12-07-2017, 11:05 PM
(12-07-2017, 02:44 AM)crashlander link Wrote:I would not have selected Mitch Marsh.
In his favour, he is a big, athletic lad who hit the cover off the ball and bowl about the pace of the present English bowlers. That is not a bad set of traits to have.
However, as a bowler he does not tend to move the ball in the air or off the pitch enough. Too many of his balls come through gun-barrel-straight! That is not good for an international bowler.
Secondly, as a batsman he does not deal well with a moving ball. This means he has periods of low scores against pace or spin.
These weaknesses are not the things to bring into test cricket, especially against the Poms.
It has been a LONG time since we had a true allrounder in the side. In the '70's, almost every player could and did bowl a bit. Keith Stackpole had a pretty good leg break in his arsenal. Ian Chappell bowled some leggies. Greg Chappell was a medium pacer who could move ht eball either way. Doug Walters was the official 'patnership breaker'.
After that we still had guys who were wickettakers as bowlers. Simon Katich bowled chinamen and bowled them well. Injury restricted his bowling, but he took 6 wickets in a innings. Bevan was an unreliable bowler, but his left arm wronguns simply couldn't be read. He got a lot of wickets, and had he better contro he would have made the team as a bowler.
Now we don't have that. Warner and Smith can bowl leggies, but they rarely do.
We need a batsman who can bowl properly. Not many of them around.
If Marsh is going to bat in the top 6 his strength needs to lean towards his batting. He's always going to be the 5th bowler, and a very handy one he is, always good for a wicket or two, but importantly we need him to make run. His bowling is going to be more relief.
Outside of a pure genuine all rounder probably the ideal type you were talking about was Andrew Symonds. A genuine batsman that averaged over 40, who was a more than proficient bowler that could provide relief.