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Neilsen's Take On It

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Here's his blog.

Cricket Australia > Latest News > News

Feel free to leave comments on it. For those who CBF and would rather just wait til he gets home to throw things at him, here's what he's written:


I must admit to looking forward to writing this post with a little urn tucked nicely away, however the turn of events over the last week leave me thinking of opportunity lost and what could have been rather celebrating a winning Ashes series!

There is no doubt we had our chances over the last week, and many people will have an opinion as to why it didn’t work out as we would have liked. I have tried to put my thoughts on the Test and the Series below for you to consider:

Selection: There has been much talk about the selection of our team for the Test at the Oval. I think most important from my perspective is, as Andrew Hilditch said in Adelaide during his media conference, that we did misread the wicket, and certainly didn’t see it being as dry and inconsistent as early in the game as it was. Having said that, not having a spinner in our team was in no way the difference between winning and losing! Losing 10/87 in the second session of day two was the costly period and we couldn’t fight back from there.

Team Balance: Our balance of four fast bowlers and a part time spinner has been successful in the past in all sorts of conditions. We won two Tests in Sth Africa in contrasting conditions (Jo’burg quite green and assisting fast bowling early and then Durban more of a traditional Test wicket) as well as coming off an excellent Test win in Leeds with the same balance. I can guarantee the balance of the bowling did not lose us this Test – in fact to bowl England out for 332 after losing the toss was an excellent effort and a ringing endorsement of the bowlers selected. We did not bat well enough in our first innings, and from that period on we were under pressure!

Aren’t five Test matches great? The ebb and flow over the seventy-odd days that we have been here has been something to experience and in the end the greatest test for any player in the game. The difference between three Tests over a four-week period, and the challenge of travelling, training and playing for close to ten weeks is huge. We saw players come in and out of form for both teams and the challenge of maintaining quality performance over this extended period is a real good challenge!

The selection of Shane Watson at the top of the order worked well and has given us another option at the top of the order in all forms of the game. The unfortunate spin off was that a very talented young player in Phillip Hughes isn’t playing Test cricket currently. I’m sure in their own ways both Watson and Hughes will benefit from the way this tour has panned out.

The success of Michael Clarke in this series. After not achieving anywhere near what he would have aimed for in 2005, Pup returned as determined as ever and the results speak for themselves. He quite conceivably could have scored centuries in each of the first four Tests (83 in Cardiff, 136 at Lords,103 no at Edgbaston, 93 in Leeds) and he showed his continued development into a top line Test Match batsman.

The tour of Ben Hilfenhaus has been a revelation. The unfortunate injury to Brett Lee early in the tour meant Ben became the opening bowler, and didn’t he grab his opportunity! 22 wickets at an average of 27.45 reads well, however his ability to bowl long spells, swing the new and old ball and take important wickets for throughout the series added up to a breakthrough series for him.

The leadership of Ricky under pressure has been outstanding! You all see the public side of things but the work he has done behind the scenes ensured that were as good as we could be throughout the tour. His cricketing ability has never been questioned, and his decision making under pressure and grace under fire in this series has been excellent. He is a pleasure to work with and I have the utmost respect for the cricketer and the man!

The most frustrating thing in my mind is the fact that two sessions – evening session day two at Lords and afternoon of day 2 at The Oval – cost us the Ashes. In those two sessions we lost 16 for 136, (6/49 at Lords and 10/87 at The Oval) and in both games they we decisive periods that allowed England to gain positions of strength and ultimately win the Tests. There were obviously other periods that we didn’t play as well as we would have liked, however these two periods are easily identifiable as series changing!



It’s been an exciting and eventful ten weeks since we began our preparation for the Tests in Hove. The complete group has worked tirelessly to achieve success, and unfortunately we were tripped at the last hurdle! I certainly appreciate the support and friendship of all the staff, helping us to do our best to prepare the team as well as possible. Over the next week we will go over the Test series and work out where we as a group can improve and what we can do better, but for now its looking ahead to the T20’s and the ODI series, hoping that will take away some of the pain of the Ashes series loss has resulted in!

P.S Brute has been distraught at not being mentioned in my blog to date so a special mention for our manager Steve Bernard and I hope that ensures there are no noses out of joint about who has or hasn’t been mentioned in the blog!


Thanks Tim!

Great stuff! Good to see you acknoweldge the mistake of misreading the pitch in the last test! Thought your comments on five test series' are spot on too!

Love that we've lost our biggest series, but we can still have an inside joke about Steve Bernard not getting a mention on your blog! Tee ****ing hee!

Just stop with all the exclamation marks please, you stupid ****!
 
Last edited:

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
They've been left out in the Sun for a few days now mate. Should be ready to go...
 

inbox24

International Debutant
The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging it. No point saying that everything's rosy and well when there are festering problems and which have been for about 18 months.

Until Nielsen, and the selectors go, the only way the team can go is downward.
 

howardj

International Coach
It's the same denial and funky/cute thinking that got us into so much trouble in 2005, and in selection in this Ashes series.

Seriously, get some guys in there with a commonsense head on them, and who aren't 'yes' men.
Tubby and AB - straight shooters, both.

WIth the current coach/selectors, their first instinct is not the team, but rather to defend their own muddled-headed decisions.
 

howardj

International Coach
It wasn't a misreading of the pitch either.

EVERYBODY knows the Oval offers assistance to spinners, and Ponting/Neilsen/Cox were all uniquely placed to assess the conditions on the 1st morning of the Test and see just how bare the wicket looked.

It wasn't a misreading - it was just an inability to adapt your thinking from the "Well we won the last Test with four quicks, so we will win this one with four quicks as well' mindset.

With no regard to the conditions presented.
 

pup11

International Coach
Here's his blog.

Cricket Australia > Latest News > News

Feel free to leave comments on it. For those who CBF and would rather just wait til he gets home to throw things at him, here's what he's written:


I must admit to looking forward to writing this post with a little urn tucked nicely away, however the turn of events over the last week leave me thinking of opportunity lost and what could have been rather celebrating a winning Ashes series!

There is no doubt we had our chances over the last week, and many people will have an opinion as to why it didn’t work out as we would have liked. I have tried to put my thoughts on the Test and the Series below for you to consider:

Selection: There has been much talk about the selection of our team for the Test at the Oval. I think most important from my perspective is, as Andrew Hilditch said in Adelaide during his media conference, that we did misread the wicket, and certainly didn’t see it being as dry and inconsistent as early in the game as it was. Having said that, not having a spinner in our team was in no way the difference between winning and losing! Losing 10/87 in the second session of day two was the costly period and we couldn’t fight back from there.

Team Balance: Our balance of four fast bowlers and a part time spinner has been successful in the past in all sorts of conditions. We won two Tests in Sth Africa in contrasting conditions (Jo’burg quite green and assisting fast bowling early and then Durban more of a traditional Test wicket) as well as coming off an excellent Test win in Leeds with the same balance. I can guarantee the balance of the bowling did not lose us this Test – in fact to bowl England out for 332 after losing the toss was an excellent effort and a ringing endorsement of the bowlers selected. We did not bat well enough in our first innings, and from that period on we were under pressure!

Aren’t five Test matches great? The ebb and flow over the seventy-odd days that we have been here has been something to experience and in the end the greatest test for any player in the game. The difference between three Tests over a four-week period, and the challenge of travelling, training and playing for close to ten weeks is huge. We saw players come in and out of form for both teams and the challenge of maintaining quality performance over this extended period is a real good challenge!

The selection of Shane Watson at the top of the order worked well and has given us another option at the top of the order in all forms of the game. The unfortunate spin off was that a very talented young player in Phillip Hughes isn’t playing Test cricket currently. I’m sure in their own ways both Watson and Hughes will benefit from the way this tour has panned out.

The success of Michael Clarke in this series. After not achieving anywhere near what he would have aimed for in 2005, Pup returned as determined as ever and the results speak for themselves. He quite conceivably could have scored centuries in each of the first four Tests (83 in Cardiff, 136 at Lords,103 no at Edgbaston, 93 in Leeds) and he showed his continued development into a top line Test Match batsman.

The tour of Ben Hilfenhaus has been a revelation. The unfortunate injury to Brett Lee early in the tour meant Ben became the opening bowler, and didn’t he grab his opportunity! 22 wickets at an average of 27.45 reads well, however his ability to bowl long spells, swing the new and old ball and take important wickets for throughout the series added up to a breakthrough series for him.

The leadership of Ricky under pressure has been outstanding! You all see the public side of things but the work he has done behind the scenes ensured that were as good as we could be throughout the tour. His cricketing ability has never been questioned, and his decision making under pressure and grace under fire in this series has been excellent. He is a pleasure to work with and I have the utmost respect for the cricketer and the man!

The most frustrating thing in my mind is the fact that two sessions – evening session day two at Lords and afternoon of day 2 at The Oval – cost us the Ashes. In those two sessions we lost 16 for 136, (6/49 at Lords and 10/87 at The Oval) and in both games they we decisive periods that allowed England to gain positions of strength and ultimately win the Tests. There were obviously other periods that we didn’t play as well as we would have liked, however these two periods are easily identifiable as series changing!



It’s been an exciting and eventful ten weeks since we began our preparation for the Tests in Hove. The complete group has worked tirelessly to achieve success, and unfortunately we were tripped at the last hurdle! I certainly appreciate the support and friendship of all the staff, helping us to do our best to prepare the team as well as possible. Over the next week we will go over the Test series and work out where we as a group can improve and what we can do better, but for now its looking ahead to the T20’s and the ODI series, hoping that will take away some of the pain of the Ashes series loss has resulted in!

P.S Brute has been distraught at not being mentioned in my blog to date so a special mention for our manager Steve Bernard and I hope that ensures there are no noses out of joint about who has or hasn’t been mentioned in the blog!


Thanks Tim!

Great stuff! Good to see you acknoweldge the mistake of misreading the pitch in the last test! Thought your comments on five test series' are spot on too!

Love that we've lost our biggest series, but we can still have an inside joke about Steve Bernard not getting a mention on your blog! Tee ****ing hee!

Just stop with all the exclamation marks please, you stupid ****!
We made a mistake reading the wicket, that's fine, but why insist that England too misread the wicket, because clearly they doctored that Oval pitch to ensure a result(which I don't have any problems with), because that wicket was anything like a normal Oval deck, and if the Aussie coach and selectors wanna convince people that England too misread the pitch because they didn't play MSP, then they are simply crazy and stupid.

I've never liked Nielsen much as a coach, I think a coach's job in cricket is to work behind the scenes with his side, but Nielsen just loves to hog the limelight at every opportunity he gets, AFAIC people rather than criticising Ricky's captaincy, should question what Nielsen adds to this side as a coach.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
Found it interesting that after criticsing the 1st innings batting, he then went onto praise Clarke's batting when the 2 biggest innings came in the 2nd innings...
 

Redbacks

International Captain
So he's a pom who played cricket in SA, clearly shouldn't be anywhere near a high performance team :@
 

slippyslip

U19 12th Man
The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging it. No point saying that everything's rosy and well when there are festering problems and which have been for about 18 months.

Until Nielsen, and the selectors go, the only way the team can go is downward.
Hows mashing that panic button working out for you?
 

inbox24

International Debutant
As I said in the quoted post, problems have been there since the new selectors and new coach have come in. It's cost us 3-4 test series now and probably 3-4 more before the decade ends if we don't change the people. It's hardly a knee jerk reaction. You can pretend to go on like Watson is a long opening term option and that Cameron White is a test quality allrounder or you can start making the decisions that took us to number one in the first place.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Thanks Tim!

Great stuff! Good to see you acknoweldge the mistake of misreading the pitch in the last test! Thought your comments on five test series' are spot on too!

Love that we've lost our biggest series, but we can still have an inside joke about Steve Bernard not getting a mention on your blog! Tee ****ing hee!

Just stop with all the exclamation marks please, you stupid ****!
Yeah you got in one Burgey! The man succeeds in making himself sound like a ****ing idiot! Not sure if he is one! But he sure sounds like one!
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
English coaches suck: fact. Might have only been a pom for the first six months of his life but it's like the mark of Cain.

Taciturn Zimbas ftw.
 

social

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging it. No point saying that everything's rosy and well when there are festering problems and which have been for about 18 months.

Until Nielsen, and the selectors go, the only way the team can go is downward.
Exactly!

Series was a complete ****-up from almost day one
 

slippyslip

U19 12th Man
As I said in the quoted post, problems have been there since the new selectors and new coach have come in. It's cost us 3-4 test series now and probably 3-4 more before the decade ends if we don't change the people. It's hardly a knee jerk reaction. You can pretend to go on like Watson is a long opening term option and that Cameron White is a test quality allrounder or you can start making the decisions that took us to number one in the first place.
The quality of the players took us to number 1. They're gone. We've had the toughest 10 months of test cricket we've had for decades, if ever.

As I've said in many posts before we've got an easy 2 years ahead of us in test cricket. If we start losing tests to sides like Pakistan, West Indies, England at home, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh then panic.

We've got 2 years to build the team and allow players to settle into positions. Watson was never a long term solution but he was the solution for the Ashes series. In what way did he contribute to losing the Ashes? Hughes will have plenty of time to settle in before we tour Sri Lanka exactly 2 years from now.

We've lost Warne and McGrath (and the forgotten Jason Gillepsie) but on top of that Clark and Lee have had major injury problems. But othen the 1st innings at Lords the bowling was reasonably solid.

The only major problem we have is getting a decent spinner.
 

Son Of Coco

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Here's his blog.

Thanks Tim!

Great stuff! Good to see you acknoweldge the mistake of misreading the pitch in the last test! Thought your comments on five test series' are spot on too!

Love that we've lost our biggest series, but we can still have an inside joke about Steve Bernard not getting a mention on your blog! Tee ****ing hee!

Just stop with all the exclamation marks please, you stupid ****!
I think he may have been referring to receiving so many posts about Clark not getting a mention in his blog after the Headingly test. I went on there myself to ask him about it.

Agree with you though, I bet a lot of supporters are laughing their arses off...:dry:
 

howardj

International Coach
Nielsen Now Needs A Rest

I admit, I do like putting the slipper into this bloke, but I think this resting thing is getting a bit out of hand. Can someone please tell me how this period (an Ashes period) is any busier than say 1992/1993 where we:

- toured Sri Lanka in the 1992 pre-season
- came home and played a full five Test summer against the West Indies
- the international guys played the Shield games back in those days
- played the triangular one-day series that summer
- toured NZ in March-April 1993
- toured England from May-September
- Back home for a full 6 Test summer (where again the international players played in the Shield in those days)
- Off to South Africa at the end of the Summer
- To pakistan in September 1994
- Back home for a full summer
- Off on a tour of the West Indies.

Also remember, back in those days, there was virtually the same personnel for both Tests and ODIs

My question is, did guys come home mid-tour back in those days? What's the difference now?
 

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