7th ODI: Australia v England at Perth

[War]

Given his T20 record in the Big Bash I would say he might be of use in that format. It should be simple for Krejza, pick up wickets in Shield cricket and get your test spot back, if he can't even get wickets against our domestic batsmen then hes got little hope in going well at the next level.

Which is the problem which i've been saying all along with Krejza. Tasmania domestic line-up isn't going to pick him since like Ponting:

- George Bailey doesn't know how to use him

- Tasmania dont have 4 strong quicks like (3 quicks + Watson) like what AUS would have. So that Krejza could be used properly, thus they pick Doherty since he suits their FC team balance better.

The dumb selectors picked Hauritz & persisted with him foolishly for two years when he wasn't even in NSW team as you would remember. So IMO they can do the same with Krejza again, since @ least he has basic skills to is proven recipe for some success for spinners in test history.

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Problem is he will always go for runs, on a flat deck or a raging turner doesn't matter, because bad balls are always put away by international class batsman.

Well no i dont believe he will always go for runs, its certainly possible for him to bowl a spell on the occasion where he goes for less than 4 rpo. I just believe he will never be able to tie-down & end for a captain which MacGill never used to do i.e bowling a spell of 30-10-60-2

If Krejza consistently gives AUS every time they encounter a 4th/5th day turner/wearing a spell of 30-2-150-6 for eg, he would have done his job. Him being expensive wouldn't be relevant.

Also leg spinners are less likelier to get put away by bowling bad deliveries than off spinners due to batsman not being able to time it properly, and in some cases bad deliveries get them their wickets. So you can't compare MacGill to Krezja in that respect.

Thats a very interesting theory my friend, which in all my years of watching cricket & seeing both leg & off-spinners bowl (the excellent, good & crap ones) i must say i have seen no evidence of the above.

 

[sifter132]

As you said he is the MacGill of off-spinner & indeed i dont believe any off-spinner in test history who had a long career bowled so many half-trackers mixed with big turners. So yea Krejza is unique in that way, since he bowls like your historical standard leg-spinner whose control of line-and-length is not as consistent as those whose name isn't Warne, O'Reilly, Grimmett, Qadir.

But i dont see that as fault or as a reason why he cant be a consistent threat in tests (since i dont see him being of much use in ODIs or T20s @ international level IMO).

Its a simple case of understanding his strengths & having a smart captain that would know how to use him in a match situation. He bowls wicket-taking deliveries & he at least will be able to give AUS a wicket-taking threat on wearing/4th innings wickets more often than not (something Hauritz, Doherty, Beer, O'Keefe couldn't/wouldn't offer) thus in AUS future 5-man test attacks he will be one of the attacking bowlers. One of quicks will have to be depended on to do defensive bowling. I recall many times when MacGill played, Warne would reduce his attacking style & become defensive in order to support MacGill.

Yeah I think he could work at Test level. But geez, I think he'd always need an ODI type field square of the wicket to cut down his 4s and that would be basically useless at retaining pressure. That's OK if you can work around it with your other bowlers eg. MacGill had McGrath & Gillespie who kept it tight, but none of the other Aussie bowlers bar Hilfy (mostly) can build up pressure either. In some ways I'd rather throw the ball to Simon Katich, give him the ODI field and use him as your 'buy a wicket' spinner.

The other thing about MacGill is that he bowled with a LOT of runs behind him on the scoreboard. Krejza won't have that luxury at Test level in this Aussie team and so conceding runs will be seen as a bigger problem because there are less of them to spare.

I'll keep an eye on him though, because Krazy could become really good if he sorts out his issues.

 

[Owzat]

Or you could give credit to Dussey and Voges for playing well in a match-winning partnership, but I realise it is of course easier to blame England and more statistics.

So you're suggesting that us bowling at them with bowlers who wouldn't get into any decent ODI side didn't make their job easy?!?!?!? Or perhaps you are somewhat defensive of all things Sussex, can't think of any other reason you'd suggest picking off easy runs of Yardy and Wright would be "credit to Dussey and Voges"

But of course "credit" to Dussey and Voges, I'm not suggesting they didn't play well, but England/Strauss/Yardy & Wright didn't half make it easy for them

I think Strauss made some poor calls in the field, taking Wright off after 4 overs at about 4rpo including 3 near wickets seemed costly to Wright's bowling after that.

Wright isn't good enough, he usually trundles out 4-5 overs at 5-6 rpo and has taken ONE WICKET in his last TEN ODIs. When are you, Strauss and the selectors going to wake up to the fact that wickets win ODIs.

You may not like stats, but here's one even YOU can't just cast aside : under Strauss England have not won an ODI where they have not taken 7+ wickets (14 ODIs) In those ODIs where England have taken 7-8 wickets they've won six and lost 11. Point being when England take 9-10 wickets (under Strauss) they win 82% of their ODIs, when they take less than nine wickets they win 19%

I thought we were a bit wayward and I don't understand playing Plunkett, Tredwell may not be great, but he is going to the World Cup and we should give him some games now in case we have to use him. It was a wides feast today by both sides, the failing again was in the top 5/6 batsmen. Not got an issue with Trott, but the rest seem to be completely unable to take any ownership of an innings, maybe this series is actually what we needed to kick on in the World Cup

Bowling wasn't good enough, Plunkett is one of those players who will come back in every now and again but never quite establish himself as he isn't good enough. Still he did ok, it was the bits n pieces bowlers who relinquished control over to Dussey and Voges. The batting has always been somewhat susceptible to falling apart, I wonder if KP is perhaps too "undroppable".

Only Trott made more than 200 runs in the series, the bowling was too hit and miss. At least 1/3 of our WC squad isn't good enough, this series is just a prelude to a World Cup disaster.

 

[Sureshot]

When did I ever say Wright was good enough? You're putting words in my mouth because it fits with your opinion. As I've said before, I believe he can be good enough, but shouldn't be playing right now, not that there are a lot of other options with the 5/6 injuries we've had. He could very easily have taken 3 wickets the other night and did pretty well in his first spell, that's all I was pointing out, that the captain made the wrong choices, which you agree with.

I don't think it helps at all that the likes of Swann and Broad are out, they are proven wicket takers in ODIs and we missed that. It's distorted the stats in this series, we've not had the settled bowling attack that has served pretty well over the last few ODI series.

As for the 2nd spinner (if you have one), if Samit stopped eating the pies, he'd be perfect, could bat and bowl a good quota of overs.

Nor did I also state that wickets don't win you matches, just that this was our 2nd string attack, I'm not sure we should use 2 spinners in WC. Bresnan is classed as fit for the WC, so my ideal attack would be.

Bresnan
Broad
Swann
Shahzad
Anderson

I suspect they'd use Yardy instead of Shahzad, though his reverse swing will be a deadly weapon in the last 20 overs in the SubCon.

The problem this series has been the batting (which is "full strength") and not the bowling, which is 2nd string, generally speaking. We threw a lot of wickets away, 21 between Smith, Hussey and Watson. Whereas they lost 12 to Colly, Yardy, Trott and KP.

 

[angryangy]

That sort of throwing wickets away was no more clear than that last game. A lot of the wicket balls for Australia were full and wide of off. So wide in fact, that the English bowlers didn't even bowl there. They did however bowl about 6 times as many balls on the wrong side of middle stump, even with Tait bowling about two overs worth of wides. England's bowlers didn't just favour the pads, but also the pull shot; though to be fair, it seemed a risky shot early in the game.

It is needless to chastise the very second string attack, but I have to wonder what it meant. Australia have bowled substantially more offside all series. Partly, they have left armers bowling to right handers, but that's not a licence for right armers to bowl wide of leg stump. I just wonder if there's something the English bowlers or tacticians find intimidatory about bowling outside off.

 

[TumTum]

Thats a very interesting theory my friend, which in all my years of watching cricket & seeing both leg & off-spinners bowl (the excellent, good & crap ones) i must say i have seen no evidence of the above.

I present to you, Steve Smith

 

[ZoraxDoom]

A poor leggie will still take more wickets than a put offie. Playing the ball moving away from you is trickier than the ball moving into you for most batsmen.