God help me - the Test Cricket thread

[DJC]

DJ , this was the last test and we retain the Sir Frank Worrell trophy..weird fixturing imo playing only two tests.South Africa and India only played in a two test series that was also tied one all. Agree on Hartley being man of the match.
Windies doing well is great for the game even though we lost and hopefully inspires some more kids like Joseph to take up the game and make the Windies a force again.

I was looking forward to a third test against the Windies with their tails up 

The selectors will just quietly sweep this loss under the table and Smith will open against the Kiwis  : 

[LP]

We played half-ar5ed cricket, they are a B-Grade batting line up and we bowled C-Grade on a pitch offering significant assistance to a beginner who wasn't taken seriously by our batsmen so they mostly failed. The relative truth is exposed in the wash up, not after one innings.

Smith failed to demonstrate his batting credentials, compare his failure to farm the strike to that of say an Alan Border innings and you can see how far off Smith is, he was batting for survival.

All in all we deserved to lose, but the wokeism surrounding our test cricket at the moment means nobody was to blame!

If we had played our "Second string" bowlers, like Boland, Richardson, Neser, Ellis, I suspect we would have cleaned up the WI under 200.

But in the bigger picture, the WI win should be good for test cricket long term, but it would have been even better if it was less disingenuous.

[dodge]

Just expected to win, mucked around and got the according result.  The team is comfortable and no one is willling to change it to make it fresher by bringing in new players - even the touted openers have all had a crack at it and been found wanting.  Test cricket shouldn't be a retirement fund.

S Joseph, however, was amazing. It was really easy to barrack for him and the Windies. A few others did their bit really well.

Smith - If you need a challenge by moving to opener time you retired. Bowlers have worked you out.
Labuschange - concentrate on batting and not the rubbish that you do.
Green - ??? No confidence.  He gets pumped up, but don't see it.
Marsh - back to his old ways. If Pakistan could catch we would be asking why he is in the team
Head - take the good with the bad - gets a lot of Goldens.

Bowlers - don't bounce the tail enders - hit the top of off.  Don't complain about the pink ball and surface just because it is a little harder to get a wicket - concentrate on bowling properly and getting them out.

[ElwoodBlues1]

Just expected to win, mucked around and got the according result.  The team is comfortable and no one is willling to change it to make it fresher by bringing in new players - even the touted openers have all had a crack at it and been found wanting.  Test cricket shouldn't be a retirement fund.

S Joseph, however, was amazing. It was really easy to barrack for him and the Windies. A few others did their bit really well.

Smith - If you need a challenge by moving to opener time you retired. Bowlers have worked you out.
Labuschange - concentrate on batting and not the rubbish that you do.
Green - ??? No confidence.  He gets pumped up, but don't see it.
Marsh - back to his old ways. If Pakistan could catch we would be asking why he is in the team
Head - take the good with the bad - gets a lot of Goldens.

Bowlers - don't bounce the tail enders - hit the top of off.  Don't complain about the pink ball and surface just because it is a little harder to get a wicket - concentrate on bowling properly and getting them out.

Last comment about the bowlers is so true, late order partnerships have hurt us and then you look at the bowling maps and you find  one ball only in a session from our quicks would have hit the stumps.
We have got carried away with this short stuff at the tail tactic after initial success with it vs England and rather than using it as a shock tactic its become the norm and hindering our ability to remove the tailenders..

[spf]

Interesting video about Shamar Joseph's origins. Quite interesting.

https://youtu.be/Yn4aagq5j1I?si=Aw9_VGI9ZvtKjR1v

Just think, before the Gabba test, people were questioning if the West Indies could handle the pink ball etc, when you know that S.Joseph grew up bowling lemons and limes, I think you can safely say he had the pink ball covered - as evidenced.

Boy, they have one there.

[spf]

Another, (amateur) video, of Shamar Joseph arriving back in Guyana to a hero's welcome. When you watch it, you really get a sense how much this means to the region. I hope he doesn't get overawed by it all and just keeps doing what he does.

https://youtu.be/DyDmZ1s06GY?si=TaLzI6vXUpmBud-y

[LP]

While Smith did OK getting a start, before we crumbled, I remain convinced that Smith as opener does more for Smith's own career than it does for Australian cricket.

He is basically extending his own career at the expense of developing the next pair of openers. We've let these blokes go on too long, they won't go because they earn too much money, they have to be pushed!

[DJC]

Not Test cricket but concerning a potential Test cricketer:

Victorian skipper, Will Sutherland, was dismissed early in the Prahran first XI innings last weekend.  He heard that the second XI only had ten players and volunteered as their sub fielder against Geelong.

[LP]

Not Test cricket but concerning a potential Test cricketer:

Victorian skipper, Will Sutherland, was dismissed early in the Prahran first XI innings last weekend.  He heard that the second XI only had ten players and volunteered as their sub fielder against Geelong.

A bunch of people around national cricket have stated that Sutherland should be our next long term test captain, but alas he was born and plays for the wrong state.

[Milhanna13]

This could be the innings that kicks off Cam Green's career.  Seeming deck, team in trouble.  If he could push on to a 100, and get the team up to 275-odd, it would be a great knock