Australian Cricket - Crisis, What Crisis ??

[LP]

Money talks, fear walks.

We've got players shitting themselves about touring those countries for test cricket. They think if the indigenous public see them as playing fair, and as a result of that being easy beats, that the lunatics won't blow up the tour bus! All it does is make the Aussie's sporting road kill, while Kohli continues to maximise the fear of touring India as a match tactic!

The Saffies, as they are prone to be, want the fight so they are up for it, they have evolved in a racially combative environment so they deal with it much better, that is why they are going through a golden period.

The Aussie's want to be tucked safely in bed with a nice warm glass of Milo!

It's both a moronic and hypocritical mindset, because the same Aussie players are queuing up to get on a flight to play in the IPL fearless in the face of cash!

That tells you that the problem isn't the crowd, it's the board executives, politicians and bureaucrats!

[Professer E]

I don't see it that way LP, I've seen a few of our boys at close hand and they are fair dinkum tough competitors.  However, the IPL is a serious distraction for the fringe and second tier bloke, the "I'm not going to play tests, I need to make hay while I can types".  No more grinding away in the shield for 10 years trying to bridge a skill gap a la Hussey or Rogers, it's now a couple of games for the state and straight off to Chennai or Kolkata etc. 

I feel that the test players have been so  overloaded by .... noise (for want of a better word)... from on high that they have forgotten how to (a) play and (b) win.  FFS, what bozos up the food chain took decent, really quiet kids like Bancroft and Smith or Peter Handscombe or Burns and got them so wound up that they tried to be in your face hard asses???  Be yourselves, not something you ain't.

It's pretty simple really ... pick the best side (not the selector's and coaches favourites) and just play cricket.  Less over-thinking and more doing.

[Pratty]

Sorry haven't read all the posts and haven't ben on for a while, but I'd have Peter Handscomb back in the Test team. Very tempted to keep Marnus Labuschagne in. I love his versatility and that he can bowl leggies. Marcus Stoinis is a superstar in the making. Needs a run at it at Test level IMO.

There are a bunch of superstar kids coming through who are teenagers or 20 21 years olds. We're going to be set if they continue on their merry way at Shield level! I'm hoping we bring some in to the international ODI and/or Test team. Still reckon ODI's, you blood a bunch of your next Test level players, as we did many moons ago.

[LP]

It's pretty simple really ... pick the best side (not the selector's and coaches favourites) and just play cricket.  Less over-thinking and more doing.

Well I agree about this part, but on the other stuff I think IPL has removed the hunger required to be a test player for every country except India.

It is absolutely no accident that IPL is almost by design weakening international cricket, and it's no accident that many BCCI test players pick and choose the odd game here or there while staying mostly in the background to concentrate on test cricket. While most of the BCCI's opponents are talent raped by the IPL.

I've heard that if you are an BCCI test player you get the full IPL contract, whether you play one game or ten games, the BCCI compensate test players to allow them to sit out of the IPL and concentrate on test cricket. But if you are an international cricketer you only get pro-rata based on how many IPL games you play, and the other less rich cricket boards do not compensate players who miss IPL games due to test matches!

[Professer E]

The kiwis call out a bloke for chucking - who has been called out four times already in his career - and the calling out party is jumped upon. 

What a surprise,  it's a spinner from Asia with a bodgy action.  They changed the rules to allow this grey area into the rules bad now they don't,  can't or won't police it.

The original rules were pretty simple,  you bowl with a straight arm or you F off any play baseball.  This fifteen degree rule is just bull crap. 

[LP]

The original rules were pretty simple,  you bowl with a straight arm or you F off any play baseball.  This fifteen degree rule is just bull crap.

You can blame Dav Whatmore for this, he played the race card when he was coaching Muralitharan and it looked like he was going to be banned for chucking!

[Professer E]

One of the greatest loads of hogwash I've ever seen on a cricket field.  We treated one of our own - Meckiff - like trash in the 1960s over chucking but they modified the rules because of the race card. And the treatment of Darrel Hair for doing his job -  calling a dodgy action for what it was within the rules - makes me want to fucking well puke.

I've been shown by a former Australian Test leg spinner how to bowl a "doosra" and the only way to put the desired revolutions on the ball is to throw it by unfurling the wrist and bending the elbow for leverage - its a throw pure and simple.  I also know that CA won't let coaches teach it because it is considered a throw and an illegitimate delivery.

[flyboy77]

Indeed, Meckiff was no chucker.

And certainly no more than 90% of today's quicks....

Muri? Pure chucker....

[Professer E]

He cocked his wrist,  which is what they all do.  He was the scapegoat in a witch hunt,  buts that's a discussion for another time.

Believe it not,  I saw him down the nets a fortnight ago, with Bill Lawry in tow.    Ian's son or grandson (I'm not sure which)  plays for seniors at my kids' club.

[LP]

Here's a tip for CA.

Don't bother sacking the fitness guy when you load up the test squad with busted-ar5e sons of nepotism!

Selection in the Australian Test Team is available to everyone, not just your relatives!