitch, maybe it was simply a reflection of his current form?

This was a particularly hard one, but according to ball tracking, that Adelaide pitch, which was viewed as a batting paradise, offered more seam movement than the average Aussie pitch a decade ago.

The new Kookaburra combined with a different attitude towards pitches has simply made batting much harder than it used to be when Smith and Marnus were averaging 70+ in Aussie summers.

And harder still than when a "good pitch" meant a road by today's standards.

 

[Millky95]

And harder still than when a "good pitch" meant a road.

I did always hate that. Leaving the words "for batting" in "good pitch for batting"

 

[Cold Sober]

Rest bowlers, they've barely been out of a sweat, on top of a drinks break every 3 overs, surely people are joking.