Ashes Series 2021-22

beamer wrote:

skully wrote:I'd reckon Harris is a near cert.

With GCS/Broad’s Bunny I presume? Is Sandpaper Boy off the scene now?

Rightly or wrongly, GCS is still the first pick opener for Aus.

With Puke concussed there is a bit of dearth of quality openers in Aus.

I understand a squad of 25 is to be named, initially, and that there will be an inter-squad game before the final first Test XI is chosen.

The absence of 25 players from Shield ranks during a two week QLD quarantine is going to leave the competition as weak as NSW's current XI.

Anyway, FWIW, here's a tentative 25, to be whittled. I think QLD players will be at an advantage for the initial 25 because of COVID and quarantine requirements.

Hazlewood Starc Cummins Neser J Richardson Boland Doggett Paris
Lyon Agar Zampa
Paine Peirson
Warner Street Renshaw Burns Khawaja Labuschagne Smith Maddinson Handscomb M Marsh Cartwright Green

Carder Tim Ward and Seymour would be smokies having started this season well

skully wrote:

beamer wrote:

skully wrote:I'd reckon Harris is a near cert.

With GCS/Broad’s Bunny I presume? Is Sandpaper Boy off the scene now?

Rightly or wrongly, GCS is still the first pick opener for Aus.

With Puke concussed there is a bit of dearth of quality openers in Aus.

There is pretty much everywhere. Test opening is cricket’s biggest dying art, and has been for at least a decade really.

So after Marcus Harris gets to the front of the queue of potential test openers, he promptly makes 1 & 0 in the next Shield game. Seems to happen all the time in Australia.

Aye, disappointing.

I’ve been saying it for years, the future is nightwatchman-openers, with your proper batsmen starting at number 3…

beamer wrote:I’ve been saying it for years, the future is nightwatchman-openers, with your proper batsmen starting at number 3…

Good luck selling that to Jimmy and Leach on the first morning at The Hanna.

Basil wrote:

beamer wrote:I’ve been saying it for years, the future is nightwatchman-openers, with your proper batsmen starting at number 3…

Good luck selling that to Jimmy and Leach on the first morning at The Hanna.

Who’s Hanna? Does she bowl fast, a bit like Lillian Thomson?

I don’t necessarily mean putting your bunnies in to open as you’re just going to be 0-2, especially in tough conditions. But there’s a question to be asked as to whether it’s worth picking specialists to average 25-30 when a non-specialist who has other strings to his bow wouldn’t do a great deal worse. The alternative that I’ve also suggested is a pinch-hitter, who will either get out straight away, or alternatively bash the shine off the new ball, panic the opposing captain and send the slips into the outfield as you end up with 80 on the board by first drinks.

You’ve been suggesting it for years and it remains a ridiculous idea. Sticking sloggers in on Test pitches against Test bowlers won’t work. QV Warner in England, Roy in Australia.
We just need to find the next generation of decent openers.

... after another 5-for today, a match-winning one, I believe Scott Boland has cemented his place on the extended T1 squad.

lardbucket wrote:... after another 5-for today, a match-winning one, I believe Scott Boland has cemented his place on the extended T1 squad.

Love the bloke who is as whole hearted as they come, but I just do not see him being successful.

lardbucket wrote:... after another 5-for today, a match-winning one, I believe Scott Boland has cemented his place on the extended T1 squad.

Love the bloke who is as whole hearted as they come, but I just do not see him being successful.

Good to hear from you, h.
He’s a quiet achiever in the Stuart Clark mould so you never know.

lardbucket wrote:You’ve been suggesting it for years and it remains a ridiculous idea. Sticking sloggers in on Test pitches against Test bowlers won’t work. QV Warner in England, Roy in Australia.
We just need to find the next generation of decent openers.

The issue is they play in a half-arsed way, caught between trying to be proper Test openers and playing their natural game. If they just came out and went apeshit then even if it worked 1 time in 10 it would be a game-changer.

The next generation of decent openers won’t come along, probably ever. The kids don’t have the patience for seeing off the new ball, they want to come in and start playing shots, they want the riches that come with T20. Now I firmly believe that top class cricketers can play all formats, but the most Test-specific skills are dying out or have done already. There won’t be any more Cooks, Boycotts or Athertons. If the best we can do is players averaging 25 or 30 at the top of the order then we need to stop wasting places in the side on them, and use pinch-hitters or pinch-blockers instead.

Still wrong.

lardbucket wrote:Still wrong.

Maybe you just need to get out of the 19th century.

There’s no future in picking a couple of blockers and prodders to average 30 if you’re lucky at the top of the order. You’re virtually playing with nine men. Something radical has to be tried. Maybe it’s a case of just finding players with multiple strings to their bow who can have a go at this thankless task. Bowlers, or keepers, or outstanding fielders, or a specialist captain, who can do some sort of a job at protecting the specialist batsmen from the new ball, while contributing something else to the team.

Terrific response, as expected.

When your own proposal was internally inconsistent (“even if it comes off one time in ten, it’d be a game changer”) it’s not going to pass first base.

Maybe you need to think your ideas through before spouting nonsense.

lardbucket wrote:Terrific response, as expected.

When your own proposal was internally inconsistent (“even if it comes off one time in ten, it’d be a game changer”) it’s not going to pass first base.

Maybe you need to think your ideas through before spouting nonsense.

Maybe you need to just stop being so f*cking destructive to people’s perfectly valid ideas. Anyone would think I was advocating far-right politics the way you’ve responded. That’s not what this forum’s about, dickhead.

Just f*ck off. Twat.

Now now kids, play nice.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/cricket/big-bash-league-sydney-thunder-coach-trevor-bayliss-resigned-to-losing-usman-khawaja-to-ashes-selection/news-story/c43bbb1e0a87a3931d53b6bb777817d8

LOL, the push to recall Mitch Marsh to the Test Team...

I’ll humour Beamer for a moment ...

So, your idea comes off ‘one in ten’, in Tests, as you surmised it might, or I’ll be charitable and workshop it ‘coming off’ twice on ten, in a 5 Test series, by some miracle not achieved by Moeen Ali or Jason Roy the last times this absurdity was tested in the real world.

So, Terry Tonkclod, England’s pinch-hitting opener, who has modelled has game on David Warner but a more aggressive version, makes a quickfire 60 and another 45, both in the first hour of a Test somewhere in the series. His other 8 scores include 5-6 single figure failures and (being the charitable dickhead twat that I am) he manages to tone and edge his way to another couple of twenties. In total he amassed 200 runs for the series, at an average of 20, with England 1-15 or less in 8 out of the ten starts, and a couple of personal highlights to regale his grandkids with, like George Bailey does when he talks about one glorious over v Anderson. That’s not game changing, it’s Test suicide if you’re an opener and a brief intrusion of T20 madness into the Test arena in Bailey’s case. That’s what I meant by thinking it through ... use your brain, don’t keto spouting absurd internally inconsistent nonsense. Also, try to avoid resorting to schoolyard taunts when you can’t mount a logical argument or the less charitable amongst us might think our occasional troll might actually have been onto something!

I have a long memory and remember when - years ago - you had some trouble remaining civil in conversations here with Danny, sadly no longer here ... perhaps you should just take a deep breath.

My point is that the one success in 10 might win you a match, whereas the 9 failures will leave you not much worse off than Billy Blocker who on an average day scratches around for a couple of hours and then gets out for 20 (and sometimes will get a jaffa early on in any case).

Fair enough - you don’t like the approach, and you don’t like T20 or generally anything that “reinvents” Test cricket. Disagreement is fine, that’s the whole point, but I don’t take kindly to ridicule and will respond with personal insults when I receive it. And be more likely to bugger off for a while instead of helping keep this echo chamber going. Anyway, debate over, for now…

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/harris-to-open-with-warner-in-ashes-chairman-of-selectors-confirms-20211111-p5985t.html

so we're just picking Harris, and don't worry about the trial games?

I hope Harry goes OK. He's a bit of a crab but you never know.

Nath wrote:https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/harris-to-open-with-warner-in-ashes-chairman-of-selectors-confirms-20211111-p5985t.html

so we're just picking Harris, and don't worry about the trial games?

Or the Shield game still to come!