Chappelli says that Australia is a flawed team.

I know nobody here really cares what he thinks but here it is anyway.
Chappell: Aus a flawed team



Sydney - Ricky Ponting has been likened to inheriting a family business on the slide as Australian cricket comes face-to-face with reality.

Ponting's team has been on the back-foot in its current series in India, increasingly finding itself under pressure and unable to call on those match-winners who were a protective blanket throughout the previous decade.

Now the giants of the game have gone. Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Adam Gilchrist are retired and Australian cricket is acutely the poorer.

Suddenly, Australia don't have anywhere near adequate replacements for the missing modern-day cricket titans.

And it's little wonder they are finding it tough given the stellar achievements of those who have departed the game over the last few years.

Warne and McGrath were among the all-time top four bowlers with a total of 1,271 wickets between them and Gilchrist remains the greatest wicketkeeper-batsman of all time, hitting 17 centuries with his batting pyrotechnics down the order.

The figures don't lie. Up to the start of this year Australia won 19 Test matches with one drawn and since then they've won three, drawn four and lost two (both to India).

Former captain Ian Chappell believes the current Australian team is flawed.

"Australia is rarely a poor side but this team is nowhere near the class of yesteryear. They still know how to fight to the death, but they are now a flawed team," he wrote in a recent newspaper column.

"There's not too much wrong with Australia's batting, they have one champion batsman in Ricky Ponting and three very good players in Matthew Hayden, Michael Hussey and Michael Clarke.

"Unfortunately, the bowlers are now giving up runs at a greater rate than the batsmen can score them."

Australia's apparent fallibility has provoked recriminations at home as the selectors have given Test debuts to six players this year and raised eyebrows with their choice of two uncapped spinners, Jason Krejza and 36-year-old Bryce McGain, for the tour to India.

McGain was in line to play in the opening Bangalore Test but went home for shoulder surgery, while Krejza is waiting for his Test chance after going wicketless for 199 runs off 31 overs in a leadup tour game.

Instead Australia, needing to take 20 wickets to level the Border-Gavaskar series in the drawn third Delhi Test, went in with the slow bowling trio of unthreatening leg-spinner Cameron White and part-timers, Michael Clarke and Simon Katich and again couldn't bowl India out.

It again emphasised that Ponting no longer has the bowling armoury to dismiss good teams as shown on a last-day turning wicket in the drawn opening Test in Bangalore.

There were even cries at one stage for the Test recall of Warne at the age of 39, but the legendary leg-spinner doused that.

"I've got no interest at all at this stage. I'm very happily retired, I'm comfortable where I'm at," he said.

Ponting knows he must make do with the cards he has been dealt.

"Ideally, of course, I would have liked to have an attack with the McGraths and Warnes. But we've got what we've got. There is a bit of inexperience, we don't have a match-winning spinner," he admitted.

Earlier this year before the illuminating Indian series, Ponting said: "We have got enough talent around Australia to maintain our No.1 ranking in Test cricket.

"I don't know how far we are in front but you would think, given what we have done for a fair period of time, that we would be a fair way in front. But how we adapt will determine how good a team we are."

The signs are that the gap is quickly diminishing as the Aussies gear up for their traditional Ashes joust in England next year.

'Australia aren't as good without Warne , McGrath and Gilchrist'


Who would have thought that ? ....Thank you , Captain Obvious

He will issue a further statement when he sobers up.

further statement still pending

They are a flawed team, it just happens that so are all the others, and they just happen to have the most in-form player in the world right now.

I was making more of a comment on chappelli being pissed for the last 5+ years, beamer

Yeah, and I was making a comment on the original thread title... I know that can be a rarity in these parts!

Actually Chappelli did tip this team to wipe the floor with the Proteas. In fact to this juncture the Aussie scribes who expected a win in the republic are on the right track. Gillespie thought they would be it easily.

What is concerning though is that while it is on the up, the majority of the players are on the wrong side of thirty. To start a dominant era they will have to hope that guys like Cummins fulfil their potential. Johnson can't keep bowling at this speed and will possibly get some flat pitches which don't suit his style sooner or later.

Meh, fark the future, live for today and enjoy this remarkable vein of form Midge and the team is in.

skully wrote:Meh, fark the future, live for today and enjoy this remarkable vein of form Midge and the team is in.

+1

All teams are flawed. Some carry small fissures well, others develop Grand Canyons and San Andreas Faults.

Dont blame San Andreas

Everyone knows it's KPs fault

No it's not. It's S****y's fault.

PeterCS wrote:No it's not. It's S****y's fault.

hehehe....much tho Skully would like to claim it, Englands straightened circumstances are not a question of fault...more like who desevves the medal for achievement.

Take away Mitchel Johnson, it's still a deeply flawed team. As flawed as the toothless bcci attack against sheepudders.

Midge has been the difference, no doubt.

Lehmann has been the difference. All follows from there.

Where is Dr Wolfboofer at this time of Shrek's canonisation?

A combination of Mitchell Johnson clicking, plus Aus never giving up even when 4/5 for not many in their first innings, combined with the other team thinking the job is done (and Aus end up scrambling 300+) is the difference.

Their top order is just as streaky and frail as it has been for the last two years. Oh, Nathan Lyon has improved as well. Or should it be said- Nathan Lyon has finally been BACKED by the selectors.

FACT- Johnson has ALWAYS been extremely dangerous when he clicks (remember him doing a similar demolition job on the Saffies at Durban in 2009? Or against England at Perth in 2010?)

FACT- Australia's top order has been as shaky as hell since Katich was dumped.

FACT- Nathan Lyon has been Australia's best spinner ever since he made his test debut in 2011. It's just taken Aus three years to realise it.

FACT- World cricket is so bizarre right now, that it wouldn't surprise if Bangladesh beat Aus the next time they meet. There's a bunch of them that are capable of beating each other, and the form guide has been thrown out the window.

FACT- Call it skill or call it arse, but there's something about Darren Lehmann's style that's bringing out the best in this Australian team. If nothing else, he's got them enjoying cricket again, and they are keeping things incredibly simple (apart from Clarke's love of 'funky' fields which are tinkered with after almost every ball).

For reasons that escape me right now . . . I do rather like this Chapelli chappie!!

I might go as far as to say it's not necessarily Lehmann - I'd say it's 'Darren Notmickeyarthur' that has helped them out.

well at least 2014 has seen an away team win a test against a top 8 team. it didn't happen in all of 2013

Brass Monkey wrote:I might go as far as to say it's not necessarily Lehmann - I'd say it's 'Darren Notmickeyarthur' that has helped them out.

yep the removal of a D- coach and installation of a B+ to A level coach has been crucial...

add the dismal effort from the english and the pea hearted effort from the saffies in T1 and one could say oz has been pretty lucky...

ignoring rankings it is hard to go past the snoozies as the great improvers in Test cricket over the past 6 months

Brass Monkey wrote:I might go as far as to say it's not necessarily Lehmann - I'd say it's 'Darren Notmickeyarthur' that has helped them out.

Can we find a "Darren Notashleygiles" from somewhere please?