Australian Cricket - Crisis, What Crisis ??

[JonHenry]

Our pace bowlers do nothing with the ball...best quicks in the world are Rabada, Abbas and probably Bumrah...they all can swing and seam the new and old ball, once the shine is off and the ball softens ours are next to useless, sure we dont help them with our pitch preparation but you have to be able to move the ball on dead wickets and thats the hallmark of the great bowlers.

This might be part of it:
The Australian- Peter Lalor
India’s pace bowlers produced reverse swing in the Boxing Day Test match, but Australia’s have little hope of finding it as they operate under a strict new policy after the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.

The team struggled to find an acceptable level of aggression on the field in the matches that followed the incident, but appears to have found a way since Tim Paine stood up to Virat Kohli in Perth.

An acceptable level of ball maintenance is yet to be discovered.
That department was once run by David Warner and was successful in getting the ball into a state where reverse would offer assistance after the shine was gone from the new ball. Mitchell Starc was particularly effective when the ball started to misbehave, never more so than in the team’s first win in South Africa

Warner was celebrated by the team for the work he did and fielders were under strict instructions not to sweat on the ball or damage its shined side — both negate reverse swing.

Umpires in first-class cricket were spoken to ahead of the season by Cricket Australia and have passed on a message to all state teams that they are closely monitoring the ball this season.

Teams were told the person who shines the ball cannot have chewing gum or mints in their mouth at the time. There has also been a crackdown on bouncing the ball into the centre strip.

All sides use mints to polish the ball and the practice of throwing the ball into the rough on return is common, but frowned upon.

The wicket area in the first two Tests was well grassed, which made it almost impossible to get the ball roughed up enough to reverse, but India’s seamers had it going at the MCG while Australia’s did not.

Statistics published by Cricinfo indicate just how much better the visitors have been with the older ball.

The Indian quicks have taken 15 wickets at an average of 22 runs after the 41st over, while the Australians have just six at 46. The Australians take a wicket every 100 deliveries with the ball in that period, the Indians need only half as many.

Last year against England, Australia took 19 wickets at an average of 30 in the same period.

In an exclusive column for News Corp, captain Tim Paine acknowledged that his side was tentative about ball maintenance. “We accept there is no margin for error for us,” he said.

“We have to be spot-on with everything we do with the ball and we will be.

“We will be watched closely as we were in Dubai. Every time the ball went around in the field the spotlight was on us.”

Paine indicated before the series in the UAE that ball maintenance, which had once been the subject of meetings and endless discussions, would be handed back to the bowlers.

“They have taken a bit more ownership of the ball and obviously they’ve got to bowl with it,” Paine said at the time.

“I think it’s a good idea. We’ll have some guys holding it a bit more while the bowlers are bowling and they’re traditionally going to be sweating a bit more.

“In cricket teams I’ve been in, the bowlers tend to be pushed to the side and the batters take over the ball.

“We’ve spoken to our quicks. We’ve got ‘Starcy’ (Mitchell Starc) and ‘Sidds’ (Peter Siddle), who are really experienced, they know exactly what they want to do and it’s up to the rest of us to support them.”

Achieving reverse swing almost became an arms race in South Africa with both sides accusing the other of ball-tampering almost from the first day.

Starc’s bowling in Durban was the difference in the first match. The seamer took five wickets in a session on day two and three in an over on day four when the ball began to reverse.

“Very rarely do you see it happen day one, first session (like it did in Durban),” then-coach Darren Lehmann said after that game. “Obviously, there are techniques used by both sides to get the ball to reverse and that’s just the way the game goes. I have no problems with it. I don’t mind the ball moving.”

The South Africans, who had received penalties for ball-tampering in previous years, resolved to be better with their ball maintenance in the second Test and were.

“There was a real difference in skill with the reverse swing,” captain Faf du Plessis said. “Starc reverse swings the ball at pace and the only (similar) weapon we have right now is Kagiso (Rabada).”

New coach Justin Langer promised when he came into the job that ball-tampering would not occur on his watch.

“My honest view is it’s an international problem,” Langer told former Test teammate Adam Gilchrist in a Fox Cricket interview.

“But I can’t for a single second understand how we took sandpaper out on to the field. That doesn’t make any sense to me.

“The issue with people ball-tampering is something that’s going on internationally, and that’s a real worry.

“We’ve got to get the pitches right around the world so that the ball does move, whether it spins or swings. But to go to the point we did was a huge mistake.”