Australia - West Indies

Definatly!The loss of a group of the best players including Warne,McGrath and Gilly retiring have weakened the Aussies to the extent that the test series they play from now on will actually be exciting!

as strong as the aussies had been between 1996 to 2007 ? doubt it!

 You sure as hell can bet I'd be having a few beers if we beat Aussie in the last two games.

Originally posted by bladescape I think Taylor is the basis of a future Pace attack as powerful as the Ambrose pace attack but will be inifectual against Australia!

 If you're comparing Taylor to Ambrose , you're offbeam , Taylor has a long , long way to go before getting close to the great man.

   But if you're comparing the current Taylor led attack against that of the Marshall led attack which included Ambrose , you're off your head!

Yep, Ambrose was deadly accurate - hardly use to give away half volleys or bowl leg side deliveries although a common thing with them great West Indian pacer was that no balls was commonish. 

Everything comes around again at some stage, but judging by the amature way the grounds seem to be run over there, it may be some time off.

And until they lengthen our first class season, West Indies won't improve.  Gayle just had a say about that as well.

Edited by spin wizard - 03 July 2008 at 9:08pm

The season finished early because there are only one round of games, so only six first class games were played this year and the list A games does play later on in the year so it's very short and they wonder why West Indies players play so.....  I remember one year recently they played 10 but that was probably in 2005.

Well I wouldn't want to be a Windies player if you were the manager!
Ouch!

Originally posted by spin wizard So, West Indies had a win in their hands and threw it away!!  Man, I won't bother summing up the game cause my mood is very disappointing at the moment.  Maybe West Indies need Akhtar to hit some of the players with the bat, maybe they'll learn that way.

No, trust me, I will tell you as an avid Pakistan cricket follower, you do not want a character as troublesome as Akhtar on the WI side.

I completely understand your disappointment though. West Indies looked pretty set to take the game when about 50 runs were needed with 6/7 wickets in hand and enough balls to reach the target. I'm not sure what happened after that as I had stopped following thinking that WI would win with relative ease. I'll be honest though; even then - when they were pursuing a required RR of about 5 - there was a fear creeping through me of WI throwing away the game...and they did?! What the hell!! I get tired of seeing Australia win all the time. No offense to any Aussies out there; I want to congratulate you folks on [yet another] victory, but I do like to see competition and a balance of victories and defeats.

Can't get much closer than 1 run can it?

the whole series 2 me has been one where the battin has just let us down and really and truly injury has reered is ugly head again @ the wrong time and involving the wrong players......that is the problem.....the batting is simply inconsistent

I saw it and while I think he is a very brutal power batsman,I don't think he is the next Gilly.
Gilly was amazing in his day and I don't think Ronchi has the ability to reach those hights.

Edited by bladescape - 07 July 2008 at 12:33am

Johnson is very good as well Spinny.
Yes,Clarke does bowl decent stuff in fact his ability to bowl has given me to start thinking that Clarke isn't a part timer!
He bowls so well that I think it would be unfair to call him a part timer.
He is an allrounder in my eyes.

Not a matter of not enough, they're just not threatening.  My sister will easily negotiate both Husseys and Watson's bowling has gotten even worse than it was in my eyes.  Hopes isn't nothing special with the ball either and niether is Symonds.  Johnson is kinda effective in this version and Lee and Bracken the stars, especially Bracken - he hardly gives anything away!