Mike Hussey - A second wind?
 

Looking for predictions here, will he:

a) Continue the way he did in this innings, going from strength to strength playing a more free flowing game for a couple of years? OR

b) Revert back to recent poor form, this innings being an anomaly? OR

c) Retire on a high?

Always the home bully.

Yeah, he's always been considerably better at home than away. Still reckon he'll call it quits at the end of this series though, just hoping that he keeps up this form for the rest of the series.

Whatever....... He is playing well now.... It may be a purple patch....

To be a bully, you are picking on someone weaker than you. Not a fan of England?

B.

Reckon he could have a good series even beyond this knock but I reckon he's pretty much done after that. You could see the emotion after he reached his ton; he's not going to be this pumped every time he goes out to bat and, while he can definitely still produce a good innings under pressure, I think he's a sub-40 average batsman these days.

C - Retire after retaining the Ashes at his home ground :)

Would be awesome but unlikely.

Definitely a last hurrah. Nice knock today and yesterday, good on him, etc. But a bloke only fired up enough to get a score when his head's on the chopping block needs to step aside.

Actually I think he is that pumped up every time he bats. Mussey is a strange man.

I think PEWS has it right. However I suspect he'll retire after this series no matter what happens. Actually make that I hope he retires after this Ashes, would rather Huss went out on a High, and with something to remember him by as opposed to the rubbish we've seen from him the last 12-18 months.

As opposed to someone who doesn't get a score when their head's on the chopping block?

It's not a Steve Waugh scenario in which his reflexes are obviously failing; and it's not likely this discussion would have happened a year ago had he done the same thing first innings of a home series - at least not without being drowned out by 'Huss is back, can I b00f him?!?!' threads.

It amazes me that people will contrive to piss on anything Hussey-related nowadays, and that they manage to piss high enough for it to land on a virtual double ton. These discussions are meant for ageing batsmen who hole out on 65.

BTW, I wish Clarke, Ponting, Watson and North would get their home bully on.

Is this the same North whose highest Test score in Australia is something like 60?

Was more mocking the idea of 'home bully' being a pejorative term in a home series, and that the other lot should follow Hussey's home bully lead despite it clearly sabotaging his career.

But I take your point, North would fail at primary-school bullying.

It's a really tough question... if there was an option D "I don't know", I would probably choose that. I'm so confused about Hussey now...Here is a batsmen who has averaged poorly (by his standards) for the past two years and has looked incredibly fidgety most of the time, yet comes out and plays arguably the best knock of his entire career. So it begs the question, why has he played so poorly for the past two years? Before this knock I would have said because he is a ageing cricketer whose reflexes are diminishing. However, this knock clearly proves his reflexes are the same as ever. You could also make arguments about his technique being found out or flawed in some way. Yet once again this knock, which was up against some truly excellent bowling, proved his technique is sound. The only other explanation would be his mentality/approach has been too negative - hence why when he was told to take risk by selectors, and came out in such a positive fashion, he succeeded. Given that, I'd be inclined to say 'option A', and hat Hussey will learn from this experience and have an excellent series. If he does that, I can't see him retiring just yet.

A