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Does anyone think Australia's situation is not actually that dire?

Garson007

State Vice-Captain
If the situation isn't dire now then what would it be if England win 5-0 and Australia drop to 6th in the rankings?
You sure? Don't they only go that far down when they lose the return leg badly?

Not like they'll stay there; they'll win at least one match in South Africa.
 
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Garson007

State Vice-Captain
I think what separates the English and Austrian team is their whiter test kit; the success of the English team is after all directly correlated to them getting those blue whites. While the Australians are all wearing old age home cream sweaters. Pretty simple solution, imho.
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Cricket aside, you don't beat us at anything we care about.
Serious question then, what do we both care about?

You guys are miles better at League, but aside from the m62 corridor and Brumby (and okay, Furball) barely anyone here cares about it. Union? Apparently in Oz it's similar to League here.

Aussie Rules is seen as a joke in England (and quite rightly too :ph34r:). We're obviously better at football but haven't played you in a decade, at which point you guys beat us, Franny Jeffers and all.

You're better at swimming - meh. We bested you in most other Olympic events - again though, the rest of the time, meh.

There's only really cricket that's a true common passion from where I stand.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Serious question then, what do we both care about?

You guys are miles better at League, but aside from the m62 corridor and Brumby (and okay, Furball) barely anyone here cares about it. Union? Apparently in Oz it's similar to League here.

Aussie Rules is seen as a joke in England (and quite rightly too :ph34r:). We're obviously better at football but haven't played you in a decade, at which point you guys beat us, Franny Jeffers and all.

You're better at swimming - meh. We bested you in most other Olympic events - again though, the rest of the time, meh.

There's only really cricket that's a true common passion from where I stand.
League probably works ok as a sport that we both give a **** about because League is predominantly NSW and QLD.
 

Tom Halsey

International Coach
Cricket aside, you don't beat us at anything we care about.
That's a pretty **** comment, mainly the bit about what "[you] care about", which apart from being besides the point is also just wrong. I'm sure there are many people in Australia who care about sports that England have recently been superior to Australia at.

That being said, I agree with the general gist of the thread that Australia are hardly in crisis. It winds me up how people are always looking for some sort of pseudo-reason to explain something that is basically just statistical variance that people are just too short-sighted to notice.

Same thing is going on in golf atm with Woods. This isn't a great example actually because what with his swing changes and personal problems etc it is more likely than it would otherwise be that it is a genuine decline, but a golfer whose long term expectation is to win (say) 1 in 4 majors is actually pretty likely throughout the course of their career to go 13 in a row (or whatever) without winning one; not due to actually being worse during the streak of winless majors, but due to variance (playing worse included).
 

Cabinet96

Global Moderator
The biggest issue IMO for Australia is the lack of matches down the line against weak opposition which could boost confidence and let players feel their way in. Their last six tests have been in India and England and their next eight will also be against England. Then, if I'm right, they go straight to South Africa for three tests in early 2014. There's talent and potential in the Australian batting line up, but giving them an extended run could actually badly damage confidence because for the foreseeable future, Australia are playing nothing but high standard opposition. By the end of the South African tour, Australia will have played 20 of their last 23 tests against top three opposition. There's just never been time to let people find their feet in a winning side where runs weren't really hard to accumulate. It's why Hussey's retirement was such terrible timing as one of Khawaja or Smith could've played that series and got confidence and runs, instead of getting another birth in India or the middle of an Ashes series.
 
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Red

The normal awards that everyone else has
Considering Smith, Khawaja and Hughes all average >40 in shield, I think there should have to be some pretty damn good reasons before selecting players like Doolan and Burns at this stage.
What's far more relevant is what they've averaged in the last 6 months.
 

morgieb

Request Your Custom Title Now!
What's far more relevant is what they've averaged in the last 6 months.
Burns average is pretty poor over the last six months I assume.

And we shouldn't be talking form if the player in question hasn't done anything before this season.
 

Spikey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Well we say form is temporarily when it's a good player going through a bad 6 months..........
 

Red

The normal awards that everyone else has
Possible with Watson around I guess. And Smith and Warner as PT spinners.

Still rate Lyon.
 

hendrix

Hall of Fame Member
Nah you need to select the team that's most likely to get a win.

As good as Watson is as a bowler, you'd want more than him as your 4th bowler with 10 wickets to take on the final day.
 

cameronryan123

Cricket Spectator
With Bird, Harris and Siddle, on top of watson, and with the part time spin of clarke, warner, etc, getting 20 wickets is no problem in my eyes. Batting is clearly our weakness with inconsistency among most of the batters being the problem. By adding an extra batter in, least there is more chance of getting runs, and hopefully consistency will increase in the future. Have to get at least another old head in there such as d hussey, katich, etc
 

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