Steve Waugh as Australian Captain - How good was he?

[Richard]

Tait was a greenhorn that was fed to the lions it would seem. My personal philosophy on selecting is simple - select the best team. I knwo that sounds obvious, but selecters really go for the "it's a seamers wicket" philosophy. I liked it how the West Indies had four great fast bowlers are played them, didn't matter the wicket, they were the best and did the job. MacGill doesn't have the control of Warne, but he has a better strike-rate than Warne and Murali. I know he had a bad domestic game, but he should have been in there, especially with guys like Bell and Jones looking poor against the spin.

England selecters are much smarter. In times of crisis they always did the same thing, they asked veterans to play, go back to experience. To this day I know know what made the selecters think Tait would do better than a proven veteran. I guess he was having a great county season... but to pick him over somebody with a strike-rate of 52 who's a veteran... makes no sense to me.

Cricket fans have short memories and your only as good as your last year. Some people here might say Tendulkar isn't one of the ten greatest ever forgetting that it's just a bad patch and he was brilliant in the 90s. Well my point is that people think MacGill might be overrated etc. This was a man who, in 1998 when Warne hurt his shoulder, won games for Australia. When Warne dropped in form he replaced him for one test in the WI.

Time and time again the only reason Warne was picked was he was picked on reputation. Warne had a habbit of ressurecting his career a lot in his down times. But if selection was based solely on form MacGill would have been playing in 1999 more and he would have been playing in the 2001 Ashes. Oh yes - people thought he should have been ahead of Warne. And somehow people have doubts about him. Warne's entitled to bad games - he isn't... or else he's out of form or whatever.

The only time I'd pick somebody over him is if it was a really good seamers wicket... and it would need to be very good. If you were playing sub-continent, you'd think he should have in the starting team.

The most unlucky cricketer of the past 20-30 years - no question for me.

If MacGill had played more IMO he would certainly have a much less good record than he does... it's hardly a brilliant record in any case, especially when you look at post-2001 compared to pre-2000.
As for the pitches-change-team-thingy... the best team alters due to pitches. Some bowlers are good on certain pitches and useless on others... as such the "best" team changes according to the state of the pitch, and the selectors are quite right to change their team in order to keep the best combination.

 

[Richard]

MacGill's done it before without Warne in his team. Aside from McGrath and Gilespie, I don't know of any other pin-point accurate players he's played with. I mean if I were going to make an argument against MacGill, I'd say his figures are skewered because he's normally picked for spinners wickets only.

But I'm sorry, you don't get 7/50, 8 fourfers, 11 fivers and 2 tenfers in just 38 tests. When somebody's getting that many wickets, there not bowlers your going after anymore, they're strikers.

Seriously, even I'm shocked to go to cricinfo and see he's gotten 11 fivers in 38 tests... that's nuts. Anybody getting that many wickets is a threat.

Get rid of Bangladesh and it goes down to 8 five-fors and 1 ten-for... his average goes to 29.49.
Equally - you can divide MacGill's career into 2 parts:
Debut - WACA 2000\01: 14 matches, 521.3 overs, average 22.90
Adelaide 2000\01 - SCG 2005\06: 22 matches, 1019.2 overs, average 33.88
And in the 2nd period that featured 3 consecutive games (Pakistan SCG, Joke Test vs World XI, West Indies Bellerive) where he took 8-170, 9-82 (mostly tailenders), 5-87.
Before that he'd had 1 really good game in 16, and averaged 39.27.

 

[tooextracool]

Tait bowled about 4 overs when the game was gone, Lee was bowling tripe when the game was very much live.

tait was bowling tripe all game, lee was one of australias best bowler all series. when it comes down to the last game of a tensely fought series who would you turn to? a newcomer who bowled rubbish, or an experienced bowler who had some success in the series and especially before lunch looked like getting pietersen out on several occasions?

 

[tooextracool]

Have Bangladesh ever (successfully) chased down a total against a ODI-standard team before? I don't think so, from memory.

are you suffering from short term memory loss now? they did it against the best ODI team in the world.

 

[Richard]

Err... did I not clearly say before that instance?

 

[Richard]

tait was bowling tripe all game, lee was one of australias best bowler all series. when it comes down to the last game of a tensely fought series who would you turn to? a newcomer who bowled rubbish, or an experienced bowler who had some success in the series and especially before lunch looked like getting pietersen out on several occasions?

Indeed, did get Pietersen out once... in a very similar manner to that which he'd got him out previously on tour.
Neither Lee nor Pietersen did anything differently, just on this occasion Warne missed the catch.

 

[tooextracool]

Err... did I not clearly say before that instance?

my mistake, didnt really read the history behind that post.

 

[neutralguy]

Very good captain i should say.Tugga thrives under extreme pressure and would win matches from dead draws.
Won world cup and plethora of other cups, except champions trophy?? and test series in india

 

[Richard]

Very good captain i should say.Tugga thrives under extreme pressure and would win matches from dead draws.

Err... when, sorry?
How often in the last 8 years or so have Australia ever really looked like drawing a game (from the off) without severe rain-interruption?