2nd ODI: Australia v England at Hobart

I was, this is what i've been trying to tell everyone.

You were the 'odd forum poster' I referred too :p No one else had Marsh in their 15 around here - including me I'm proud to admit :D

Given the commentators haven't commentated since the WC squad a bit harsh throwing them into that basket. I can tell you the foxsports commentators were all disappointed that Marsh missed out on a WC spot and on other forums there were quite a few that wanted Marsh in before he produced that knock.

Even ignoring the hindsight factor, why did we have to pick a batsmen from outside of the WC squad? If a batsmen goes down in the WC we aren't going to have that same luxury. This means we are a batsmen short, yes I know Ponting is injured but most WC squads have 2 reserve batsmen. So really they brought this on themselves, if they had picked 2 reserve batsmen or just played Paine then there wouldn't be this issue of hindsight. If the replacement performs then great they are in the squad.

I just think it's a bit rich: the implications that the selectors should have somehow known that Marsh was going to get a century yesterday and that Marsh was somehow playing with something to prove. Look at the WC thread for Australia. It has about 8 different 15 man squads from various posters. There's only one that had Shaun Marsh in it - formulaoneman's - and he's a blatant Marsh fan boy :D Haarithan mentioned Marsh would be useful because he could bat anywhere, but didn't pick him in his 15. That's it. You yourself were complaining just 2 days ago that it was Marsh, not Ferguson that got this replacement spot for the series. And it's not just here either. The Cricinfo article that featured Australia's WC selection dilemmas didn't mention Marsh at all, it focused on Lee, Tait, Doherty, Hauritz and mentioned Hodge, Christian and Ferguson at the potential batsmen instead. And now suddenly pundits and commentators are suggesting it's a bad call to leave Marsh out and it should have been obvious to the selectors? It's complete bollocks and totally based on hindsight. It's like complaining that you picked the wrong line at the supermarket. Totally pointless and only obvious once the whole thing is over with.

Anyway, we as fans should be glad Marsh is confirming his ability and making himself the obvious replacement should Hussey not recover. Plus with the age of Ponting and Hussey, he's going to be straight into the XI after the WC. But instead it's been another opportunity to backhand the selectors for all problems with Australian cricket. And I'm sick of that attitude.
 
For me it's nothing to do with Marsh missing out. As I mentioned the selectors brought it on themselves. We are 2 batsmen down not 3, last time I checked we have 15 men in our WC squad aka 2 reserve batsmen. So if the selectors had actually picked 2 reserve batsmen this wouldn't have been a problem as the replacement for Hussey would be in the squad so whatever he does isn't a 'oh crap hes not in our WC squad', its 'great he is pushing himself into our starting 11'. Clearly they don't have enough faith in Paine as a batter alone else he should have played over Marsh.

Anyway, we as fans should be glad Marsh is confirming his ability and making himself the obvious replacement should Hussey not recover. Plus with the age of Ponting and Hussey, he's going to be straight into the XI after the WC. But instead it's been another opportunity to backhand the selectors for all problems with Australian cricket. And I'm sick of that attitude.

I don't think you will find any fan that isn't happy with that stuff but this isn't multi-tasking where women can only do it so no reason why you can't continue on bashing the selectors. Marsh showed enough to suggest he'll make it in the Test arena, it was good seeing a batsmen actually stand up when the ball was moving around.
 
And England really need a 4th seamer in Aussie conditions. Maybe not in the WC, but depends what they want: to win games here, or have a settled XI. Wright really needs to play instead of Yardy, or Woakes in for Tredwell. Then get Collingwood in there to be the 6th bowler and bowl slow cutters as your 2nd slow bowling option.

England are trying to play a ODI series down under and get players ready for a World Cup who a) aren't ready and b) probably shouldn't have been selected.

Have you noticed how much of the ODI side is still the Test batting line up? Strauss, Bell, would normally be Collingwood, Pietersen and Trott. Throw in Prior, will be Anderson, will be Broad and will be Swann and it is much of a muchness. Point being that side does quite well in Tests, but other than Collingwood is very much geared towards having four bowlers with Collingwood and a part-timer. That isn't really suited to ODIs, that number seven spot is going to be crucial and what I like to call our bits n pieces are too prevalent - Yardy, Tredwell and Wright who should probably not be anywhere near the side and I doubt would be in any other ODI side that was looking to win the World Cup.

So after the first three bowlers the bowling was very thin indeed this latest ODI. And as per my bits n pieces assertion, there was nothing but a little resistance after the batsmen had pretty much failed. Prior opening is a mistake :noway it never worked in the past and on what "form" they are basing his selection, well I can only assume TEST form BATTING AT SEVEN since he's barely had time to play much other cricket and hasn't DAVIES been OPENING in ODIs?!?!?

Yardy came in at 96/5 with still 22.4 overs to bat. There was never enough batting between Yardy, Bresnan, Tredwell and Shahzad to support Morgan although his demise with 15 overs to go at 140/6 left England little hope even though it was six an over required (to tie)


But here's an interesting comparison :

England (35 overs) 140/6
Australia (35 overs) 139/6

Difference? Bollinger ably supported Marsh, a batsman that batted through until the end of the innings (48.2 overs) while England had no batsman left and it was up to the tail who can all in theory bat - Bresnan, Tredwell and Yardy have all scored FC hundreds, Shahzad has a HS of 88 while Tremlett has seven 50s in FC cricket.

While I'm not remotely suggesting our lower order should be strengthened battingwise at the expense of bowling, I question the point of including three players who are neither the very best bowlers nor is their batting combined adding up to a huge amount. At best they could make it as all-rounders, but they're not good enough all-rounders. All their batting ability added up to was prolonging the agony and delaying the inevitable which is ok in Tests but in ODIs rather pointless.

Can't believe there is such a complete dearth of all-rounders in county cricket that those three are our 'best' :facepalm Of course the number of ineligible players not playing as overseas players doesn't help any.
 
England are trying to play a ODI series down under and get players ready for a World Cup who a) aren't ready and b) probably shouldn't have been selected.

Well said! Whether or not it's true...:)

Have you noticed how much of the ODI side is still the Test batting line up? Strauss, Bell, would normally be Collingwood, Pietersen and Trott. Throw in Prior, will be Anderson, will be Broad and will be Swann and it is much of a muchness. Point being that side does quite well in Tests, but other than Collingwood is very much geared towards having four bowlers with Collingwood and a part-timer. That isn't really suited to ODIs, that number seven spot is going to be crucial and what I like to call our bits n pieces are too prevalent - Yardy, Tredwell and Wright who should probably not be anywhere near the side and I doubt would be in any other ODI side that was looking to win the World Cup.

So after the first three bowlers the bowling was very thin indeed this latest ODI. And as per my bits n pieces assertion, there was nothing but a little resistance after the batsmen had pretty much failed. Prior opening is a mistake :noway it never worked in the past and on what "form" they are basing his selection, well I can only assume TEST form BATTING AT SEVEN since he's barely had time to play much other cricket and hasn't DAVIES been OPENING in ODIs?!?!?

Presumably you mean the batting of the bowling was thin:p. Not too much wrong with their bowling if we were only chasing 230 (and it could've been much less).

Bits and pieces 5th bowlers are absolutely the norm at present. India have Yuvi/Yusuf, Australia have Smith. Not sure who it is for South Africa but Tsotsobe/Peterson etc. don't have to be out of form to look extremely ordinary.

Personally I believe that you should always take your best five ODI bowlers, and just deal with how long that makes the tail. But I'm in a minority of very few on that score.

Yardy came in at 96/5 with still 22.4 overs to bat. There was never enough batting between Yardy, Bresnan, Tredwell and Shahzad to support Morgan although his demise with 15 overs to go at 140/6 left England little hope even though it was six an over required (to tie)

But here's an interesting comparison :

England (35 overs) 140/6
Australia (35 overs) 139/6

Difference? Bollinger ably supported Marsh, a batsman that batted through until the end of the innings (48.2 overs) while England had no batsman left and it was up to the tail who can all in theory bat - Bresnan, Tredwell and Yardy have all scored FC hundreds, Shahzad has a HS of 88 while Tremlett has seven 50s in FC cricket.

While I'm not remotely suggesting our lower order should be strengthened battingwise at the expense of bowling, I question the point of including three players who are neither the very best bowlers nor is their batting combined adding up to a huge amount. At best they could make it as all-rounders, but they're not good enough all-rounders. All their batting ability added up to was prolonging the agony and delaying the inevitable which is ok in Tests but in ODIs rather pointless.

Can't believe there is such a complete dearth of all-rounders in county cricket that those three are our 'best' :facepalm Of course the number of ineligible players not playing as overseas players doesn't help any.

Bollinger's innings was freakish! Any one of Yardy/Wright/Bresnan/Tredwell is unquestionably a better bat than Bollinger. It's just unlucky that he did THAT on this occasion...and they didn't!
 
You were the 'odd forum poster' I referred too :p No one else had Marsh in their 15 around here - including me I'm proud to admit :D



I just think it's a bit rich: the implications that the selectors should have somehow known that Marsh was going to get a century yesterday and that Marsh was somehow playing with something to prove. Look at the WC thread for Australia. It has about 8 different 15 man squads from various posters. There's only one that had Shaun Marsh in it - formulaoneman's - and he's a blatant Marsh fan boy :D Haarithan mentioned Marsh would be useful because he could bat anywhere, but didn't pick him in his 15. That's it. You yourself were complaining just 2 days ago that it was Marsh, not Ferguson that got this replacement spot for the series. And it's not just here either. The Cricinfo article that featured Australia's WC selection dilemmas didn't mention Marsh at all, it focused on Lee, Tait, Doherty, Hauritz and mentioned Hodge, Christian and Ferguson at the potential batsmen instead. And now suddenly pundits and commentators are suggesting it's a bad call to leave Marsh out and it should have been obvious to the selectors? It's complete bollocks and totally based on hindsight. It's like complaining that you picked the wrong line at the supermarket. Totally pointless and only obvious once the whole thing is over with.

Anyway, we as fans should be glad Marsh is confirming his ability and making himself the obvious replacement should Hussey not recover. Plus with the age of Ponting and Hussey, he's going to be straight into the XI after the WC. But instead it's been another opportunity to backhand the selectors for all problems with Australian cricket. And I'm sick of that attitude.

Ye well said. This is difference between us fans/arm-chair experts at times that the selectors all have over us.

Not many of us would have actually seen Marsh in all the games he has played this domestic season, we would have just watched the scorecard. So maybe they where saw something that convinced them about his versatility to bat anywhere in the top 6, which us fans/arm-chair experts would thus have taken the safe bet in going for the seasoned middle-order replacement in Ferguson or Hodge.

So for once the dumb selectors have gotten one right & deserve compliment. Which is why as ive been saying since before the start of the Ashes, AUS have an abundance of talent in all areas (except spin) & really shouldn't be playing this badly. Its the many selectional mistakes since 2007/08 which has been affecting the test side performance mainly.

The bigger issue however is the fact that thanks to this unprecedented dumb rule from the ICC that teams had to their name their WC squads so early, the potential form of Marsh can be utilized. Since in past AUS would have waited until the end of this ODI series then pick their WC squad & realistically Marsh could have still made it.
 

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