So what went wrong?

[Craig]

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

I think Sutherland defending the selection of 4 seamers based on having won in SA with the same sort of attack is pretty weak. If one follows that train of thought why then was Hauritz included at Cardiff, when most of us (myself included) assumed he'd be left out?

I do have more sympathy for him saying we read the pitch wrongly too (although admittedly Panesar's woeful form for Northants mitigated against him playing anyway), but it's precisely because the reading of pitches isn't an exact science that I advocate a spinner where possible for such eventualities as The Oval.

If Panesar had been in form, would you have played him?

[BoyBrumby]

Originally Posted by Craig

If Panesar had been in form, would you have played him?

If he'd taken 50 wickets at 15 for Northants this season, then yes I'd strongly have considered it. As it was tho he was a waste of a spot in the squad.

[Lillian Thomson]

If England had a half decent Test class spinner people like Panesar who'd done little to justify his selection and someone like Swann who's never been anything more than a good County pro would never have played for England.

[BoyBrumby]

Originally Posted by Lillian Thomson

If England had a half decent Test class spinner people like Panesar who'd done little to justify his selection and someone like Swann who's never been anything more than a good County pro would never have played for England.

& if my auntie had a penis, she'd be my uncle.

In fact we've not really had an unreservedly decent test spinner since I've been watching (early-mid 80s). Tuffers flattered to deceive and was tempramentally suspect, Monty seems unable or unwilling to even attempt to grow as a player and blokes like Emburey and Giles attract adjectives like "solid", "decent" & "workmanlike".

[Lillian Thomson]

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

& if my auntie had a penis, she'd be my uncle.

Not if she borrowed it from next door.

[Midwinter]

What went wrong ?

Absolutely stunned when they walked without Clark in the first test. Remember the conditions were more favourable than in the last game, and even then he went for only two runs an over.

Most people are admitting now that Johnson was rubbish for most of the series but Siddle was almost as bad
Haddin's byes were mainly due to Siddle sending them down to fine leg

What was wrong dropping these blokes for a game or two. You can always bring them back
Like the batting, it seemed that the selectors were unable to admit that things needed changing. Like jackasses they made a decision and stubbornly stuck with it even when losing !.

For me the only certainties in the next test team are Clarke, Katich and Haddin.

Even Punter, he's not what he used to be and should be made to earn his spot.
Hussey is going the same way as Hayden did last summer, no longer quite there. He has to make runs in shield cricket or make way.

For everyone else, it should be - play the first three shield games and pick the best from there.

[pup11]

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

I think Sutherland defending the selection of 4 seamers based on having won in SA with the same sort of attack is pretty weak. If one follows that train of thought why then was Hauritz included at Cardiff, when most of us (myself included) assumed he'd be left out?

I do have more sympathy for him saying we read the pitch wrongly too (although admittedly Panesar's woeful form for Northants mitigated against him playing anyway), but it's precisely because the reading of pitches isn't an exact science that I advocate a spinner where possible for such eventualities as The Oval.

Sutherland is just making a bigger joke of himself and the Australian team by turning his back to an obvious problem and conveniently living in the past, the selectors always keep talking about this horses for courses approach, but it very rarely gets implemented, what happened in RSA (which were totally different conditions) shouldn't even have been mentioned in the present context.

Every average fan knows that Australia didn't pick the right team at the Oval, and for him to come out and defend that blunder only makes matters worse.

[NUFAN]

Originally Posted by Midwinter

What went wrong ?

Absolutely stunned when they walked without Clark in the first test. Remember the conditions were more favourable than in the last game, and even then he went for only two runs an over.

Most people are admitting now that Johnson was rubbish for most of the series but Siddle was almost as bad
Haddin's byes were mainly due to Siddle sending them down to fine leg

What was wrong dropping these blokes for a game or two. You can always bring them back
Like the batting, it seemed that the selectors were unable to admit that things needed changing. Like jackasses they made a decision and stubbornly stuck with it even when losing !.

For me the only certainties in the next test team are Clarke, Katich and Haddin.

Even Punter, he's not what he used to be and should be made to earn his spot.
Hussey is going the same way as Hayden did last summer, no longer quite there. He has to make runs in shield cricket or make way.

For everyone else, it should be - play the first three shield games and pick the best from there.

Haha. Are you seriously suggesting that Simon Katich has his name penciled into the next Test more so then Ponting? They'll both play but waaat?

[Midwinter]

Check his figures for last summer and this series some good runs but how many times did he make them when it counted.

I know he is not the only one but he's not sacred, he was great, now he is occasionally very good .

[tooextracool]

Originally Posted by pup11

Nope, don't agree with this, it very easy to blame our inexperienced bowling attack for this debacle, but I think the blame lies firmly with the batting line-up, we had three shoddy 1st innings batting performances in this, and unsurprisingly for most of the time we were on the receiving end in all three of those tests.

Its also pretty easy to say that we should have taken that last wicket at Cardiff, and tbh 9 times out of 10, we might knock over Jimmy or Monty in that sort of situation, but at times you just need to accept that some things are just not meant to be, on that Cardiff pitch where English bowlers were just able to take 6 Aussie wickets, it was a very good effort on the part of our bowlers to get us that close to winning the game, but unfortunately we weren't good enough to take that final wicket.

There may have been 3 batting collapses, but 2 of them were down to extraordinary bowling efforts. Jimmy swinging the ball both ways around corners was always to trigger a collapse and Broad getting the ball to swing and cut off the pitch at the Oval was the same. It's almost like Lords in 2005, no one in their right mind would suggest that England batted poorly in that game. It was a mind blowing spell that was simply very difficult to counter.

[tooextracool]

Originally Posted by Craig

If Panesar had been in form, would you have played him?

If Panesar was any good, I would consider playing him.

[Ikki]

Did the bowlers really let us down? Really? I don't think so. They regularly kept England to par scores but were given too much to do when the batting line-up really **** itself in those two tests.

[tooextracool]

Originally Posted by Ikki

Did the bowlers really let us down? Really? I don't think so. They regularly kept England to par scores but were given too much to do when the batting line-up really **** itself in those two tests.

ENGLAND is a **** batting team, moreso after they lost one of their 2 test class batters. Do you not realize that allowing them to get par scores was the problem ITFP?

[Ikki]

Originally Posted by tooextracool

ENGLAND is a **** batting team, moreso after they lost one of their 2 test class batters. Do you not realize that allowing them to get par scores was the problem ITFP?

Not a great bowling team either TBF. But I take your point. I personally thought we were letting them get to scores they shouldn't be getting but worse than that was the scores our batsmen should have been getting but weren't. The bowlers didn't really do anything as poor as our batsmen did in the first innings at Lords or the Oval.

[tooextracool]

Originally Posted by Ikki

Not a great bowling team either TBF. But I take your point. I personally thought we were letting them get to scores they shouldn't be getting but worse than that was the scores our batsmen should have been getting but weren't. The bowlers didn't really do anything as poor as our batsmen did in the first innings at Lords or the Oval.

You are right in that England are not a great bowling team. They did however bowl some very good spells during the series that changed games on their heads.

For me, the Australian bowlers were steady but rarely threatening. At many times during the series, you felt that the England batsmen had just tossed their wickets away when everything looked so easy rather than Australian bowlers getting them out. Only at Leeds did the bowlers actually get England out, for the rest of the series the batsmen just obliged.

I take your point that the Australian bowlers were rarely poor during the series whilst their batting veered from excellent to fragile at some points. However, even that collapse at Lords was on the back of a very poor bowling performance in the first innings at Lords which arguably had just as much of an impact on the game as the bad batting did.