Jan 3-7: 5th Test: Australia v England at Sydney

[Themer]

The Ashes are "retained", whatever that means. Outdated concept. If the India/SA series is drawn 1-1 does that mean India win the series in SA ? India drew in Australia in 2004, does that mean the series was over and India won it ?

Obviously it doesn't mean that they'd won those respective series. Retain means to keep and drawing means England keep the Ashes the same way that the Border-Gavaskar Trophy works.

 

[Adarsh]

I guess but come on, no one should care about "retaining". Beat them black and blue dammit and then celebrate !

 

[Themer]

I'm more than happy for us just to retain them going on to win the series would be an added bonus from here. Glad you liked my quoting prowess or lack of, Sureshot.

 

[War]

No idea how you were in any way "mocking my sarcasm" there. To the question, look how Australia have bowled this tour when the pitches have been very flat. They've given away over 500 three times and they've barely managed to get the ball to reverse (mainly because reverse is purely dependent on conditions being rough; either outfield or pitch) while instead of picking a steady spinner they've decided on some joke spinning selections and Steve "Can't bat, can't bowl but can crack a good joke" Smith.

I was mocking it. Since i wanted the entire planetcricket to see what you said in the hope you would do what you have done now & defend your point.

Now to your point.

Firstly. Yes have conceeded 500 3 times in this series. But the question i ask again, do you believe AUS bowling attack (the quicks) is as bad as this series has shown?.

How do you explain the fact that Ben Hilfenhaus who just one month ago againts a MUCH stronger Indian batting line-up on flat pitches, bowled superbly & was the main reason why the destructive Virender Sehwag never got away. Could suddenly come home in AUS conditions & struggle?. Do you reckon that he suddenly lost his ability in the 1 month or maybe it could be something technical with him?.

Plus looking @ the attack overall. How does Bollinger/Hilfenhaus/Johnson on those same flat pitches in IND againts a stronger IND batting line-up manage to in that famous 1st test @ Bangalore. Restrict that line-up, then suddenly struggle to do the same againts ENG in the space of 1 month?.

How do you explain Bollinger's struggles in Adelaide suddenly after being AUS most consistent fast bowler in for the past year?. Did bowler suddenly wake up the morning of the Adelaide test & lose his ability or was their some factors leading up to the test which caused that problem?.

As for the other 3 quicks. Have Harris & Siddle bowled poorly in this series?.

Also how do you explain Johnson. Who prior his shocking 1st test bowling @ Brisbane, took a 5 wicket haul just 2 test before that in the 1st test in India. Also took a 10 wicket haul vs NZ 2 tests before that?.

Obviously the AUS quicks haven't gotten the ball to reverse swing. But do you believe that due to none of them having the ability & have never reverse-swung the ball in their test careers to date on flat wickets?. Or is it again a technical problem that has crept up during this series.

Finally you do realise that Steve Smith was picked based on FC form in which he displayed the talents of Vettor/Sakid Al Hasan type all-rounder right?. Whether he is as good as domestic stats show (which he clearly isn't & i personally didn't support his selection anyway) is a different question. But the he was picked on FC form, which is what traditionally all selectors do.

Personally I'd of rather had Hauritz who probably won't rip a team apart but will manage to average 35-45 whilst keeping things tight and allowing the seamers to be rested than the combined efforts of Hilfenhaus, Dotherty, Bollinger, Watson, North, Smith and Clarke who's figures collectively read as averaging 99 at around 3.5. Those picked as they're the ones who've been forced to take on the spinners job or have been those in the mix for a four seamers position and have bowled due to the lack of a proper spinner.

I'm literally pretty unable to recall a team in history that has survived without playing someone who's more than a part time spinner apart from the West Indies who had the best pace attack ever. The Australian one isn't even close to being good enough to work.

Firstly on Haurtiz. Again you & the other boring backers of him being picked do realise that Hauritz pretty much lost the ability to keep things tight & be a holding bowler for Ponting since the NZ tour early this year. While throughout his career never did a serious holding job for AUS.

Their is a difference between being a holding spinner bowling lets say 20-10-40-0 in which the someone like Swann did in the 2nd innings @ the MCG. In which one could see the AUS bowler really didn't know where their next run was coming off him. To bowling 20-10-50 (which Hauritz did a few times), where batsmen are playing you defensively, but the spinner isn't exactly bowling any big turning deliveries or getting the ball to do anything off the pitch in which the batsmen feel they dont know where their next run is coming from.

In the 2nd scenario which was Hauritz career. His strenght was his accuracy, but it wasn't suffocating/wicket taking tight accuracy. If he bowled a good ball, batsmen respected it, but if they wanted to move from gear 1 to gear 4 a smoke him, it was never risky compared to facing a quality spinner like Swann etc. So i dont know how is it that you have deduced Hauritz would have been able to keep it tight for AUS during that Ashes if he played.

What makes you so sure he wouldn't have gone down the same route as Doherty & the ENG batsmen seeing his struggles in IND wouldn't have hit him out of the attack & he wouldn't have been dropped during the series?.

How can in one instant you can be so proud of ENGs batsmen & state that ENG scored 500 trice this series againts AUS quicks. But seemingly suggest that if Hauritz had played, he would have someone managed to keep ENG batsmen quiet??. Highly perplexing reasoning that.


You not being able to recall a team surviving without a test standard spinner other than the WI of the 70-90s doesn't mean anything other than possibly your lack of knowledge. The South African team of the majority of the 1990s did so quite competently.

Finally why does the AUS 4 man pace attack have to match the Windies of 70-90s in other for an all-pace attack to work?. The Saffies of the 90s who did it certainly didn't.

Simple fact is the Windies set a template guide in understanding what a 4-man attack would need to do in order for it to be effective in all conditions:

- They need to skilled fast bowlers who have the ability to bowl in well in all conditions. Which all of the AUS quicks have shown they can do in their careers @ various points. All they need to do is put that consistency together & bowl as a unit.
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[Themer]

The South African team of the majority of the 1990s did so quite competently.

I can't answer properly at the moment as I'm about to go out but on the South Africa attack, Paul Adams? Certainly played nearly all of South African tests in the second half of the decade.

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Also Pat Symcox had a whirl.

 

[War]

I still maintain Hauritz gets a raw deal on here, and maybe overall. I don't think anyone has ever claimed he is world class, but then the aussies ain't exactly brimming with world class performers at the moment. I've a vague recollection of War arguing the toss over this, but I think it's been established in this thread he argues the toss over anything he doesn't agree with

No. I'm a simple passionate fan whose only concern is what is best for my team. Hauritz does not & did not ever reprsent what was best for AUS test side in the past or going forward.

He never got a raw deal & he was rightfully dropped, before ENGs batsmen killed him.

I'd drop Hughes, all he has currently is a cut shot and a thick edge to 3rd man, he's like a bad Tekken character.
Time to try Marsh instead I think.

The SCG may seam, but I still think Hauritz is worth his place, would much prefer Hauritz taking 2-80 off 30 overs than watching Hilfenhaus bowl rubbish 3 feet outside offstump.
Might be worth giving Beer a try though, he may do ok, but I've never seen him bowl. He surely couldn't be worse than Doherty, I have always fired up at the mention of his name from the moment he "burst onto the scene" all those years ago with his flat non spinning crap.
At the current rate of improvement, Doherty might be first class standard by the year 2042.
Don't think Ponting's fields helped much in India, sticking all your men on the fence just gives away a single or 2 every ball, which adds up to 5 or 6 an over, which is not how to use a spinner. Probably another one of Ponting's crazy tactical whims, he tried it all this season, and none of it worked.
The drop Hauritz plan was probably because they believed North could do just as good a job.

England on the other hand stuck rigidly to the same gameplan, and were not scared off into trying something else when it didn't work.
They played the percentages, and like anyone who plays they percentages, they came out ahead.

Well now that you conceded that the SCG might seam. If you have worries that Hilfy will struggle legitmately to utilize those conditions. Why then not go for the form swing bowler in the country in Trent Copeland to replace him?.

Secondly if you really haven't seen Beer bowl. Then you should thank god. Since if you had logged on the cricketaustralia.com livestreams & had had glimpse of the 8 overs he bowled in this game during the Perth test like i did:

Tasmania v Western Australia at Hobart, Dec 17-19, 2010 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

I'd be very surprised it you wouldn't be calling him to be banished from the test set-up.

Thirdly why are trying to blame Ponting fielding tactics for Haurtiz struggles in India?. Ponting only set the ultra defensive field for Hauritz in one innings (the 2nd innings of the 2nd test), when the match was already lost & Ponting for obvious reason had lost all faith in Hauritz given that in every innings before that, he just kept getting hit out of the attack. Every other innings Ponting gave Haurtiz the best possible fields possible.

Hauritz failed in India simply because he was crap. Dont bring Ponting into this.

Alot of crazy misconceptions & love floating around for Hauritz up until this day. This cricinfo article is also another shocker:

The Ashes 2010-11: Where it went wrong for Australia | Cricket Features | The Ashes 2010-11 | ESPN Cricinfo

Trust Hauritz

Hauritz might not have been a matchwinner had he played in the Ashes, but he could have tied down an end while the fast men attacked at the other. His record of 63 Test wickets at 34.98 is solid, and a disappointing tour of India, where even Shane Warne struggled over the years, should not have been held against him. The selectors seem to have decided that they want someone who turns the ball away from the right-handers, but Doherty was not the answer, Smith is not ready as a Test bowler and Beer is unlikely to be the magic solution. Until a better slow man comes through the ranks of state cricket, Hauritz remains Australia's most sensible spin option.

 

[War]

I can't answer properly at the moment as I'm about to go out but on the South Africa attack, Paul Adams? Certainly played nearly all of South African tests in the second half of the decade.

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Also Pat Symcox had a whirl.

South Africa in the 90s did want i've been suggesting AUS do all the time:

Cricket Web - View Single Post - Nathan Hauritz's role in the Australian test side: Should he really be a fixture?

Australia should adapt a 4-man pace attack for all tests - except when they tour the sub-continent (or home tests @ Adelaide or SCG) where having a spinenr really becomes a must.

I urge all PCers to go on cricinfo & look @ South Africa for all tests between 1992-2000. You will see they adapted 4 & 5-man attacks alot. They hardly ever played a spinner except for really necessary circumstances @ home & in the sub-continent, with great success. Thats exactly what i'm suggesting AUS should do.

The simple reason why Adams played alot in the 2nd half of the decade was because he was test standard spinner (for a while then after his magic was played better by international batsmen) the saffies where looking for. AUS haven't found an equivalent to Adams yet (although as i always say, I believe Krejza could be that man if the selectors use him properly).

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Back to the test & the top 6 AUS will put out @ SCG will be the worst AUS top 6 i've seen in my lifetime of watching cricket. England's quicks should be licking their lips.

 

[pcfan123]

Can't wait to see Khawaja debut, he should have come in for North originally and shuffled the order around.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

I didn't really want to get involved in this but ben hilfenhaus is a hustle bustle pacer that got the ball to swing in India because it's an SG. Indian trundlers get the SG to swing, Shane Watson got the SG to swing. Hilfenhaus has a crap average anywhere that isn't overcast England.

Also, 6 wickets over 2 tests at 40 isn't that great. He was hardly wrecking India, we went for 100-0 in the first innings of the first test and redeemed his stats by picking up 5 when the wicket had became a minefield. bowled well but nothing special.

Hauritz failed in india because he was bowling to the best ever batting line up playing spin. Warne, Murali, the best two spinners ever have come away from india having taken a hiding. I'm with the camp that says Hauritz should have stayed. Judging a spinner on the back of a tour to india doesn't make sense, sehwag, tendulkar, laxman, even raina are going to rape you whoever you are.

 

[War]

I didn't really want to get involved in this but ben hilfenhaus is a hustle bustle pacer that got the ball to swing in India because it's an SG. Indian trundlers get the SG to swing, Shane Watson got the SG to swing. Hilfenhaus has a crap average anywhere that isn't overcast England.


Also, 6 wickets over 2 tests at 40 isn't that great. He was hardly wrecking India, we went for 100-0 in the first innings of the first test and redeemed his stats by picking up 5 when the wicket had became a minefield. bowled well but nothing special.

Except that Hilfenhaus did not get the ball to swing in India. His good bowling in India was down to him showing he could bowl on flat pitches, when the ball wasn't swinging.

Last season in his only test vs AUS @ Brisbane he dismissed Gayle with brilliant swing bowling. Plus of course on his debut series in SA he got the ball to swing & of course in SA they dont use the SG ball.

So quite clearly Hilfy his best before the Ashes, got the ball to swing in conditions all that he played in where swing was prevalent & not just in ENG.

You say in that 1st test in IND he took 0-100 in 1st innings. Are you suggesting that he bowled poorly in that 1st innings in any way?.

Finally by suggesting that he took 4 (not 5 wickets) in the 2nd innings of the 1st innings when in your words:

"by picking up 5 when the wicket had became a minefield".

You have inadvertently proven the point that i've made consistently, that fast bowlers with certain skills can take wickets on wearing/minefield type wickets that usually spinners would thrive in.

Hauritz failed in india because he was bowling to the best ever batting line up playing spin. Warne, Murali, the best two spinners ever have come away from india having taken a hiding. I'm with the camp that says Hauritz should have stayed. Judging a spinner on the back of a tour to india doesn't make sense, sehwag, tendulkar, laxman, even raina are going to rape you whoever you are.

Again i say. Hauritz was not dropped based solely on his failures in India.

It was a culmination of his entire career in which he showed a complete inability to be a wicket taking threat on turning or wearing 4th/5th day pitches for AUS (expect for questionable circumstances vs PAK last year), while never properly fullfilling the role of holding spinner.


Such as NZ @ Wellington earlier this year, Windies twice last summer in AUS & in ENG in the Cardiff Ashes test. Which proves conclusively he consistently failed to do the main job of test spinner worth any degree of credibilty as test bowler - wich is bowl his team to victory/take 5 wicket hauls on a turner/4th or 5th day wearing wicket againts solid/good/very good opposition.


The AUS selectors dropping him after the IND series, was them saving him before the ENG batsmen continued the damage that IND & NZ had been doing to him throughout 2010.

If Hauritz had managed to even prove to be decent holding option in IND, like what Vettori did recently in IND. You would have a case to keep him for the Ashes, but he lost the plot in all facets & had to go.

Also as i've consistently said. Regardless of how bad Murali/Warne records are in India - they had their days in India as well, so its not if they where total duds in IND.

Since India became a force @ home with the bat in the 1970s (the Gavaskar era) to 90s/2000s (Tendulkar & co era), many decent/average spinners in recent times who aren't of the calibre of Murali & Warne, but certainly more often than not in their careers for their teams where wicket taking threats on wearing or turning wickets. Such a Boje, Giles, Paul Harris & Adams, John Bracewell, Greg Matthews, Kaneria, Ray Bright for example have either gone to the India bowled on wearing 5th day wickkets or turners & have bowled their sides to victory by taking 5 wicket hauls. Or done a job as competent holding spinner.

So quite clearly its not impossible for a spinner worth his salt as a test standard to be of some use in IND. Instead of the over-exaggerated myth that no spinner can do well in IND, thus Hauritz should get some pass.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

If hilfenhaus is so good on a wearing pitch then why did he only take one wicket in the 2nd test of that india series? also, I believe he too was playing at cardiff and took 3 wickets in the 2nd, same as haurtiz except hauritz bowled far more economically.

and yes, hauritz had his position under threat already, but he should not have been put in the position that he was required to perform in india or face the drop. It's not that much of a myth that india play spin well in india, opposition spinners have had their day but no one has done it consistently. over the last 10 years of the ones you mentioned that have played this line up (I am talking about the current line up) kaneria and harris both have pretty big averages, it's still the norm to get hammered by india. hauritz did no worse than the norm.

the problem is war, you don't value spin bowling as much as you do pace bowling. so an average pace bowler will always appeal to you more than an average spinner. but a spinner brings variety, mixing up what the batsmen are getting used to, ability to bowl longer spells which can keep the over-rate down. If you are picking between average bowlers, which hilfenhaus and hauritz very much are, it makes sense to pick the one that would have added dimensions to the overall attack. I don't see what hilfenhaus adds to an attack that already has siddle in it. especially in australia were he is unable to find any swing (Also, i distinctly remember him finding inswing in india whenever he looked half dangerous)

 

[War]

If hilfenhaus is so good on a wearing pitch then why did he only take one wicket in the 2nd test of that india series? also, I believe he too was playing at cardiff and took 3 wickets in the 2nd, same as haurtiz except hauritz bowled far more economically.

One of the reasons people have acknowledged that Hilfy bowled well in IND is the understanding that he bowled far better than his figures suggested in all innings. He took 2 wickets in 2nd test overall, playing a key role in sending Sehwag back early & being unlucky not to get more wickets.

Unless you believe his figures in the 2nd test reflect accurately how well he bowled. Then i dont think this debate has anywhere more to go.

I never said Hilfenhaus was "so good" on a wearing pitch. I said his 2nd innings bowling performance @ Mohali is an example of what a fast bowler with certain skills i.e reverse-swing, abiltity to move old ball etc. Can do on wearing 5th day wicket, in which a spinner of a certain standard can usually be expected to become a serious wicket-taking threat. Hilfy showed that in that innings, so IMO he can do it again & his inability to not replicate that since is most likely due to technical bowling issues rather than a sudden lost of ability in 1 month.

On Hauritz @ Cardiff. He was as i articulated before, economical but not threatening.

Their is a difference between being a holding spinner bowling lets say 20-10-40-0 in which the someone like Swann did in the 2nd innings @ the MCG. In which one could see the AUS bats really didn't know where their next run was coming off him. To bowling 20-10-50 (which Hauritz did a few times), where batsmen are playing you defensively, but the spinner isn't exactly bowling any big turning deliveries or getting the ball to do anything off the pitch in which the batsmen feel they dont know where their next run is coming from.

In the 2nd scenario which was Hauritz career. His strenght was his accuracy, but it wasn't suffocating/wicket taking tight accuracy. If he bowled a good ball, batsmen respected it, but if they wanted to move from gear 1 to gear 4 a smoke him, it was never risky compared to facing a quality spinner like Swann etc.

Part of the bolded represents what happened @ Cardiff. He really showed have bowled out ENG, but ENG where never in trouble againts him. When Siddle got Colly out, Anderson/Panesar survived 12 overs in which Haurtiz bowled half of those & as the case was @ Mohali this year, Ponting ended up having to bowl North @ the end given Hauritz struggles @ that crucial phase of the test.

Pretty much everyone accepts thats whats happened @ Cardiff, so you dont have take my word for it. Poster & moderator aussie1st pretty much said the same thing:

http://www.planetcricket.org/forums/1989106-post26.html

http://www.planetcricket.org/forums/1986004-post6.html

and yes, hauritz had his position under threat already, but he should not have been put in the position that he was required to perform in india or face the drop. It's not that much of a myth that india play spin well in india, opposition spinners have had their day but no one has done it consistently. over the last 10 years of the ones you mentioned that have played this line up (I am talking about the current line up) kaneria and harris both have pretty big averages, it's still the norm to get hammered by india. hauritz did no worse than the norm.

No Hauritz position going into the IND series was quite safe with the selectors & many fans. I was probably the only one on this site (& one of the few worldwide) who was questioning Hauritz problems & saw the writing on the wall of what could happen in IND, way back as February when i made this thread:

http://www.planetcricket.org/forums/cricket-discussion/nathan-hauritz-role-australian-test-side-should-he-really-playing-65040.html

There was even people who believed Hauritz would bowl well in India. So obviously they got the shock of their lives after his smoking in IND.

Secondly the current line-up of the golden IND middle-order of Tendy/Dravid/Laxman plus Ganguly & Azharuddin where around for the majority of the 90s as well. So their is no reason to limit the criteria of performing spinners in IND to just the last 10 years. So all of Giles, Adams, Boje are relevant to this discussion.

Of course it understood that IND play spin better than anyone & no spinner except probably Saqlain 99/00 has gone to IND in a series & basically had the the current golden-era of IND bats in web.

But the myth that its impossible for a test standard spinner to have good days in IND by either performing a creditable holding role (which Harris did for Graeme Smith on SA tours to IND 2008 & 2010) or spinning out IND bats on a wearing wicket taken 5 wicket hauls (which Kaneria did twice), certainly isn't proven by any recent facts.

So im not sure how you are managing to compare Kaneria & Harris's performances in IND to Hauritz. Thats is no where near to truth sir. Hauritz failed quite miserably to do any of those roles.

the problem is war, you don't value spin bowling as much as you do pace bowling. so an average pace bowler will always appeal to you more than an average spinner. but a spinner brings variety, mixing up what the batsmen are getting used to, ability to bowl longer spells which can keep the over-rate down. If you are picking between average bowlers, which hilfenhaus and hauritz very much are, it makes sense to pick the one that would have added dimensions to the overall attack. I don't see what hilfenhaus adds to an attack that already has siddle in it. especially in australia were he is unable to find any swing (Also, i distinctly remember him finding inswing in india whenever he looked half dangerous)

Nah thats not true. I valued Ashley Giles all the time when he played for ENG. He was an average spinner in general. But more often than not when ENG toured to sub-continent or got turners around the world, Giles became either a solid holding bowler or a wicket taking threat for Hussain or Vaughan.

Why although i dont rate him & sometimes think S African can play all pace attacks (like in the current series vs IND). I value & S Africa values Paul Harris although he is very average, because he has proven he can perform a holding or wicket taking roles on turners enough times in his career to date. But when Imran Tahir becomes available for SA. he will be dropped however.


When you talk variety it that a test standard spinenr would bring. I dont know about you, but i want quality variety in a test spinner that is 100% capable /relatively capable of utilising wearing tracks or a last turner againts good test batsmen more often than not. If the spinner is not of Warne/Murali/Swann/Kumble/Tayfield/Underwood/Qadir/Saqlain/Gibbs/O'Reilly/Gupte/Bedi quality.

You dont pick a joke spinners like Hauritz, Doherty etc just by default just because they bowl spin & cannot fulfill those two main roles that test standard spinners should do. If the spinner is as crap as them, the only thing the batsmen will get used to his htting to & over the boundary. Plus they will not aid in keeping the over rate down, since the captain will be forced to taking them out of the attack & having to go back to his fast-bowlers to get wickets.




Also im glad im getting people to really share their opinions on bowlers now in these long debates. Since by you calling Hilfenhaus "average" thats so inaccurate i'd be interested now just to start a thread on the main page to see how much of planetcricket would agree with that hypothesis of Hilfenhaus.

I'm flabbergasted that you can saw Hilfenahaus cant find swing in AUS. Did you fall to sleep in the Perth test?. Did you miss the test vs West Indies @ Brisbane last summer?

The inswing Hilfy got in India was off the pitch bowling a bit off off-cutters. He didn't get any swing in the air inward or outwards.

 

[Covvy]

Here's my statistical analasis....


Hilfy is very good.

 

[angryangy]

walls of text end here thanks.

 

[formula1man]

Lets hope Clarke wins this test so Ponting never comes back