AGB Cricket

ON THE WRONG TRACK

Virat Kohli reckons home teams should be able to prepare pitches to suit the home team:

"Why not [turning pitches]? We were given flattest of tracks during practice matches in England and Australia and then suddenly presented with a green-top during the Tests. During practice matches, we would face those 120kmph bowlers … If they [England and Australia] wanted to be fair to us, they could have provided us with same kind of tracks for practice matches, like what were used in Tests.

The sensible perspective says it is reasonable for a home team to prepare a favourable pitch so long as the pitch does not fall apart on day one or is a raging greentop which has both teams batting on day one and the match ending in two and a half days.

My personal preference is that pitches are more challenging than they have been in recent years and the batsmen have to earn their runs.

The thing is, contrary to Kohli's opinion, Australia did not serve up green-tops against India. Australia is dreadful against the moving ball, but in the four Tests made 333 and 240, 4 for 659 declared, 369, and 7 for 604 declared and 5 for 167 declared.

India came with the worst bowling attack to tour Australia in several summers, and their batsmen wanted to go home before 2012 started.

The pitches had bugger all to do with it.

Stroll over to Different Strokes for a similar, well, misconception:

All countries have their own inconsistencies to be ashamed of so I’m not suggesting that Australia is alone in this regard. Far from it. Living in Australia, I just get to see a lot more of the local cricketing news so I’m better qualified to make comment on Australian examples. A few examples spring to mind….let’s think back to the times when we prepared turning tracks in the 1980s to beat the West Indies. A fair enough tactic too so long as there’s no complaints if other teams prepare pitches to suit their strengths.

I don't know precisely how much cricket Michael Jeh has watched in Australia, but when I think back to the 1980s I don't remember us preparing turners to beat the West Indies. I don't even remember us beating the Windies. Sure, we won the odd dead rubber in Sydney where the pitch was a traditional turner, but everywhere else the Windies smashed us on great tracks. In fact, it has always been a particular gripe of mine that we do not serve up home team tracks.

DON'T MENTION THE BORDER-GAVASKAR TROPHY

Dean Jones mentioned it once and he thinks he got away with it:

THE WORST PERFORMERS

India. The BCCI and some of its players must realise that it is very important to play well away from home. I am over their excuses. If it was not for the courageous performances of some countries when fighting away from home through World War I and World War II, we would not be playing cricket today! I know I am pulling a long bow here, but you must ask yourself, if we lost both those wars, would we be playing cricket?

Long bow? Mark Waugh as quirky is a long bow, but an understandable misapplication if Slogger Slatts is your favourite commentator:

SPECIAL COMMENTS

If I were Channel Nine, I would be hiring Mark Waugh. I love his quirky humour, his straight-forward, blunt analysis and his opinions. Mind you, I still love listening to Bill Lawry and Michael Slater.

"Special" comments is right, but.

SAME DIFF, DIFFERENT E.H. DIFF

Does any side that visits Australia whine quite as much as India? Malcolm Conn lays into their "over-paid, over-indulged, over-aged bunch of prima-donnas":

Indian team a "rabble with no redeeming features"

CAN India find anything else to whinge about?

Thank goodness Tuesday night's game against Sri Lanka in Hobart will be India's last on this tour - barring some major mathematical quirk of results which will see them make the finals.

FLICK THE SWITCH?

Wednesday's T20 at the West Sydney Wastelands had rock all going for it, and would have had even less than rock all going for it if it was not for Cow Corner Warner's switch hit, which re-started the debate over the shot's legality:

Dave Warner's blow ignites debate between left and right

DAVE Warner's sensational 100m switch hit for six in Wednesday's Twenty20 match has reignited debate over the legality of the shot.

Dave Hussey loved it, I think:

Teammate David Hussey - a batsman - is a fan of the shot.

But Hussey admitted he got frustrated with Warner when bowling to him at training. "Dave does it to me in the nets all the time. It frustrated me, so I beamed him - I tried to hit him in the head. It didn't go down very well, so we had a bit of a falling out for a couple of moments."

"No, no, no. You hit him on the head. You naughty moose."

FOURTH TEST: ADELAIDE OVAL

Dead rubber, anyone?

Yes please.

After last summer's Adelaide Test, when we were three for rock all against England, Michael Clarke got out last ball day four to Kevin Pietersen, and we collapsed on day five just before the life boats showed up when rain washed out the rest of the match, an aggravation-free Test of "beautiful Adelaide Oval" references and Les Favell will be a welcome relief.

BY GEORGE!

New old boy Brad "George" Hogg has been rewarded for his stellar Big Bash and recalled to the Australian T20 side, while George "Brearley" Bailey, fresh from an underwhelming Big Bash, has been named captain in place of the even less whelming Cameron White:

• George Bailey (c)
• David Warner (vc)
• Travis Birt
• Dan Christian
• Xavier Doherty
• James Faulkner
• Aaron Finch
• Brad Hogg
• David Hussey
• Brett Lee
• Mitchell Marsh
• Shaun Marsh
• Clint McKay
• Matthew Wade

J. ARTHUR RANK!

Gautam Gambhir has called for India to prepare "rank turners" in India. When haven't India prepared rank turners?

Prepare 'rank turners' for visiting teams - Gambhir

"We need to realise that when we go overseas every country prepares wickets to their own strengths. So once the other teams come home we need to prepare tracks to our advantage as well. So there should not be a lot of talk when Australia or South Africa or England come home that we should not be preparing turners. I think we should be playing to our strengths, and if we can prepare rank turners, that's where their technique and their temperament will be tested."

"That's where they will be tested, and we'll see how good they are against spin bowling. So we shouldn't be hesitant in preparing turners to our advantage, and that has been our strength and if we can do that people should support us rather than saying we should not be preparing turners. We should always be preparing something which is to our advantage."

To paraphrase The Doyen: just reminding us he's not fond of lively pitches.

CAPTION'S LOG

MS SLOWNI

Greg Baum mused on Twitter that it's strange a bloke gets pinged for a slow over-rate in a game that finished in two and a half days. Kebabs obviously needed Mike Hussey to pick up the slack:

Dhoni banned from Adelaide Test for slow over-rate

MS Dhoni, India's captain, has been banned for the Adelaide Test after India were found to be two overs short of the required over-rate in Perth.

India sent down 76 overs in 362 minutes in the only innings they bowled in at the WACA ground. There were allowances made for the 10 wickets they took and other interruptions for movement behind sight screen and injury timeouts, but India were still found short.

Dhoni pleaded guilty, and said he was aware of the regulations. He was fined 40% of his match fees, and the rest of the team was docked 20% each. This was India's second over-rate offence in the last 12 months. Dhoni had been on notice after India were found short in Barbados in June-July last year.

CHIP OFF THE OLD COCK

David Warner emulates Brad Haddin:

David Warner blows India away at the WACA

Brad Haddin was right. India do break quickly. Even David Warner admitted as much.

"The challenge for them, as I see it, is they have to work out how they can play outside of India," he said.

"I don't know when Tendulkar and Dravid retire where Indian cricket is going to be with the youngsters. They are going to have to try and work hard on green wickets as well."

"Virat was saying 'talk about your averages' but when we go to India it will be a different story," Warner said. "I turned around and said to him 'we will probably average an extra 10 over in India because the wickets here are a bit lively and the wickets there are a bit flat.' No one has said anything the two previous games. I think a lot of teams know, especially with myself and Ed (Cowan) if you start having a go at us we actually enjoy that and we love the challenge.

"We like to grind it back in their faces and that's what we have done today. Hopefully they know how to keep themselves quiet and we can carry on."

XXXX OFF

This beer business is dripping with WWE Sports Entertainment. All it needs is an Aussie to jump off a ladder and hit an Indian with folding chair:

Dhoni accuses Aussies of fabricating stories about Indian team

INDIAN captain M.S. Dhoni has accused Australia of getting on the drink and making up stories about his team.

Dhoni has flatly rejected claims that his team are being fractured by internal conflicts despite suggestions by Ryan Harris and Brad Haddin that the Indians turn on each other when put under pressure.

"It's something I think is happening after a few beers, the opposition is just sipping and dreaming of it, because it has not really happened," Dhoni said yesterday.

Frothing at the mouth: ruction talk hit for six

A SMILING Mahendra Singh Dhoni has deflected the pressure on his captaincy and his embattled touring team by accusing Australian players of fabricating stories about rifts in the Indian dressing room after a few beers.

As India tries to avoid its seventh consecutive loss abroad at the WACA Ground from today and to keep a tenuous grip on the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the captain responded to questions about his side's togetherness by suggesting the Australians dreamed up the stories while drinking in their own dressing room.

WACA staff busted drinking beer on uncovered WACA pitch

AN early morning pitch inspection has been ordered after video emerged of a drinking party on the WACA ground last night.

Indian officials were shocked when shown the footage of WACA staff on the pitch last night, the day before the third Test.

The group of around 10 people were employees of the ground who traditionally have a party under the scoreboard the night before the Test. It has been reported curator Cameron Sutherland was among the party.

They advanced onto the ground and proceded to take the covers off the wicket. Some sat on the pitch and drank beer for about seven minutes before the covers were replaced.

THIRD TEST: WACA

Gideon Haigh is spot on:

The talk has been talked now Australia must walk the walk

THE first great heavyweight champion, John L Sullivan, used to greet every reporter alike: "Write what you like, son, and tell 'em John L Sullivan said so." It harnessed every imagination in the making of his myth.

The talked must now be walked, and few things catch up with cricket teams so swiftly as a feigned swagger. But when it comes off, the effect is powerful. John L Sullivan was on to something those many years ago.

GOING FOR 'BROKE'

One is beginning to get the impression this current Indian tour would have been a quieter affair had India brought out Harbhajan and Shreesanth.

The tour was sailing along smoothly until Julia Gillard left the Indians waiting in the street, then E-Kohli flipped off the Sydney crowd, Spearmint Rhyno bagged the Indians, Instant Karma flipped off Perth karters, and now Klutzy Haddin is getting stuck into the Indians as well as giving TLM tips on how to bat.

(For the record: it does not say 'We've broken them' anywhere in the article.)

'We've broken them'

BRAD Haddin has fired a sensational verbal shot at struggling India ahead of the third Test in Perth, saying the tourists ''break quicker than anyone in the world'' and turn on each other when events are not going their way.

''The longer we could keep them out on the field, the bigger chance we had of breaking them,'' Haddin said. ''We know this side can be as fragile as any team in the world if things aren't going their way, and they can turn on each other and the media turns on them pretty quick.

''We knew if we could keep them out there and put the numbers like we did on the board, we'd get the rewards, because they break quicker than anyone in the world.''

One would be tempted to conclude Haddin is on a rare surge of form. That he had not 'dropped' Gumby Gamby, if you can call it a drop. Had not dropped Tendulkar, only for Hussey to bail him out. Had never embarked on his now-world-infamous charge in South Africa. Was not averaging 20-odd in 2011. No doubt he remembers throwing his glove at the ball in India.

Do any of the Australian players remember Australia has been rubbish for ages? That the batting line-up is a collapse waiting to happen? That the last time Australia played India in Perth it was on the back of a 2-0 lead accompanied by talk of a four-pronged attack smashing the Indians on the traditional bouncy Perth deck - except that India won? That South Africa won in Perth in December 2008? That Australia struggled to beat the, ahem, mighty Windies in 2009? The funny thing about the 2008 India Test was that India batted first and from the very first over it was obvious the pitch was a road. So much for pace and bounce.

Guess what I'm saying is this: you sledge when you're the best and you're arrogant, but at least you talk the walk and vice versa; you sledge when you're struggling and you look like a dick.

INSTANT 'MESSAGING'

Note: henceforth, bird (the finger) is to be spelled 'bird'.

'Birds' of a feather, and all that. Why is Instant Karma giving the 'bird' to Perth go-karters just a few days after E-Kohli gave the 'bird' to Sydney cricket fans? I mean, apart from the obvious fact that go-karters, Sydneysiders and Sandgropers should reflexively be given the 'bird'. Why is Instant even at the karts? I'm six-four and I could not fit into one of those minuscule conveyances. We await the "racists taunts" excuse:

Sharma in trouble for the 'bird'

INDIAN paceman Ishant Sharma could find himself in hot water after giving a middle-finger salute to locals during the team's visit to a go-karting track in Perth.

The incident comes only days after batsman Virat Kohli was fined half his match fee for the same gesture towards the crowd during the SCG Test. Kohli claimed on Twitter that spectators were shouting abuse about his mother and sister, but later expressed regret via a Board of Control for Cricket in India spokesman after being charged by the ICC match referee.

 

A VIEW TO A 'KILL'

Always figured there was not much point sledging unless you were cock of the walk, otherwise you just look like a cock. Even then most sledging leaves me cold. It is almost as though Spearmint Rhyno has forgotten Australia has been rubbish for a couple of years. We await the "taken out of context":

Ryan Harris 'in for the kill'

"They are down and out already. We know that when things aren't going great for this Indian side they get frustrated because there is a lot of individuals in that side."

"Their team wouldn't be sticking together at all right now."

"A lot of them don't like travelling and I am sure some of them would already be thinking about going home."

"I am aiming to go in for the kill in Perth. We want to keep them down and win this series 4-0."

"The Indian batsmen are not massive fans of having the ball bouncing around their ears and they will certainly cop a fair bit of that in Perth."

"I love bowling in Perth where the pitch is getting back to its old way of being fast and bouncy.

"The Indians have already lost two Tests and this is the pitch they will like playing on the least.

"I had a bit of a personal milestone in Perth last summer, but the bottom line was we lost the Ashes series."

"If I could take nine wickets again in Perth and help us to a series win over India, that would be way better than last year."

BIRDIE NUM NUTS

SECOND TEST: SCG

Australia is all over India. The Aussies are on song, and set to dominate the series. The Indians are fading behind their aging champs, who have hung on too long, and are set to collapse into a bucket of whitewash.

The bowling is fiery. Pattinson, Siddle, Hilfenhaus and Lyon have made a habit of scything though batting line-ups.

The fielding is back to it's "these Aussies never drop those" and "these Aussies never miss" best and they have not dropped more than two catches in an innings for as long as I can't remember.

The batsmen went BIG in Melbourne, notching at least one 300+ innings. Ponting and Hussey have proved the doubters wrong and silenced the critics. And there has not been a collapse (excluding a minor blip of 4/23) for at least two Tests.

It's all good.

THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING IS IN THE BATTING

Justin Langer needs to be informed that until the Australian batting stops collapsing like a shithouse of cards, he will keep copping criticism. Until then he needs to HTGU (harden the Gnome up).

Dean Jones reveals that he stuck it up him:

WHAT I HATED

AFTER I presented the Test cap to Ed Cowan and the boys got into their warm-ups, the Australian batting coach Justin Langer confronted me regarding my criticism towards him. My belief is that Justin has not improved anyone in the team during his time as batting coach.

JL showed he was angry towards me and a confrontation was about to erupt. I thought it was selfish of him to put himself in front of the team when they were preparing for a Test.

JL gave me the ''Ted Whitten handshake'' and wanted an apology. It was a Mexican stand-off and I wasn't going to move until he released my hand. He might have a black belt in ''origami'' and he had a wonderful playing career, but his employment will depend on how the team performs with the bat and not by his career record. He needs to get over it. Welcome to coaching, JL!

I cannot believe the lack of discipline and application shown by some of our batsmen.

DOWN UNDER

You've heard Tony Grieg bellow "These Aussies, they never drop those!" again and again and again, repeat, etc, et al, ad nauseam over the journey, but Tony's exhortations do not match reality. (Well, derrr.) Especially against India in Australia. For some reason Australia don buttered fingers when India show up in the sunburnt country. The following is a list of the catches dropped by Australians against India in the last three series. The first name is the dropper, the second the droppee. The first number is the score on which the droppee was dropped and the second the droppee's eventual score. As you can see, some of the dropper's drops were rather expensive:

2003/04

First Test

Martyn / Sehwag / 16 (45)

MacGill / Ganguly / 103 (144)

Second Test

Ponting / Laxman / 65 (148)

Ponting / Laxman / 138 (148)

Gilchrist / Dravid / 9 (72)

Ponting / Dravid / 20 (72)

Third Test

Katich / Sehwag / 66 (195)

Langer / Sehwag / 73 (195)

Lee / Ganguly / 9 (37)

Gilchrist / Agarkar / 0 (0)

Gilchrist / Tendulkar / 12 (44)

Fourth Test

Katich / Chopra / 8 (45)

MacGill / Tendulkar / 149 (220)

MacGill / Laxman / 172 (178)

2007/08

First Test

Jaques / Dravid / 0 (5)

Jaques / Dravid / 5 (5)

Second Test

Gilchrist / Laxman / 49 (109)

Gilchrist / Dravid / 18 (53)

Gilchrist / Laxman / 77 (109)

Gilchrist / Harbhajan / 29 (63)

Symonds / Dravid / 18 (38)

Clarke / Ganguly / 43 (51)

Third Test

Clarke / Dravid / 7 (93)

Hussey / Sehwag / 43 (43)

Clarke / Laxman / 60 (79)

Fourth Test

Gilchrist / Laxman / 37 (51)

Hayden / Dhoni / 3 (16)

Jaques / Kumble / 7 (87)

Clarke / Sharma / 4 (14)

Ponting / Sharma / 10 (14)

Hussey / Sharma / 14 (14)

Clarke / Sehwag / 2 (151)

2011/12

First Test

Hussey / Sehwag / 11 (67)

Warner / Sehwag / 55 (67)

Haddin / Sehwag / 58 (67)

Second Test

Ponting / Sehwag / 23 (30)

Haddin / Gambhir / 66 (83)

Haddin / Tendulkar / 80 (80) Hussey caught it on the rebound.

Siddle / Khan 10 / (35)

Ponting / Khan 16 / (35)

FIRST TEST: MCG

Ever since I was a kid I have dreamed of blogging a Boxing Day Test at the MCG.

Overcast, cool, will it swing? Clarke won the toss and Australia will bat. Fingers crossed it was not a good toss to lose.

NDRS

The Nine Decision Review System.

The 2010 Border Gavaskar series was an oddity for Aussie cricket watchers as it did not involve a DRS. It was funny watching the First Test edge towards a thrilling conclusion, as first Instant Karma was given out LBW when the ball would have clearly missed the stumps, then a couple overs later Ojha was given not out to an LBW that would have smashed middle stump, only for Billy Bowden to imagine Ojha had got an edge (and reportedly dashed around afterwards desperately trying to convince everyone that Ojha had hit the ball). Funny how these things even out. 

There will almost certainly be umpiring mistakes in the 2011/12 BG series starting today, but it remains to be seen whether they even out. They did not even out in Wild Dogs 2008, when India certainly received the rougher end of the pineapple courtesy of their bete noir Morgan Freeman. Had the DRS been employed in that Test the result may well have turned out different. And yet, ironically, it is India who is the most strident opponent to the use of the DRS.

But it is not India's opposition to the DRS that interests me as much as what we sitting at home will see and hear.

Channel Nine warmed up their summer against NZ spruiking a new super Hot Spot. Why Nine, and spruiker-in-chief Tawny, feel the urge to so vigourously sell their technology is beyond me, unless it is to set up a summer of fun against India where every wrong and potentially wrong decision will be given a forensic dissection to prove the guilt or innocence of the umpire, and fill air-time.

Who will be the first commentator to say "that would not have been given out if we were using the DRS" or say "India will regret not using the DRS"?

Will it be Ian Chappell? A couple of weeks ago on 3AW he said he had been banging on about the inacuracy of Hawk Eye for years. He had? It has often puzzled me that Chappelli is good copy in print and interview, but rarely says anything incisive on Nine. I do not recall him smashing Hawk in print or interview, and I have never heard him smash it on Nine. Wonder what Les Favell would have made of the DRS.

Whatever the outcome of the series, and whichever way the howler-count falls, I am certainly looking forward to the first howler to watch Nine gives it the full treatment. Whether I am utterly sick of Nine's full treatment at the end of the summer is another thing.

TEST SQUAD

Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin, Dan Christian, Ed Cowan, Ben Hilfenhaus, Mike Hussey, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, James Pattinson, Ricky Ponting, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Dave Warner

THIS ONE TIME AT BRAND CAMP

When I wrote, almost two years ago, about The Writing Group I was taking the piss:

The performance of the Australian playing group will continue to be debated. The collapsible batting group, the sometimes toothless, sometimes erratic bowling group, the these-Aussies-never-drop-those fielding group, but what about the other group, the writing group? I'm not talking your Baums, Roebucks, Haighs, Cowards, Conns, Craddocks, the cricket poobahs who have been around from WG to WAG and who are paid to give opinions; I'm talking about the reporters who the editors have yet to let off the leash and who, well, report. They seem to be the ones through whom the CricAussie spin machine direct their mis-information.

Just back from the office Christmas lunch group, so how about I pretend group-leader Pat Howard and the CricAussie spin group are taking the piss, too:

Batsmen in group camp before Boxing Day

Cricket Australia today advised details of an Australian Batting Group Camp that will take place in the days leading up to the Australian squad assembling in Melbourne in advance of the Vodafone Boxing Day Test match against India.

CA’s General Manager Team Performance, Pat Howard, confirmed that five members of the Australian team that contested the second Vodafone Test against New Zealand earlier this week, Dan Christian (12th man for Hobart) and Shaun Marsh (fitness permitting) will meet in Melbourne from 20-22 December to fine-tune preparations ahead of Boxing Day.

KPI: KEY PERFORMANCE INJURY

Good news! Pat Cummins is now firmly ensconsed in the Australian cricket family and well on the way to a long term (if staccato) career as an Australian fast bowler after being diagnosed with the obligatory stress fracture:

Cummins to miss start of India series

Teen pace bowling star Pat Cummins will miss the start of Australia's home Test series against India after being diagnosed with a bone stress injury in his heel.

Cummins suffered the injury in his exciting debut in last month's second Test against South Africa which was first thought to be just bruising.

But scans have now revealed the bone stress problem.

Apparently the Argus report investigated Australia's injury plague. No doubt the flow-on effect from the remedies suggested by that investigation incorporate a substantial and unquantifiable lag time. (And a punch on the nose for everyone concerned with player fitness.)

RIGHT ARM UNORTHODOX

Living in the Pilbara in 1977/78, the only TV station was ABC. As a result I was unable to watch the first season of WSC, which was on Nine, but was able to watch the Australia/India five Test series, which was carried by the traditional broadcaster and accompanied by the likes of Norman May and Keith Miller.

Some of the standout memories from that summer were the tight result in Brisbane, Tony Mann's century in Perth, Bobby Simpson's return, Thommo staying with the establishment (possibly because he was coming off his shoulder injury), Australia's cast of no-names and a swag of interesting Indian players, including the most interesting, profiled in today's Age by Peter Hanlon:

Polio clean bowled

HE IS 66 now, virtually housebound after being hit by a truck in Bangalore, and confined to short walks aided by crutches lest the leg ulcer that won't heal opens again. Yet for what he represents, and the milestone he will hail, Bhagwath Chandrasekhar is a force as powerful as any India will send out this summer.