Here comes the Summer

[Beny]

New Zealand and Pakistan.

Can any of these teams beat us? If so why?

New Zealand may be a bit of a challenge but I dont belive that they have the depth or the talent to really make a game of it.

Pakistan are still a Team in crisis and I dont think It's going to be all that much of a challenge.

[Rachael]

New Zealand: what's the news on players fit / out.. and on form? Strikes me that a full strength and full of confidence NZ side is still a daunting prospect.. but (as was seen this summer in England) that the strength in depth is poor and that they are heavily dependent on having their best players on song.

If they play as they did against England this summer: no chance whatsoever.

Pakistan? God only knows. Will probably self destruct in at least one session in every match (if not in one sesion of every day of every match)... but one of those scarily unpredictable sides that can flourish on confidence born of early success.

If they get VERY lucky... anything could happen. I'd still back an Aussie whitewash though.

[Maranello]

Tests
Agree with you about New Zealand Rachael.

About Pakistan, they definitely have the players and the talent to challenge anyone, including Aus. However, it is a very young team, with a lot of players still finding their feet in international cricket - the Aus. tour should be an excellent learning experience for them but on the balance of probabilities, they will not win any Tests.

The direction in which Pakistan are going is the right one, but there is a long way to go - I envisage Pakistan beating Australia in 3-4 years time, not this winter. Pakistan and Aus do not play each pther very often - just for reference, we have been beaten the last two times we played Australia in a Test series, but the first of these was a narrow affair. Before these two series, Pakistan did beat Australia on quite a few occasions - the last time we played them in Pakistan, in 1994 we completely outclassed them and won comfortably - Warne was quite ineffectual against Salim Malik & Inzi on pitches where other legspinners, eg li'l Mushy, did very well.

ODIs
Pakistan would be a handful in the ODI tournament though, and could beat both Australia and WI -ran Australia very close in the last two times we played them (Amsterdam, Lord's). The last team we went to Aus, we only played ODIs, and Shoaib ripped through their batting line-up.

[Zainub]

The Pakistan team is not in a crisis, at least not as far as I know Beny. We have some selection issues to look at (which team doesn't?), but not serious enough to term it a crisis, a crisis is when your players go on strike (Zimbabwe), when you have to make a certain 20 something year old the skipper simply because there isn't any one else available (SA) etc. We are much better off than some other teams, not in any crisis, and definately moving forward, though slowly but positively and in the right direction.

I'd like to think, we can manage at least one test win down under this time. Our best chance my feeling is will come in Sydney, so a little sad that we're playing our last test there. I was hoping that after the last home series Aus played, Aus would also be kind on us, and like they did with India, not play a test match at Perth, but obviously it didn't turn our that way, and we are now going to play our very first test match there, which kind of makes it even more difficult.

But still, if nothing at all, I can be 100% sure of the fact that we will like to and will try and make it as hard as it is humanly possible for us to make things difficult for Australia. It IS (as Ricky Ponting or any other member of the Aussie team will tell you) going to be a challenge - every test match you play is a challenge.

Over confidence can be a dangerous thing. But then the way Aus have played recently it is hard to predict other wise. What I'm saying is that Aus just cannot take things for granted.