Son Of Coco
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
burgey's colostomy bag to require an upgrade
I always tip 10% and never litter or talk loudly tbf.
burgey's colostomy bag to require an upgrade
I always tip 10% and never litter or talk loudly tbf.
Really? I thought Misbah, Shafiq and Azhar Ali might do alright in SA conditions, the openers will certainly be an issue though.yeah.....given SA's strong batting and Pakistan's horribly inept batting, I too find it difficult to see how Pakistan would win a series there. Can see Morkel, Steyn, and Philanderer eating our batsmen for lunch in that series. Although given our bowling attack I think the SA batsmen might be tested too especially if the wicket is taking some spin.
Why are you so sure that England are so formidable? They lost 2 zip at home to the saffers and looked fairly ordinary if you ask me. Remember the Oval test, their bowling looked very pedestrian.Some people are picking Aus to draw or even win in England. I don't really think their bowling can compensate for that mediocre batting line up. Or is there a belief that batting will suddenly start clicking?
Bowling against Smith, Kallis, Amla ia completely different beast to bowling against current aussie batters though. They were awful in Oval, but remaining two tests are pretty close contests, despite england being **** for most of the time. Also Strauss's departure will make England a better side from last summer I presume. I am sure AUS would win one test in ENG courtesy their bowling, but it's hard to see them scoring 450+ scores, unless Warner joins Clarke in big partnerships through out the series.Why are you so sure that England are so formidable? They lost 2 zip at home to the saffers and looked fairly ordinary if you ask me. Remember the Oval test, their bowling looked very pedestrian.
Hughes has as well tbf.England are definitely home favourites. You basically know what you're going to get with England. Solid but unspectacular cricket with a lot of planning put into the series.
The Australian performance is more of an unkown. The bowling is very exciting and has good strength in depth but is inexperienced in English conditions and injury prone. They definitely have the potential to blow england away if they get it right. They also have the potential to struggle in the conditions- plenty of very fine bowlers have struggled in their initial test matches in england.
The Australian batting though is their big worry. Clarke and Watson apart no-one else has played test cricket in england and Clarke is the only genuine current class batsmen. Warner may move into that bracket but the rest don't look like moving into that bracket anytime soon. I don't know if people think Clarke's form is a temporary positive aberration on a good career(see Vaughan) or a permanent upturn but if Clarke was to run out of form it's hard to see how Australia could win in England.
I also don't see Cook having a good year. Cook tends to struggle against medium pace swing and seamers and conditions in NZ and the home test series against NZ will be in the bowlers favour. He should struggle against Australia's seamer as long as they don't resort to trying to intimidate him and bowl short. He'll probably still do well in Aus where there is less movement early.
New Zealand is the only test country Cook hasn't got a test century against so hopefully he makes that.
sorry my bad. I guess haddin too if he plays but yeh the whole squad is going to be lacking although most will have played some domestic cricket in england.Hughes has as well tbf.
But yeah our inexperience is a worry.
Pattinson will be fit for the Ashes, make no mistake.I think it will all come down to how close we get to fielding our best attack. Our batting could be better than expected if Hughes consolidates (feasible), Khawaja gets his game together and Watto settles back in as an opener. But if Pattinson and Cummins don't get on the park, I see the best case scenario being we post more competitive totals in mostly losing efforts (in England).
History says bowling attacks are always decisive. McGrath went down in 2005 and wasn't the same for the rest of the series, suddenly England had the better pacemen. Australia had a far stronger batting line up, but that was negated by the swing and pace of the English attack.
Anderson, Finn and Swann is better than Siddle, Bird and Lyon. I think. How much upside there is in Bird is not really clear and you could say the same of Lyon (a lot still to happen with his game). But you don't look at that attack and see advantage Australia.
Conversely, make it Anderson, Finn, Broad and Swann vs Siddle, Pattinson, Bird and Lyon and that looks interesting to me. If Lyon shows improvement in India that attack looks like an ambush job. Even more so if Cummins plays a test or two. ****, throw in Johnson for a test assuming players' workloads continue to be managed, and his arse hair is sitting just right on the morning and he pulls one of his magic spells out.
So many question marks, and that is usually a bad sign. But if we simplify it, I reckon we're a fit Pattinson away from an epic series to be honest.
He could be but he could also very easily bowl is all over the place and go for 5/6 an over.starceh in swinging conditions would be diabolical to face