West Indies in Australia Jan-Feb 2012/13

[icyman]

Why can't the Aussies name George Bailey as vice-captain ? Its almost like they are playing musical chairs with the players. Rotation to an extent is fine, but whats the point of rotation,if, despite the same, your players are still getting injured ?

 

[War]

Odd that the selectors were willing to go back to Haddin, yet weren't willing to go back to Hogg - a man good enough to be in the World Cup squad 6 mths ago, and the best Aussie spinner in the Big Bash. Only other guy with reasonable numbers from big bash was Aaron O'Brien, he might have even fit as a bowling all-rounder. Ditto Steve O'Keefe, who while he didn't have a good BBL, he deserves some encouragement from the selectors I feel.

Yes and the axing of Hogg is even more dumb, considering that after the t20 world-cup captain bailey noted that leading up to the 2014 cup - australia need a spinner of variety/mystery ilk. Hogg is the only such one in the country, who performed yet the drop him.

World Twenty20 2012 : George Bailey wants a new type of spinner in Australia | Cricket News | ICC World Twenty20 2012 | ESPN Cricinfo

Take note selectors please - the top 4 in Aus cricket for the foreseeable future should be Watson, Warner, Hughes, Clarke. If Cowan, Marsh, Finch etc. want a go, learn to be a 5 or 6...

Absolutely. Stop fiddling round with Watson as a middle-order option, even if he ever wants to bowl again..opening is his forte

 

[sifter132]

^Quite right. Besides, Watson was perfectly capable of opening AND bowling well from 2009-2011 in Test cricket.
In the 24 Tests where Watson has opened: 1878 runs @ 43.67 & 42 wickets @ 25.50
But no, that wasn't good enough for the selectors apparently...they wanted more 100s, more wickets Just leave him alone!

Why can't the Aussies name George Bailey as vice-captain ? Its almost like they are playing musical chairs with the players. Rotation to an extent is fine, but whats the point of rotation,if, despite the same, your players are still getting injured ?

Yes, it's a delightful mess...Watson was named as Clarke's vice-captain at the press conference after Ricky Ponting retired, and the peasants of Australia glibly presumed that would be in ALL formats. Yet somehow George Bailey was named T20 captain of Australia ahead of Watson, and despite never playing an international to that point. Now I'm growing to like Bailey more as I watch him, he seems a likeable dude always smiling, but it's got to be confusing for anyone in the dressing room...today Watson is captain, while Bailey is a humble player, on Wednesday, Bailey will captain the T20, and if he'd been picked Watson would have been just a humble player. Maybe the players don't care...I know in games of cricket I play, sometimes it's like 'oh, hey Greg you can captain today' - and that's all the thought it gets. But I imagine professional cricket might be a tad more important than my park cricket.

As for rotation, well I think Clarke is the only guy who's reinjured anything - and that's probably because he pushed himself too hard to play when he did the original injury, during the SL Tests. He probably should have missed a Test and rested the hamstring. Warner's injury was a freak accident, and Bailey wasn't rotated in the first place.

 

[hedger_14]

Voges finally back in the side and scores a brilliant century. It looked like Australia were going to struggle to score 200 but somehow managed to fight back to 279.

 

[Umair7]

Voges played well so as Marsh and Haddin.

 

[angryangy]

Seems like there wasn't movement so much as a bit of extra bounce early on. However, the old ball came on to the bat well and the West Indies were tested thoroughly in their defensive plans.

With the mileage they get from Narine, he really shouldn't be bowling out his 10 in the 40th over. After all, this is a guy who can often do better than 6 an over in T20s. When they have no good death bowler, keeping 3-4 overs of Narine to use in the last 10 could make a lot of difference.

There's been some discussion about Andre Russell being dropped, but I think the quandary is why he's picked as a tailender given the fringe batsmen. On form, he really is the worst bowler the West Indies have, but he's better than the 7th best batsman. So while I do think you do need more reliability in the back 4, he's not out of my best XI.

And to that end, even though his innings eventually blew out, I think Best was a necessary inclusion for the West Indies. He's not the greatest, but he's had impact and you can work with a player's weaknesses if he does some things well enough. Most of his failing was at the end, but that's partly also because they didn't have anyone better.

All these things considered, this looks like a fair contest. 270 is the range where batsmen can be very conservative early on. The West Indies will not mind being in a situation where they can grind along at 4-4.5 an over.

 

[Umair7]

Johnson Charles haven't scored 90 runs even at domestic level

 

[Sedition]

Only took him 3 or 4 lives from the umpires? Yeah, well played though

 

[aussie1st]

There's been some discussion about Andre Russell being dropped, but I think the quandary is why he's picked as a tailender given the fringe batsmen. On form, he really is the worst bowler the West Indies have, but he's better than the 7th best batsman. So while I do think you do need more reliability in the back 4, he's not out of my best XI.

After seeing that rubbish by Deonarine I don't know why Russell wasn't in before him. Plus they have the same average by Russell has a way better SR and is a better bowler.

 

[War]

There's been some discussion about Andre Russell being dropped, but I think the quandary is why he's picked as a tailender given the fringe batsmen. On form, he really is the worst bowler the West Indies have, but he's better than the 7th best batsman. So while I do think you do need more reliability in the back 4, he's not out of my best XI.

And to that end, even though his innings eventually blew out, I think Best was a necessary inclusion for the West Indies. He's not the greatest, but he's had impact and you can work with a player's weaknesses if he does some things well enough. Most of his failing was at the end, but that's partly also because they didn't have anyone better.

The more of Russell i see in international cricket, he is pretty much a batting all-rounder. His bowling can get wickets but is very loose. So thus i think going forward, the windies should think about maximizing his batting abilities first then studying how to possible use his bowling.

With regards to the team balance, the absence of samuels and rampaul & gayle's poor form has messed them up a bit. Also if its they wan another odi keeper then Ramdin - then based on what i saw in the caribbean t20 in january, this guy Chadwick Walton | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo would be a better shout than Thomas.

Overall though this defeat means the windies haven't won an odi in australia since perth 1997. While they were poor during previous visits down under in 2000/01, 2005, 2010 - this team is not poor, so this result is a bit surprising. With AUS stumbling very much vs sri lanka, the windies had a team that could had caused an upset - but credit to australia for lifting their games a bit.

Faulkner is solid find & although dussey's axing was horrible, voges could be a decent long term like-for-like replacement en route to the 2015 cup.


Best AUS ODI team:

Watson, Warner, Hughes, Clarke, Voges, Wade, Maxwell, Henriques, Faulkner, Starc, Harris. Bailey, Johnson, McKay, M Marsh.

Note: I'd pick Voges over Bailey in the 1st XI mainly because his left-arm spin in partnership with Maxwell/Clarke will combine to do the spin duties in a game. AUS don't have a quality odi spinner.


Best Windies team:

Gayle, Walton, Samuels, Bravo, DW Bravo, Pollard, Russell, Sammy, Narine, Rampaul, Best. Powell/Charles, Simmons/Sarwan, Roach, Cooper.

 

[crazyrahul]

My WI Team would be ---

GAYLE
POWELL
SAMUELS
DARREN BRAVO
DWAYNE BRAVO
POLLARD
RAMDIN
SAMMY
NARINE
RAMPAUL
ROACH

FIDEL EDWARDS
KEVON COOPER
RUSSEL
CHARLES / DEONARINE

 

[sifter132]

WI win last night's T20, making it their first victory over Australia in any format, in Australia since 1996/97! That's a pretty amazing stat quite frankly. It's not as though they haven't been touring either: since '97 they've played 11 Tests in Aus for 10 losses and 1 draw, 19 ODIs for 17 losses and 2 washouts, and 3 T20Is for 2 losses and last night's historic win!

One difference between the 2 sides last night was WI having 2-3 late over hitters shining briefly: Russell, Sammy and Pollard vs Australia only having 1: Haddin.

The other more important difference though: Narine. Australia couldn't get hold of him, mainly due to his length as much as his deception. Wasn't just Narine the man, but the fact that WI actually picked a spinner, giving them an option to take the pace off. Australia picking 5 fast bowlers and having them bowl all 20 overs was pretty ambitious strategy.

Australia seemed to bowl a lot of short of a length stuff, figuring they'd rather be hit square than straight at the Gabba - sound thinking generally, but it played completely into Johnson Charles' hands. It seemed like the only 'top of off' balls he got were his last 2: a dot and then inside edge onto pegs. Otherwise he was loving just paddling the short stuff around to fine leg. Or flaying any width through the off-side.

And George Bailey's plan vs Narine was obvious - sweep him past short fine leg. Shame he tried the shot about 4 times in a row and Narine knew exactly what was coming. The ball he got out on wasn't far from being an off-side wide, yet Bailey was trying to sweep past fine leg...

 

[Left_Hander]

WI win last night's T20, making it their first victory over Australia in any format, in Australia since 1996/97! That's a pretty amazing stat quite frankly. It's not as though they haven't been touring either: since '97 they've played 11 Tests in Aus for 10 losses and 1 draw, 19 ODIs for 17 losses and 2 washouts, and 3 T20Is for 2 losses and last night's historic win!

I'm not entirely surprised by the fact they haven't won a Test but ODI's surprise me the most. I thought they would have won at least one of those in the last 19!

 

[War]

Although the AUS T20 XI was missing a host of key players, it was for once a selected T20 team full of players who actually were solid T20 players.

But as usual, AUS lose another T20 game and its no coincidence because as i always say the selectors since the first T20 world cup in 2007 have picked AUS T20 sides in a clueless manner.

In my humble opinion this is what the BEST AUS T20 should be once all are fit & available:

Watson
Warner
Bailey (c)
M Marsh
D Hussey
Wade
Henriques
Hogg
Starc
Harris

S Marsh, Faulkner, Johnson, O'Keefe

If a team close to this is not picked, then no-one should expect any serious improvement in Australia T20 form in the next year nor in the 2014 cup in Bangladesh.

 

[sifter132]

I hate international T20...not so much the final product, but the way it's jammed haphazardly into international schedules. Selecting your 'best team' and getting them to play together regularly is basically impossible. The only time you can spend more than a week together is at the World T20, and by then it might be to late to get any cohesion.