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*Official* Australia Tour of West Indies 2025

Skyliner

Skyliner

International Debutant
Beamer said:
On this, I actually supported Darren Sammys strategy to encourage white ball talent to play tests. It hasn't worked here, but I thought it was worth a try.

The guys who batted in Australia and Pakistan, also lost horrifically at home in a test against Bangladesh. None of them average more than 25. Against Pakistan,the bowkers scored most of our runs. We won those matches because Jayden snd Shamar are superb bowlers and Warrican and Motie are tidy enough left arm spinners that bowled Pakistan out for not alot.
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You have to have a well organised defence, good footwork, and know where your off stump is. You look at the confidence and footwork of all the players who excel at all 3 formats and they do what they do because they trust their defence and know where they are in relation to their stumps. It's a spatial awareness thing. And that's where the West Indies players can bosh their way through the T20 format with shorter duration, flatter pitches, and ball doing less. But their inadequate techniques come undone the more that time and improved conditions for the bowlers become a factor. So their underlying technique is not built on sound foundations.
 
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Beamer

Beamer

International Captain
social said:
There’s undoubtedly been an overreaction to the score which is understandable

However, lost in that is the fact that Starc & Boland performed at an unbelievably high level and any team would have struggled to score 100

To put things into perspective, when Broad took 8/15 and Australia were bowled out for 60, the English bowlers delivered one ball that was going to hit the stumps in the entire innings: it was just a succession of edges

Starc & Boland delivered a whole series of sharp/quick moving deliveries with a pink ball at the pegs

Boland’s hattrick deliveries would have gotten most people out

Obviously the batting isn’t great and this is hopefully the nadir but it really was a combination of factors and not just Windies terrible
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Fully agree that Starc snd Boland were exceptional. Tbh, the bowling by both teams was exceptional throughout.
 
Beamer

Beamer

International Captain
Skyliner said:
You have to have a well organised defence, good footwork, and know where your off stump is. You look at the confidence and footwork of all the players who excel at all 3 formats and they do what they do because they trust their defence and know where they are in relation to their stumps. It's a spatial awareness thing. And that's where the west Indies players can bosh their way through the T20 format with shorter duration, flatter pitches, and ball doing less. But their inadequate techniques come undone the more that time and improved conditions for the bowlers become a factor. So their underlying technique is not built on sound foundations.
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And that is what happens when generations of batters grow up playing on terrible pitches with extremely limited practice facilities.
 
Spark

Spark

Global Moderator
Beamer said:
One thing I am grappling with is the importance of pitches and our version of the dukes ball in all of this.

Pre 2017 we had slow low pitches and a kookaburra ball that died after 30 overs. Our bowlers sucked, the batting was actually pretty decent at times, okish at others.

Then we introduce the specially adapted dukes ball and create pitches with more life to help develop pacers. We introduced bonus points for fast bowling wickets into our domestic system. That approach clearly worked, we have had a conveyor belt of skilled seam bowlers who can hold their own against any team since 2018.

But that dukes ball swings more than any other in the world. West Indies becomes the hardest place in the world to bat when you combine the ball with underprepared pitches. Other teams tour and struggle almost as much as we do. You now have people like Travis Head saying their 40 odd felt like a 150 in other places. Lets not forget the highest score and best knock of this series was by a West Indian, not an Australian. Steve Smith looked scared and lost during his 2nd innings and he's and indisputable ATG.

So how much of our batting atrociousness can be attributed to the ball and pitches given everyone's batting sucks when they come here?

If these guys all play against India on even slightly more manageable surfaces, do they suddenly look mediocre not club level?

We have huge, systemic issues with batting, no doubt, but is it as bad as the understandable reaction to this score merits? I don't know.
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Yeah I know 27ao looks awful and feels awful but IMO this has all been a colossal overreaction with people calling it the lowest moment, WI cricket is over etc etc. Objectively, "somewhat competitive for three innings, had no trouble taking 20 wickets, got rissoled in the last" is a far healthier place to be than "opposition put together 550 first dig, WI cobble together 350 with a hundred or two, chase 500 in the last and lose comfortably" which is less eye catching but far less competitive.

At the end of the day the most important problem to solve is how to take 20 wickets and WI finally have that problem solved. All they need now is guys who can make contributions; they don't need three blokes averaging 45, they just need enough to cobble together competitive totals and then trust the bowlers to do their jobs.
 
Johan

Johan

Hall of Fame Member
I reckon a steam of consistent test standard bats needs a pretty decent first class structure to produce, as it is something very dependent on experience and just the grind. I remember reading the West Indies first class wickets are so underprepared that even people like Nikita Miller average Sydney Barnes numbers in them, maybe that is what is messing with the quality/standard of the competition and thus with the quality of batting talent available?

It's not like West Indies can really rely on waiting for a freak talent to show up either, considering their Red ball talent pool is smaller than most other nations, there's no guarantee a batting freak will ever show up. They have to rely on development of First Class batsmen into Test Standard batsmen.
 
Skyliner

Skyliner

International Debutant
Yes, having some excellent bowlers is one thing - but if the batting side of the equation is 'and hopefully someone will emerge' when the system has been producing diminishing returns over decades then I'm afraid that is akin to hoping for a miracle. It has been a decline whereby the West Indies were stacked with classy batsmen back in the 70's and 80's, then started producing the odd exceptional player like a Lara or a Chanderpaul, to the point where now they look bereft and have been bowled out for 27.
There's that saying "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result" and it applies in this situation. If there was another Lara waiting in the wings then we'd have heard. The current player pool has been raked over, Chanderpaul JNR was touted but has not lived up to the hype, so logically you'd have to assume that the West Indies are stuffed for the forseeable future even if they were to drastically overhaul their system tomorrow.
 
Molehill

Molehill

International Coach
social said:
There’s undoubtedly been an overreaction to the score which is understandable

However, lost in that is the fact that Starc & Boland performed at an unbelievably high level and any team would have struggled to score 100

To put things into perspective, when Broad took 8/15 and Australia were bowled out for 60, the English bowlers delivered one ball that was going to hit the stumps in the entire innings: it was just a succession of edges

Starc & Boland delivered a whole series of sharp/quick moving deliveries with a pink ball at the pegs

Boland’s hattrick deliveries would have gotten most people out

Obviously the batting isn’t great and this is hopefully the nadir but it really was a combination of factors and not just Windies terrible
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I think Pink Ball Tests is a whole other argument too, it's hardly the first time bowlers have had complete domination in one of these contests. God knows what Starc averages in them, but I've all but handed over the Brisbane Ashes Test already (unless there's insane rain again).
 
centurymaker

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
Molehill said:
I think Pink Ball Tests is a whole other argument too, it's hardly the first time bowlers have had complete domination in one of these contests. God knows what Starc averages in them, but I've all but handed over the Brisbane Ashes Test already (unless there's insane rain again).
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In tha case, bazball need to win three out of four tests. Seems pretty unlikely.
 
Spark

Spark

Global Moderator
Molehill said:
I think Pink Ball Tests is a whole other argument too, it's hardly the first time bowlers have had complete domination in one of these contests. God knows what Starc averages in them, but I've all but handed over the Brisbane Ashes Test already (unless there's insane rain again).
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There's some interesting comments today from Andrew McDonald which suggest that even amongst day/night Tests, the team feels like this one in particular should be asterisked.
 
Molehill

Molehill

International Coach
Spark said:
There's some interesting comments today from Andrew McDonald which suggest that even amongst day/night Tests, the team feels like this one in particular should be asterisked.
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Not sure about that. All series it's been blatantly obvious that both teams have bowling line ups that are way superior to their batting. I think the pink ball just exaggerated it a bit further, but that's generally the case when a pink ball comes out.

Anyway, I'd ban them. Unfair advantage to Aussies who have surely played in the vast majority of these games.
 
honestbharani

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
Molehill said:
Not sure about that. All series it's been blatantly obvious that both teams have bowling line ups that are way superior to their batting. I think the pink ball just exaggerated it a bit further, but that's generally the case when a pink ball comes out.

Anyway, I'd ban them. Unfair advantage to Aussies who have surely played in the vast majority of these games.
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How tf is it an unfair advantage? They are not asking other teams to play any less pink ball games?
 
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