Thank God for Australia !

[Richard]

wouldnt rate Kaspa or Harmison ahead of Ntini...

Of course Ntini's better than Harmison, but better than Kasprowicz?
Pull the other one.
Ntini's not really that good a Test bowler.

 

[Richard]

Kasprowicz is MILES better than Ntini. The only seamers in the world who are better than Kasprowicz outside of Australia are Shoaib and Pollock.

Andre Nel at least has the potential to be better. Hoggard isn't currently too much worse, and Shabbir if fit is at the least as good. Flintoff of late has better figures, too, over more matches.
And of course the good Vaas is infinately better.

 

[Richard]

Kumble/Harbhajan has done pretty well on turners AND balanced pitches...they've struggled on pitches that are completely pace-pitches........similarly i dont think you can be worldclass then if you can only be effective on pace pitches/balanced pitches..........

i think anyone who thinks Kumble isnt a great, let alone worldclass...needs to re-examin his head about cricket.

Or they need to not be biased towards Indians...
Kumble is more than World-class, he's exceptional, on a turner or uneven pitch. But on a pitch offering neither, as we've seen time and again (such as: Mohali, Adelaide Oval, MCG, Lahore, 2003\04; both Bangalore games 2004\05, Nagpur, Mohali, Kanpur, Kolkata vs SA) he's very ineffective.
Harbhajan is exactly the same.

 

[Richard]

i was watching a highlight DVD last night called "Benaud to Border" and to be perfectly honest the standard (especially of bowlers) back then was absolute tripe... So Richard the bowlers these days exceed and are way better than the one's back then. what i suggest u do is get some footage out and look at how poor their actions were and then u'll see how good and tough cricket is today and how amazing australia are.

There is so much more to bowling than having a good action it's untrue.
It's very difficult to get an impression of bowlers in the 1950s and before, because there is no ball-by-ball footage, but believe me, bowling in much of the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s was far, far better than most of the tripe served-up today.

 

[Richard]

Given some of the techniques and shots on show from the batsmen in the 70's and 80's I'm surprised you rate the bowlers so highly. I'll agree there were probably better bowlers around at certain stages, whether it would make a large difference is debatable though when you compare them to the very best on offer today.

Threre were far, far more good bowlers at almost any point in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s than there have been for the last 3 or 4 years.

 

[Richard]

Why would you say that? If the rest of the test cricketing nations are forced to lift their game to compete with the Aussies surely that's better than the Australian team coming back to the field?

That's the thing - there's simply no realistic possibility of that.
Australia currently play at a level rarely achieved; you can't suddenly expect that barometer to be lowered.
Every time a team has dominated, they've always come back to the pack eventually.

 

[Richard]

One thing that has impacted on scoring rates and increased batting averages is the bats themselves. More sixes are hit these days and you only have to touch the ball and it races to the fence. Even mis-hits can make ot to the boundary. Fielders have less time to react as the ball comes off the bat better. The fact that batsmen know that they can clear the boundary means they will go for the shot more often. I'd love to see Viv Richards with one of the modern bats. He certainly would have scored even faster.

You still need technique but I think you can get away with more and get runs for mis-hit shots. Bowlers have less margin for error now than in the past because of this also.

Yet wicket-taking deliveries are still wicket-taking deliveries. Yes, of course bat technology has improved but that doesn't make any difference to the number of poor deliveries bowled. Of course it slightly increases the chances of those going for runs, but not so significantly as we've seen the last 3 or 4 years.

I obviously love watching the Aussies play and am looking forward to the upcoming Ashes tour because England is at its strongest level for many years. The potential is there for this to be a very close and enjoyable series. Richard is correct when he says that most of the current players will have retired in the next few years but the replacements should be able to cover. Whether they will be as good is debatable. What world cricket really needs is the other sides to improve to make it more of a contest. Is the Aussies do slide and the others catch up and overtake then that's life and the quality of cricket will be the better for it.

There are probably enough batsmen who can score the runs of Langer, Martyn, the Waughs, Slater and Lehmann (Ponting is questionable - people who can score like him are rare) and as for Hayden, well - if the pitches get less flat we'll see him stopping scoring sharpish. If anyone can replace Gilchrist's runs and tempo I'll be very surprised - let alone keep wicket too.
The bowling, though, it's highly unlikely that there'll be any more McGraths, Gillespies, Kasprowiczs and Warnes in the near future - the fact that the next best is rubbish like Bichel, Lee, MacGill, Williams etc. says a lot.