Cricket Season Thread

Tiger-ferret said:
The team failed. I think Cummins made a mistake by sending them in but there you go.
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Australia had 2 days to run down 156 with 8 wickets in hand on a batters pitch. The toss had little to do with it. The hard work had been done well enough to set up the win with a very comfortable run chase.

It’s our batting and the leadership of our senior batsmen. They aren’t great at chasing. Remember this Windies side is thoroughly inexperienced and made batting look easier than our world test champions did….and they were facing a superior bowling attack.

The batsmen are the weak link in our squad. Time to change up the batting coaches?
 
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Mistymuzzle said:
Not with Hazelwood
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Did with Lyons. My point is, Smith when batting with the tail has confidence in their ability to handle the situation. Other players would try and hide the tailender from as much strike as possible. As time was not an issue, I would have looked for my signal from ball three and any thing loose before try and hit the boundary. Of course it only takes one ball so a tailender can get his poles knocked out of the ground facing one ball or six. Some batsmen seem to be very good in that situation, AB and Michael Bevan are two who come to mind.
 
supercoach said:
Did with Lyons. My point is, Smith when batting with the tail has confidence in their ability to handle the situation. Other players would try and hide the tailender from as much strike as possible. As time was not an issue, I would have looked for my signal from ball three and any thing loose before try and hit the boundary. Of course it only takes one ball so a tailender can get his poles knocked out of the ground facing one ball or six. Some batsmen seem to be very good in that situation, AB and Michael Bevan are two who come to mind.
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Lyon is usually the night watchman and if he didn’t play like a knob swinging for the fence like Starc and marsh, then maybe he would have helped Smith
 
tig_prmz said:
It happens.

People are being unncessarily harsh on the Aussie team. Their record is amazing- batsmen have off days.
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It is one the amusing aspects of Aussie cricket. One loss and the sky is falling. Funny that this drawn series is considered a failure while the drawn Ashes series last year is considered a success.
 
As someone who grew up admiring the great West Indies teams of the 70s-early 90s - it was fantastic to see some of this young talent come through and the emphatic last wicket was icing on the cake.

The BCCI-run ICC need to provide them with more opportunities to regularly gain exposure to top class international Test cricket for the good of the game!

From a critical perspective - Smith should not have taken the preceding single with just 9 runs remaining - but loved how Joseph iced it when given the target!
 
jadtiger said:
The mistake Cummins made was in declaring in the first innings.I doubt if he would do it again
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Disagree. How many runs do you reckon Hazelwood would've contributed? Aus should've had both WI openers (at least) out in that last half an hour night session but "great slips catcher" Smith dropped yet another sitter - as happens with monotonous regularity. WI number 3/4/5/6 then had the best day batting conditions to make solid contributions.

On the flipside the blame lies largely with the middle order; Labuschagne, Head and Marsh only managed to contribute 39 runs across the entire match on a pretty benign wicket.
 
Interestingly, the two most heroic performances of the last 10 years against the Aussies came after that player copped an injury. Joseph and his toe in this Test, and before that Ben Stokes getting sconned in the helmet early in his innings at Headingly 2019.
 
supercoach said:
Did with Lyons. My point is, Smith when batting with the tail has confidence in their ability to handle the situation. Other players would try and hide the tailender from as much strike as possible. As time was not an issue, I would have looked for my signal from ball three and any thing loose before try and hit the boundary. Of course it only takes one ball so a tailender can get his poles knocked out of the ground facing one ball or six. Some batsmen seem to be very good in that situation, AB and Michael Bevan are two who come to mind.
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Yeah Mick Bevan was an absolute master of chasing down targets whilst batting with weak partners. The Huss was great at it also.
I think Smith showed us yesterday how it’s not done.
 
Buttface said:
I reckon they might have discussed it, and due to the field all being on the fence, a 4, or a 2 were hard to get but Smith was still getting them early in the over and then going for the single on ball four bcoz if he goes for the single on ball five they’ll bring the field up and you risk not getting a single at all and then Hazo is left facing 7 balls every 2 overs. If Hazo thinks he can get through an over from one of the bowlers no worries then sure that’s the tactic, but when both bowlers are just as likely to knock him over, and add in the field setting tactic’s WI employed, then Smith’s, or possibly Hazo’s, or possibly the team’s tactic of taking the single on ball four is sound. Hazo faces four balls every 2 overs leaving Smith facing 8. Not to mention you are getting the extra single per over to reduce to target.
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You might be right re Hazo and last 2 overs but I'm talking from Starc down
Starc I understand a little the way he was going if he survived another few overs might have knocked off a major chunk of the runs .However Cummings and Lyon had major share of strike . Smith taking a run first ball a few times .
I think Smith was out to prove he can open and he did that and for that well done
He was aware of the criticism he was copping
He also wanted a " not out " " carried the bat " which is a big deal in the cricketing world
I know as when young I did it but nof many other notable things with the bat LOL
 
Cummins decision to declare was justified at the time, they took an early wicket which was the intention, but Cummins forgot they had all the time in world to play and he was humming along and could have eked more runs out before him or Hazlewood fell.

He took a pretty mature approach to it. He basically admitted he got it wrong and they paid the price.

Australia's batting (at least as a unit,) has waned since Langer moved on, at least in perception. Marnus and Smith have been in a rough patch for a good 18 months. We seem to be relying heavily on a superb individual innings by one player. Adding to this, the Windies showed how beatable Australia is if you can field properly. As the old adage goes, catches win matches and we offer them up in spades. The Pakis could have potentially won the series if they held on to their catches.
 
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