Australia vs India

[hujsh]

Re: Australia vs India

Playing 10 men won't help

Also i don't think you could say Hauritz it part of the 'club'. He's the best of a bad bunch as far as spinners go ATM

[lemmon]

Re: Australia vs India

What a fantastic player Tendulkar has been, is this the last time we will play against him at Test level?

This, every accolade he receives is deserved. In 50 years we will have the privilage to say that I saw him bat and to tell the grandkids. We've been extrememly lucky to see some of the guys we have, as a younger fella Ive already had the pleasure of witnessing guys like Tendulkar, Warne, Mcgrath, Murali, Ponting, Lara, Gilchrist, Kallis. Legends of the game

[LostDoggy]

Re: Australia vs India

Also i don't think you could say Hauritz it part of the 'club'. He's the best of a bad bunch as far as spinners go ATM

Which just shows how rubbish our selection "policies" are. We've become so entrenched in our ways that we can't think our way out of a paperbag -- if your no.1 spinner is so useless that he can't take wickets IN FLIPPIN' INDIA, they may as well not play a specialist spinner and get some value from the position. North is no worse or better as a spinner (in terms of results) than Hauritz, you may as well come up with a plan to share the spinning load between him, Clarke, and maybe Cam White or Katich, and get more batting into the team.

The problem is that our former success has cemented a certain 'doctrine' into our Test culture and become dogma that cannot be questioned and must be followed blindly, and blinded us to other ways of picking a team. This despite the 'formula' not having worked for the best part of three years now, and arguably only 'worked' for the last few years before that because some of the greatest players of all time (Pigeon, Warne, Gilchrist, Hayden) were holding the team together for dear life and pulling us out of some almighty scrapes (which should have been seen as the selectors as warning signs but were instead used as validation for their backwardness and lack of innovation).

CA have been using retirements as an excuse for a while now -- yet, I guarantee you that none of the 4 teams ahead of us has a Shane Warne in it.

It doesn't help that in Ponting we have one of the least imaginative players, much less captains, of recent times, who, in lieu of intelligence, likes to fall back on 'safe' doctrines instead of having to think. His insistence on always batting first, bordering on superstition, is only one symptom of this. He is the best Australian batsman of his generation, the worst modern day captain by a country mile. Only Tendulkar in his disastrous stint comes close, but at least the authorities in India were quick enough to recognise it and didn't burden him with the captaincy ever again.

[hujsh]

Re: Australia vs India

Some great point in both threads there Lantern