West Indies In Australia

Australia has really solid depth mate. Everyone was saying how we were going to go down hill. Bit of time to blood the new players and Australia will still be top 3 for a long, long time. It's hard in the WI - small population, increasing popularity of American sports, decreasing popularity of cricket, poor attitude and lack of professionalism, too much focus on money and lack of facilities and opportunities. 

I was right, or perhaps quite correct in my suspicions in that there is talk that Hughes will play the first test and that it might be Hussey making way (OR if VC Michael Clarke is unfit still then Hughes will be his replacement and obviously Watson would drop down the order - or Katich, both of whom are originally middle order batsmen).
Hughes was very harshly dropped during the Ashes and it will be a very good move for mine if he is brought back in. Hussey has made 1 ton in 16 tests and while his ODI form has been excellent, probably top 5 in the world this year, that shouldn't dictate whether he should be playing tests. Australia is playing Pakistan and WIN, who are not the biggest threats and it's not the worst time to play Hughes after he did really well against SA in SA.
I'd like to see Hughes play, not a fan of Watto opening in tests. In ODIs as you would have seen me write in a couple of other threads I feel that the opening position is not a 'specialist' one in that format, if anything the best batsman in your ODI side should bat between 1-4 , regardless of where they bat in tests. However in the test format I'd like to see 2 proper openers. Katich was always a middle order batsman, but he had a couple of amazing seasons for NSW opening which is why he was given his test spot back, while he's also opened in ODIs for Australia. So he has a lot of experience under his belt for one to consider him as a specialist opener. And I'd like to see Hughes alongside him at the top.

India have no depth in their bowling. They have 3 decent spinners in Singh, Ojha and Mishra and a 4th okay spinner in Chawla, who I hear is improving his leg break which I felt was a problem for him. In terms of fast bowling depth it's quite poor, bordering on pathetic to be quite frank and that's why they won't beat sides with decent batting line ups. Even a fairly inexperienced batting line up like Australia's, missing the likes of Clarke and Haddin + the in form Ferguson were very , very good in this series and a lot of that was due to pretty ordinary bowling.
Batting is always going to be good for India especially at home and they have a lot of emerging young players who will do well in the future, the likes of Uthappa, Sharma, Pandey, Tiwari, etc (alongside guys like Sehwag, Dhoni, Gambhir who will be around for at least another 4-5 years if not longer, especially the latter two).
The problem with Australia in the last year and I put a lot of it down to inexperience and possibly poor captaincy has been 'finishing' games. The series Australia lost at home to SA could have easily been 3-0 to Australia had they finished well in Perth and Melbourne (while they won in Sydney). In England the same could be said about the Cardiff test, while the Edgbaston test which was probably slightly in Australia's favour at the end was ruined by rain. Another problem for Australia in tests has been their first innings batting which has lacked application. If Australia can sort out these 2 problems they won't be beaten often, particularly at home. I do expect Australia will be a dominating side in the next 3-5 years and remain one of the top 2 or 3 teams in the world and a team to beat.

I agree with Raj, if WI are going to do anything big against Australia it is probably going to be in ODIs, but then again WI have a poor record of late vs Australia in this format. WI have talent but lack the cohesion and application necessary to be a matchwinning side and you feel a ranking outside the top 6 in ODIs and Tests seems low when you look at their side on paper.

I'm not saying Australia is going to win every game, but last time when we lost the Ashes Australia won 13 tests in a row or something like that and then went on to win the next Ashes and the World Cup in 2007.

I think everyone is going a bit too far imo.The series scoreline might show 4-2 at the moment but it was close, but I should never say we could have easily won it.

Edited by MalhotraRaj84 - 10 November 2009 at 1:50pm

Paine and Haddin available who will you play milky?

Haddin no doubt about it. He can hit the ball a long, long way. Paine is an accumulator, more in the Katich mould (but obviously technically different).

I'd say until 2011 (WC year) Haddin will be around pending form and injury. Then someone else will get a shot. We have about 5 back up keepers in Australia who are all noteworthy and wouldn't do a poor job by all means (Paine - TAS, Wade - VIC, Ronchi - WA, Manou - SA and Hartley - QLD).


Edited by milkman - 10 November 2009 at 2:42pm

Manou was very pathetic behind stumps, maybe new condition did not suit him.

http://www.cricinfo.com/ausvwi09/content/current/story/434685.html
Lees out.

Gabba is the best wicket in the country, probably the best in the world. The WACA wicket at full flight is awesome too. 

400 will be too much for WI, especially with a jetlagged Gayle opening and no Sarwan.

And yeah, the Gabba is indeed the best Cricket wicket on the planet at the moment.  Batsmen can play freely because you can trust the bounce and there is the odd movement here and there off the seam plus the bounce to assist the bowlers.

WIndies now 4/80-something.
Johnson with 2 wickets,one each for Hilfy and Siddle.
Barath was walking across his stumps,almost like Katich,is that in his usual game or is it nerves?

Johnson strikes quickly,though he's still having trouble with the seam from what I've seen.
Gayle was striking pretty quickly,and at tea I was wondering if Gayle would crush the Aus attack!
Interesting that Watson's been put on before Hauritz!

Originally posted by DontGoogleMe So you reckon the Kemar Roach is better then Dale Steyn and Ntini?

Congrats Barath on debut century . To Umar too on his debut century against NZ .

done and dusted so early... WI are going no where.

Good ton by Barath though!