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Australia to announce squad on Tuesday and they suddenly have a decent amount of options after a couple of successful away series. Warner, Smith, Starc and Hazlewood should come back into the 15 after missing time (for innocent/not so innocent reasons) That leaves 11 others to pick and I'd say...

I cheated and sent in two XIs :) First, was a 'normal' one based on World Cup performances over a whole career, and I ended up with: Sachin Tendulkar :ind:, Tillakartne Dilshan :sri:, Kumar Sangakkara (:wk:):sri:, AB de Villiers :saf:, Michael Clarke :aus: , Lance Klusener :saf:, Imran Khan...

I had a fun time imagining my 12 players here. I started with the absolute best team I could think of, then made a few tweaks to make it more watchable and balanced. Here's the team (Test): 1. Sunil Gavaskar (India) I tried to get Ravi Ashwin in there as India's representative, an underrated...

Steve O'Keefe, yes, good call. I'm with you. There was an article too on cricinfo about how similar to Herath he is in action. I think SOK will go very well in Asian conditions. It's a great time to get him into the XI, with Watson/Marsh able to be a 3rd and/or 4th seamer, and a couple of...

I think there'll be a few things written today with the benefit of hindsight about how Lyon should have played blah blah. But honestly, I think he'd have been pummelled as well. I mean he went at 6 RPO vs Zimbabwe the other day when everyone else was frugal. It's pretty wishful thinking that...

I agree, it seems quite pointless for Haddin to play there. He's not going to bat up there in the World Cup, and it's not developing his game in any way. Watson and Warner will be up the top. Marsh or Finch perhaps too. There's no room for Haddin to open. We also saw today why he's not a...

I'm had arguments with you in the past over this War. Good to see you're still into this topic :D One thing that's worth mentioning. When you look at the Test results from 8th Jan 2009 to now (the day after SA won that landmark series in Australia), South Africa hasn't won a huge amount of...

Yah there's no real problem if Clarke's out. Bailey's an excellent vice captain. It's just a matter of who'll play where. I hope there's a bit of rotation in the Aussie squad, make sure Cutting and Richardson and Smith and Marsh and Lyon, those newer guys, get at least a couple of games to...

You must also consider their records vs Australia. That is the bowling they'll be facing after all. Vijay and Dhawan did very well in the 2013 Tests vs Australia in India, so that would definitely be in the back of the minds of the Australians. Vijay is a lock, no question - based on that...

Yeah I'm not comfortable with too much bat tinkering. If there's too much tinkering I think there should be a standard bat and you can just put you're own stickers on it. Surprised something like this hasn't been designed before though, pretty clever. I remember the wormwood bats that took...

Ah yes the old underachievement chestnut. That original article points out that those who make it look easy are judged against tougher standards. It's a conundrum. Ultimately, I think Carl Hooper got an average he deserved. Laziness is no less a sin than any other way of getting out. And...

I will certainly agree there are no Hayden's or Ponting's hiding anywhere in there...:D Although I will urge you to look past Clarke's stats. If he finds his rhythm (which could be anytime), he'll pump out runs as well as anyone in Test cricket. And he has history vs South Africa. Just look...

If they can find an interested county, they should definitely go. Even if they can't find a county and have to play Lancashire League cricket, then they should still go. Would be much more beneficial to their skillset than playing IPL. Not so much because T20 is evil, just to get out of India...

I would say because most decent T20 spinners have figures like that. Check Harbhajan's figures and they are very similar, but no one wants him in the team. The other factor with Abdulla is he couldn't crack the KKR team for most of last season.

Ah, the mythical 'momentum'. I don't really believe in it. I think it's largely an invented term used a little desperately and loosely by experts to describe who is winning when they can't quite put their finger on the true reasons. Just expanding a little further...I know bad teams often...

The other way to do it is to ask: how many Australian batsmen would make the SA team? If you select the side using the ICC ratings, then Clarke and Warner would be in there and either Smith/Rogers depending if you wanted to bat Rogers out of position (G.Smith, Warner, Amla, ABDV, Clarke...

I think the talent level right now is just as good as it's been in the past. The Zaheer, Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, RP Singh, Ishant era of the mid 00s was a promising one, but there are just as many talented chaps around now. Shami, Yadav and Aaron have pace that is unusual for Indian bowlers...

Yep generally pretty good discipline from SA. And yet, the only wickets that fell later in the day were due to lack of discipline - hard to keep at it on this pitch against a relentless bowling attack. Pretty good cricket from both sides last night :thumbs

Just on SF Barnes guys...some more details... I did a quick search the other night looking for bowlers who strung together dominating series's. I searched for series by bowlers with 20+ wickets at an average of less than 15 (yes, my definition of dominating a series is pulled out of the air...

That's all pretty fair stuff Stinky :thumbs I guess I always approach the Tendulkar stuff from the reverse. He is praised for longevity and mass of runs which I don't find fair, because he is aided by circumstances ie. there's no way Ponting or Kallis or Lara would have been picked for a...