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m0nty

Well said that man.

Carrot

I'm with you, Tone.

I can remember when we were routinely thumping everyone that it co-incided with a so-called golden era of batting. Everyone seemed to be averaging over 50 in Test cricket in those days, especially in the subcontinent. India seemed to have its pick of batsmen with outstanding records for instance, but were only a middle-ranking side and couldn't win away. It was in stark contrast to the 80s where mid 30s wasn't considered that bad - Mike Gatting, Allan Lamb, Gus Logie, Larry Gomes, Geoff Marsh and Graeme Wood were all senior batsmen in their day and played a lot of matches.

This is why is really is difficult to compare players from different eras, and why I don't like articles like this - they imply that because things are different from twenty years ago that something's clearly going wrong and it's the result of a conspiracy of the ICC/IPL/BCCI/chuckers collective - or in this case the groundsmen for crying out loud.

I can't see how serving up roads is actually going to teach anyone about anything. Surely the sign of a good batsman is to play well in difficult conditions, and the only way you're going to do that is to do it early in your career. Added to which, matches of any format that are decided by sheer weight of runs alone are boring as hell, and aren't good for the game going forward.

Lou

Yes, agree completely with this. "I can't see how serving up roads is actually going to teach anyone about anything."

It teaches hard hands and lazy shot selection for starters. Our chaps don't need any help with that.

Besides, even if the Aussies are on the receiving end, a top-notch, rabbits in the headlights collapse is one of the truly spectacular and enthralling things to witness in cricket.

Russ

Quote of the day (source)

Then, amid a difficult Australia A tour of England on which Lyon's bowling became "muddled" in the words of the national selector John Inverarity, it is believed he was even offered technical suggestions by Mitchell Johnson.

That's gonna take some fixing.

Tony Tea

Mitch: "Gazza, you've got your arm too high."

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