How would the other teams have done?

[Anil]

I think we can all agree it'd be a fantastic series to watch.

definitely...i don't think it would be one sided at all, it would be two of the best sides in history clashing against each other, the west indian bowling would be the difference in the end though, just too overpowering.....

[LongHopCassidy]

My point was that 4 Australian batsmen- Langer, Gilchrist, Symonds and Hodge spent most of the series in the pavillion. Theres not much to disagree about it because that was the case as the Aussies were continually bailed out by Ponting, Hussey and Hayden. At the end of the day Lee averaging 24 and Bracken averaging 24 arent really match winning contributions. Incidentally your 8th best batsman is shane warne and he averaged single figures.

You don't get 'bailed out' by your top order, as a rule.

[PhoenixFire]

definatly not as crap as england

Oh please bring another insightful comment into the discussion

[tooextracool]

Did you actually watch him bowl or did you just read the scorecard? He's better than Petersen, yes, but hell even I'm better than Petersen. I'd still take Boje or Botha over him any day of the week if I had the choice. The pitch suited him perfectly and he was ineffective for the most part.

He certainly looked a lot better than Kumble did in that game even if the pitch suited him better. And Boje, please, he was decent enough to play for SA while the next best option was Petersen, but really he was rubbish all along. Im not prepared to rate someone who played 1 test and proceeded to get called for chucking tbh.I think Harris uses drift quite well, and his seam position is top notch. Hes still not particularly brilliant with flight and variations of pace and theres no doubting that hes still an ordinary bowler. But an ordinary spinner for SA is still far far better than the Boje/Peterson class.

[tooextracool]

That's really unlike you TEC. Very rarely do you ever jump on a player after only one test. I really don't think Harris has been that good, and if he bowled in Australia without those delicious footmarks he'd received this test, I dare say he would have been smashed to all parts.

That's not necessarily a slight against him, but I can't believe you'd judge him over one test where he's had very favourable conditions and has not been outstanding.

I never said that he was outstanding, nor do i think of him highly. Merely that hes an acceptable spinner capable of taking advantage of spinner friendly conditions. Like i said earlier, Boje, Adams, Petersen, Crookes, Ontong and co were all so poor that it beggered belief(only symcox really was half decent). At least in Harris' case there is some potential to work with.

[tooextracool]

Harris hasn't even finished his first Test! What has he done to state that he belongs, let along play against Australia? An attack is as good as the sum of its parts.

Hed play at the SCG and Adelaide. Why? Because the rest of their spin options are far worse.

[tooextracool]

What exactly are you arguing here? I said that Lee had matured as the leader of the attack over the whole summer, in which he averaged 23. He did bowl quite well at times in the home series against South Africa, mainly on the first day in Melbourne, but I never suggested that he had a "dominant" series, and it would have been foolish to do so. I wouldn't even say he had a dominant series in the away leg against South Africa where he averaged 19, though Stuart Clark did have one. Ntini and Nel were nothing like dominant against Australia. They had solid series with the ball against a good batting lineup but nothing spectacular. Similar to, say, Matthew Hoggard this time around, but in more helpful conditions in general.

And regarding the conditions, I'm pretty sure I rememeber you acknowledging that the pitches in Australia were more lively than usual. In the series against the West Indies the ball swung a bit in Brisbane while Hobart and Adelaide were roads, so the seam friendly conditions generally came against South Africa. Not that any of the wickets were minefields by any stretch, but after the road in Perth, both Melbourne and Sydney moved around on the first couple of days for all the bowlers. Ntini missed the Sydney test of course and was replaced by Langeveldt, who was rubbish.

Sydney offered barely anything, and most of it happened just after the rain intervals. If anything it got even flatter to bat on after that and there was certainly even less for the pace bowlers.would have surely been a draw if not for the declaration. Perth was a road too and Melbourne was the only pitch that was surprisingly quite competitive. I really dont understand how you can call the Australian wickets extremely seamer friendly, when no fast bowler averaged lower than the high 20s. No australian fast bowler even averaged in the 20s. Both Nel and Ntini bowled superbly all series, and if you had watched closely enough you would have observed it too.

You seem to be firing shots all over the place in an attempt to make the Australian batting lineup look average. The fact is that it's absolutely absurd to suggest that two bowlers who averaged close to 30 without having to play on roads in a series that was lost 2-0 "dominated" the opposition, or had them "wrapped around their fingers".

Err it would be foolish to claim that Gilchrist, Langer, Symonds and Hodge werent 'wrapped around their fingers' given that all of them with no exception were clueless for most of the series. And you know quite well that 2-0 wasnt a fair result and it should really have been no more than 1-0. In fact had there not been a billion rain intervals and had ntini played Australia might very well have lost given that they were already trailing in the first innings.

Of course not, but again, you're massively overstating how badly England bowled. Obviously you can't concretely measure how much of a batting side's success was down to planning and application and how much of it came from poor bowling performance, but I think England bowled quite well at times throughout the series and generally struggled to make an impact at key moments, while poor bowling was dominated when it came. England's bowling for an innings and a half in Perth was excellent for instance, and I'd say only Brisbane and Melbourne saw genuinely poor bowling performances from the team as a whole. Every one of the England bowlers was played far better this year by the Australian batsmen. There were plans for every bowler, and every batsman except Langer showed real discipline and a determination that simply hasn't been there against any opposition other than India in recent times. It was a phenomenal batting display, simple as that, and if you think throwing Nel, Pollock or Harris in against the same performance would mean success, you're really deluding yourself.

I think anyone who wishes to claim that England 'bowled well' in this series is seriously off his rocker. For someone whos accusing me of throwing shots all over the place at this Aussie batting lineup you really are doing a fine job trying to convince me about how England bowled well for half an innings here and there just to try and make the aussie batters come out looking good. Like i said earlier, none of the England bowlers were even above average. Hoggard was ok given his limitations as a bowler, but just because he was accurate after Brisbane it doesnt mean 'he bowled well'. He was absolutely innocuous for nearly all of that test series which is not surprising given his lack of pace and his rather appalling ability of bowling with a wobbly seam for someone of his pace. similarly Harmison was decent for half a test match and was so rubbish before that that you have to question whether a 10 year old could have done a better job. Anderson was even worse, Flintoff was bowling at half pace and the less said about Giles the better. Panesar didnt get a turner all series and therefore he too was completely harmless. You seem to think that accurate bowling = brilliant fast bowling, because the fact is that its not, especially when harmison, anderson and giles were throwing down pies at the other end.

[tooextracool]

He probably didn't cash a lot after the 1st test, but its not as if he looked out of place in the remainder of series. He got starts and didn't cash in, getting out to a mixture of good deliveries & bad shots. Unlike Cook who but for his 100 in adelaide really was worked out by England. You seem to be judging langer based on stats alone here..

Please, i watched Langer bat and watched him try desperately to get out for most of that series. I dont know how someone who cant score runs against an absolute joke of an attack didnt look out of place in that series tbh.

Obviously the calls for Hayden to dropped after the intial stages of the series were crazy wherever they came from. Unlike 2005 where he looked totally at sea for the 1st 4 test he looked good intially but didn't get big scores. He may have only had two big scores, England's bowling may not have been as consistent as 2005, the pitches were flat (but not as flat as you are making it out), MCG, SCG & Perth all offered something for the bowlers looked how welll Australia bowled but you still got to score runs againts whats in front of you, if you are going to ridicule batsmen on petty things like that we might have to start questioning if Lara & Tendulkar are truly great batsmen then..

And just because someone puts runs up against what he faces it doesnt make him a great player. You have provided all the counters for your own argument- only had 2 scores(one of which he had several lives), poor bowling, flat pitches and then claim that he played very well. Hayden wasnt going to look all at sea at all this series because the bowling wasnt good enough to do so, neither was the captaincy.

[tooextracool]

You don't get 'bailed out' by your top order, as a rule.

so 3 out of 7 batsmen playing well for the entire series is ideal then?

[silentstriker]

1 - 5-0
2 - 5-0
3 - 5-0
4 - 5-0
5 - 5-0
6 - 5-0

Nah, thats just the English propaganda like you had with WI. In the eighties England got thrashed 5-0 repeatedly by the Windies, and they tried to make it out like that was what everyone got, but they were really the only ones who got repeatedly thrashed that badly. Pakistan actually managed to draw with them.

[silentstriker]

Mind you I'd still back them to win, Garner, Marshall, Holding, Croft, Roberts, Walsh, Ambrose,,,, nowhere to run baby.

I can't even see where a run would come from? Who would you target to get runs from in a line up of Ambrose- Holding - Marshall - Garner? I guess you'd have to go with Holding as the "weak" link, LOL!

[LongHopCassidy]

so 3 out of 7 batsmen playing well for the entire series is ideal then?

Given the series scoreline, it apparently is.

[vic_orthdox]

Answering the question posed by the thread title,


Badly.

[tooextracool]

Given the series scoreline, it apparently is.

1-0? And thats while being dominated in Sydney for most of the game.
Like i said earlier, SA have a considerably worse batting lineup, and that hurt them during that series.IMO they bowled far better than Australia did.

[Johnners]

so 3 out of 7 batsmen playing well for the entire series is ideal then?

very rarely do the entire 7 play well for an entire 3 test series

Ponting, Hussey & Hayden were the main batsmen, but Symonds, Hodge & Gilchrist all at some stage played an important role with the bat.