Aussie Press unloads...

There's already a sack of post mortem articles in the Aussie papers but this one from Greg Baum pretty neatly sums up most of my views on the series and the current state of Australian cricket. Sorry for the cut and paste.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/cant-bat-cant-bowl-cant-field-and-cant-even-think-straight-20110106-19hlf.html


Can't bat, can't bowl, can't field and can't even think straight
Greg Baum
January 7, 2011

Revolutions have broken out, palaces stormed and coups de grace mounted for less than this. Early this morning, Australia will lose by an innings for the third time this summer, which is unprecedented in a mostly proud cricketing history. It is a capitulation as feeble and abject as can be imagined. The cricket community has a right to be angry. Whether or not Australians place too much store by sporting success, they at least expect to be represented by honest effort. Now heads must roll.

An already wide gulf between the teams has become a chasm, impossible to bridge within even two Ashes cycles. The cycle is a distraction anyway, since England are not even one of the two best teams in the world. Overnight, the top two finished doing battle royale in South Africa. Australia's next three Test series, in order, are against Sri Lanka, South Africa and India. It is shaping as a bleak year. It is shaping as a bleak era.

How to annotate a slaughter? It could be noting that from an already unassailable position yesterday morning, England's last three wickets added 156 and Australia lost their entire top order recovering those runs. It could be by recording that England's 644 was their highest score in Australia, and Matt Prior crashed a 109-ball century, the fastest for England since Ian Botham in the astonishing 1981 series. It was a rollicking innings, but also a footnote. Prior is the wicketkeeper, and in this innings was batting at No 8.

It ought to be by acknowledging England's mastery in all aspects of the game: thinking, planning, batting, bowling, fielding. Of these, the last is both incidental and instructive. Batting and bowling form is elusive, but fielding is a skill that can be improved by dedicated and relentless practice. England's superiority suggests Australia have not worked as hard as they say they have and think they have. The next time an Australian cricketer or coach says he has been working hard, as if that explains and absolves everything, Australians should let out a collective scream.

Other aspects of Australia's cricket betray scrambled brains. Not one England batsman has been run out in this series. Four Australians have, three of them openers. Yesterday's unravelling began with a farcical piece of cricket. Phillip Hughes played a ball to leg. One run was certain, two a matter of negotiation between him and Shane Watson, basic batsmen's business.

But Watson does not call, and Hughes is a lazy runner between wickets, and now both watched the ball anyway, instead of each other, and so found themselves at the same end of the pitch. England could believe their luck, but not Australia's ineptitude.

Then there are the fundamentals. In nearly all series, but especially here, England's bowlers have looked as if they were playing on a different pitch and with a different ball from Australia's. Jimmy Anderson, Chris Tremlett and Tim Bresnan have moved the ball, in and away, seam and swing, orthodox and reverse, new ball and old, putting even accomplished batsmen constantly in two minds.

The only movement Australia's bowlers have created is from the bat, rapidly. With the new ball yesterday - the third new ball - Mitchell Johnson's four overs cost 48, a pummelling even in Twenty20 cricket. As night follows day, Johnson later made a first-ball duck. Oh, for the days when Johnson was at least enigmatic.

The batting story is the same. England's batsmen observe basic principles: leave the ball that does not need to be played, wait for the loose offering - yesterday, it came along often enough - and put it away. Prior made his runs briskly, but not by slogging; none was necessary. A small mercy: next week, Prior will be playing for Victoria, in the Big Bash. There, he can really let himself go.

Australia's batsmen all came with good intentions. Watson pulled the first ball of Australia's second innings for four. Captain Michael Clarke asserted himself by lofting two early boundaries from off-spinner Graeme Swann, who in previous innings had cornered him. But inexorably, each at length jabbed suspiciously at a ball wobbling away from him, and was caught, mostly by Prior.

Swann's role cannot be underestimated; his artful off-spin gave the batsmen no rest. Usman Khawaja is wiser by one innings to the meanness of Test cricket. Clarke is wiser by one match to the thanklessness of captaincy.

It is one thing to succumb to good bowling. It is another to surrender to it. Mike Hussey played a ragged shot. Brad Haddin, promoted to No.6 for this match, gave two half- chances before he was eight, then half-pulled, half-ducked a Tremlett bouncer and was wholly out. Haddin's decline in this series has characterised that of Australia.

Play was extended by half an hour, and Steve Smith spent most of it aiming extravagant drives and pulls at all-comers, as if this were some sort of Twenty20 gig. If this was Smith's idea, he should be dropped forthwith. If he was acting on some sort of vague instruction to ''play your natural game'', the coaches should be stood down. Allan Border did not rebuild Australian cricket from bedrock by playing to whims.

In the epilogue, the Barmy Army went through its repertoire. For now, it did not include: ''Are you Bangladesh in disguise?'' It will this morning.

Love Baum as a writer. He's been on the front page of the Age throughout the series. Big pie fan too. Remember watching the Aussies limber up in the nets at Lord's in 93 and having a chat to him about what it's like travelling with the cricket team.

Red wrote:Love Baum as a writer. He's been on the front page of the Age throughout the series. Big pie fan too. Remember watching the Aussies limber up in the nets at Lord's in 93 and having a chat to him about what it's like travelling with the cricket team.

He'll be a fat farquer now after Johnnsons' offerings then won't he ?

Red wrote:Love Baum as a writer. He's been on the front page of the Age throughout the series. Big pie fan too.

Nice of Fairfax to show that they are truly an equal-opportunity employer by hiring the intellectually disabled then.

What do you mean Zat?

You have to be synaptically bereft and/or treponemally scrambled to support Collingwood*


* the football team

Aaaahhhhh - do you mean the football team named after our MBE winner in recognition of the work he did playing for a local cricket club ?

No I'm talking tripe I see that Collingwood is an old established club .... I think ...

JGK, have you had your rant yet? I'm looking forward to that.

The Barmy Army probably offended Bangladesh more than the Australian team.

Henry wrote:JGK, have you had your rant yet? I'm looking forward to that.

No. I don't really know what I can add to the numbers 3-1.

Only one day to go, I hope JGK dedicates a thread to it and that we can contribute to the mess that "was" Ponting's captaincy.

JGK wrote:

Henry wrote:JGK, have you had your rant yet? I'm looking forward to that.

No. I don't really know what I can add to the numbers 3-1.

Yeah you could. Three innings defeats.

Seriously. I haven't even given any thought to what I might say on 8 January because the last 3 weeks have been so utterly soul destroying.

I might start unleashing on God mind you. The deal was, "we win the 2010 SCG test and I won't criticise Ponting or Horrors". It wasn't "we win the 2010 SCG test and it will signal the start of the cricketing apocalypse".

seems with the oz media rightly decrying this Ozt eam as the worst ever that Andrew Hilditch and his father in law have finally succeeded in achieing a team worse than the one hilditch played in