Aus Vs ROW

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Rich Greenfield

Gibbs Vaughan* Laxman Tendulker Dravid Kallis Boucher+ Flintoff Pollock Jones H Singh

Rich - even if you went with this team.. the top order makes little obvious sense: Dravid is one of the greatest number 3 batsmen the world has ever seen... and you have him at 5.. and Kallis is another fantastic no 3 bat who you have in at 6; Laxman is a superb lower-middle order bat whose strength is his ability to accelerate the run rate... and who struggles against the new ball... and you have him at 3

Batsmen wise... I'll be interested to see if you would stick with Vaughan ahead of Richardson once you've seen the latter in the upcoming Eng-NZ series... but my main concern would be that you have too much of it: six fantastic specialists (including Kallis)... and then, in Boucher, Pollock, Flintoff... a set of guys whose batting is Ok but which, in this company, would surely be irrelevent (who needs a tail with a top order even the Aussies would die for).

Keeper wise.. iron-hands Boucher standing up to Singh and Tendulkar (or Murali and Kumble, or indeed any pair of decent spinners) might be good for a laugh... but with that much batting in the side... surely Read, Patel or any of a dozen other world class glovemen (Piper?) should get the nod. Equally, if you want a batsman who can keep... surely Sangakkara (just as good with the gloves) is a better bet (currently in the world's top 30 with the bat, an 816 pointer historically, a guy who has consistently been in / around the world's top 10) than Boucher (just in the world top 50, rarely much higher than that, career high of 567 points).

Seamers wise... you have Pollock in the side (who could come in at 8), plus Kallis as an alrounder, plus 2 others: are you seriously thinking that Freddie and Simon Jones should get the nod ahead of any 2 from Harmison, Akhtar, Ntini, Tuffey, Martin, Vaas, Streak, Cairns, Hoggard, Bond, and Khan (to name just those in the PWC top 20 right now) or even guys like Nel, Dillon, Gul, Oram, Ahmed, Lawson and Blignaut (who also top Freddie in the bowling ratings) or the likes of Collymore, Collins, Johnson, Razzaq, Edwards, Fernando, Argakar, Pathan, Anderson, Zoyza, Nehra, Kirtley, Hall, Bicknell, Butler, Sami, Drakes, Sanford and Best... who all still top Jones in that list (and too my mind, deservedly so).

I've no objection to picking guys because you think the ratings are unreflective of what they could bring to the team... but if you want to plum the depths of the ratings for talent... but surely, national prejudice aside, Pathan and Fernando would be better choices.

Lastly, spinners wise.. aside from prefering to see two in a ROW team... I end on a truly perplexed note: I can see that Murali is likely to be less effective if he's forced to abandon his doosra... and he's been known to struggle on some wickets... but he's still the obvious candidate.. and whilst I prefer Kumble (7 in the world, done it everwhere) to Kaneria (or preferably both) Flanflinger is surely right to raise concerns that Harbhajan looks a dodgy pick.

Um - gone on a bit.. but just not sure how you can account for your selection as a ROW team!

[Rachael]

I like the reasoning goatman.. but think you've gone with too much batting, too much seam bowling and too little spin (especially as Sangakkara is basically a top 6 bat).

Option 1: drop a top 6 bat (perhaps Sehwag or, as his bowling is not really needed, Kallis), promote Sangakkara and Pollock and play Kumble (who can bat a bit) at 8.

Option 2: drop Akhtar for Kumble... opening with Pollock and Harmison, with Kallis at first change... and play Kumble as well as Murali as part of the 5 man attack.

Bottom line: even on spinner-unfriendly surfaces one of those two spinners will be pretty well guaranteed to fire in each and every innings (probably Kumble in the first innings, Murali in the 2nd) so the seamers could be rotated.. and anywhere outside of England, South Africa and New Zealand there's a very good chance that the two of them bowling in tandem would account for most of the overs!

[Goatman]

Originally Posted by Rachael

I like the reasoning goatman.. but think you've gone with too much batting, too much seam bowling and too little spin (especially as Sangakkara is basically a top 6 bat).

Option 1: drop a top 6 bat (perhaps Sehwag or, as his bowling is not really needed, Kallis), promote Sangakkara and Pollock and play Kumble (who can bat a bit) at 8.

Option 2: drop Akhtar for Kumble... opening with Pollock and Harmison, with Kallis at first change... and play Kumble as well as Murali as part of the 5 man attack.

Bottom line: even on spinner-unfriendly surfaces one of those two spinners will be pretty well guaranteed to fire in each and every innings (probably Kumble in the first innings, Murali in the 2nd) so the seamers could be rotated.. and anywhere outside of England, South Africa and New Zealand there's a very good chance that the two of them bowling in tandem would account for most of the overs!

Hmmmm. Not sure about that Rachael. I don't like Kallis as first change in a ROW XI. He's handy, but he's a bit of a wobbly swing bowler in reality compared to ther oter names in this discussion. He is superb as a back up seamer mind - which is how I was using him above - but not as a front line bowler. I don't think on a non-spinning pitch Kumble is much more liekly to fire than Akhtar. Just look at Akhtars strike rate - he's no Wasim, but he does take wickets you can't doubt that. IMO a ROW team must be looking to first blow away the top order and then strangle the middle order. Pollock doesn't fit that shape if he is to take the new ball, but he fits it magnificently if he is doing the strangling. A second spinner might do the strangling job well and I'd certainly make the 2nd switch you recommend on any Asian track, but its a little negative eslewhere. It sort of assumes that the partnerships will get in, which is precisely what I would try and prevent. In any case, Sehwag and even more so Tendulkar provide very passbale spin support for Murali. Kumble would certainly be a better man in support of the strangling role than Kallis, and if I was to take the second spinner that would be the only place I would be willing to give outside of Asia (ie. make the 1st switch). My gut reacts against that, but the order would then be:-

Sehwag
Gibbs
Dravid*
Tendulkar
Lara
Sangakkara+
Pollock
Kumble
Harmison
Shoaib
Muralitharan

No. Outside of Aisa, i stick with my first selection!

[flanflinger]

Originally Posted by ernest

The touring selectors are different fron the full selection board.

Read could be in the 1st Test squad against New Zealand,the touring selectors can be easy overruled.

Partly true, however... Would you really say that he is the best keeper in the world, by putting him in a ROW team, that is what you are saying. I was merely pointing out that if he gets dropped for his own national team, why should he get into a ROW team?

[Rachael]

Goatman: how would this ROW thing work if you had to have one player from each nation:

Pak: Inzi / Akhtar
Ind: Dravid
SL: Murali
Ban: Bashar
Eng: Harmison
WI: Lara
NZ: Richardson
Zim: Streak / Taibu
SA: Kallis / Pollock
Ken: Tikolo
Other: ?

Team: Richardson, Dravid, Lara, Inzi, Tikolo, Bashar, Taibu, Pollock, Murali, Harmison + 1.

If the one could be an Aussie... the whichever one from MacGill, Kasprowicz and Lee wasn't playing would actually make up quite a respectable side... but I'm not sure there's a good enough Dutch player to fill the gap.

Maybe Gavin Hamilton could qualify as a representative of Scotland... or Simon Jones as a Welshman. Alternatively, allowed a "bonus" pick from all the world's players.. I guess that "other" might be Streak (better bowler than Kallis, helps the batting).

[Goatman]

Originally Posted by Rachael

Goatman: how would this ROW thing work if you had to have one player from each nation:

Pak: Inzi / Akhtar
Ind: Dravid
SL: Murali
Ban: Bashar
Eng: Harmison
WI: Lara
NZ: Richardson
Zim: Streak / Taibu
SA: Kallis / Pollock
Ken: Tikolo
Other: ?

Team: Richardson, Dravid, Lara, Inzi, Tikolo, Bashar, Taibu, Pollock, Murali, Harmison + 1.

If the one could be an Aussie... the whichever one from MacGill, Kasprowicz and Lee wasn't playing would actually make up quite a respectable side... but I'm not sure there's a good enough Dutch player to fill the gap.

Maybe Gavin Hamilton could qualify as a representative of Scotland... or Simon Jones as a Welshman. Alternatively, allowed a "bonus" pick from all the world's players.. I guess that "other" might be Streak (better bowler than Kallis, helps the batting).

The biggest names in Dutch cricket are people like Bas Zuiderent, Tim de Leede and Daan van Bunge, all of which are certainly good enough to play for county 2nd XI's........ Zuiderent spent last season with Sussex, but they diddn't renew his contract and he only got 2 games i think. So no - not really anyone there to fill the gap.....

Might be an interesting experinment. Who knows, they might even win!

[Goatman]

Actually, I discovered over the weekend that the scorer of the most 100's in the history of Dutch domestic cricket plays for my club. He's Australian.........

[Teatime FatCat]

It's not a guy called Peter Cantrell is it? I seem to remember reading he was an aussie legend in dutch cricket.

[Goatman]

Originally Posted by Teatime FatCat

It's not a guy called Peter Cantrell is it? I seem to remember reading he was an aussie legend in dutch cricket.

Thats the lad. Bloody good spin bowler too.

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by Rachael

My impression is that Fletcher and Vaughan acted unilaterally on the Read / Jones issue to pre-empt a full selectorial meeting ahead of the NZ series... and to really **** off Rod Marsh:.

Anyone betting on Fletcher and Marsh both being involved in English cricket in 12 months time?

It was not wrong what they did,replaceing Read with Jones,but it was wrong what they said,Jones would be given an exteneded run,like Read got.
Political infighting never did any sport any good.Look at the stam Fergason event,fergason won Stam went,Fergason then went after Backam.Look at Man Unt now!

Lords must be angry at both Fletcher and Vaughan for acting unilaterally on the Read /Jones issue,they have pre-emted a full selectoriial meeting,yes they will both get a rap,but,cricket poitics will prevail.

I think in the end ,Fletcher will still be there,and Marsh will be gone!