Number of people watching the VB series

[Paoli]

Zimbabwe have had oppurtunities at beating Australia in the VB Series. 2003/04:

Game 1: Aus 8/225 (50 overs) def. Zimbabwe 134 at SCG
Game 2: Aus 5/344 (50 overs) def. Zimbabwe 5/211 (50 overs) at Bellerieve Oval
Game 3: Aus 7/284 (50 overs) def. Zimbabwe 8/271 (50 overs) at Adelaide Oval
Game 4: Aus 9/263 (50 overs NR with Zimbabwe 0/0 (0 overs) at MCG

Three games out of 4 could have gone the other way. The one in Adelaide GW Flower scored 94 but Taibu opened with him and made 9 off 41 and really badly struggled.

Game 1 was when Williams tore Zim to shreds. Game 2 no chance. Game 4, well Zim were up in confidence after 2 damn close calls in Adelaide and could've won.

India beat us once and NZ beat us this year as well. Windies should've had us in Brisbane and could have us tonight

[Zainub]

I'm for once hoping Windies would lose tonight, that would help our chances of going to the finals. Best of luck to Aus, Brett Lee bowling well.

Anyway, I was talking about the present Zimbabwe team, its fair to say they wouldn't be able to give Australia any sort of run for their money (Aus beat them 3-0 in Zimbabwe last year), the older team with the likes of Flower, Blignaut, Ervine and Streak definately was capable of causing an upset, they batted very well against them in the World Cup too if my memory is serving me right. That team was a pretty good unit, it was capable of beating any one on its day (in 2003 alone Zimbabwe beat Sri Lanka in Sharjah and England in England in at least 1 game in the Nat West Series)...that team definately had the talent and ability to beat any one on their day

[Shaka]

England and South Africa are two well matched sides and have produced some exciting cricket no doubt. When two teams are battling to gain the upper hand it's always great to watch. For Pakistan to have had a hope to contest Australia meaningfully we would have needed to be at full strength, but we've been badly hampered by loss of players through injury. Umar Gul and Shabbir would have given Shoaib some much needed quality seam support, and now all three are out of the VB series as well, on top of being handicapped by Shoiab Malik's suspension as a bowler. The replacements are nowhere near the same class, as a result it's not easy beating a team like Australia with 2nd rate bowling. Sure we can supply some explosive batting but without the bowling to back it up it's very difficult.

[Paoli]

The batting had chances. In Sydney, you should've made 500 rather than 300. In Melbourne, there was no reason why Yousuf Youhana couldn't have made 200 and Younis Khan 100. Perth, Australia should've been out for less than 200 and really, there have been chances but the failure to capitalise is where Woolmer needs to discuss.

[Paoli]

Yeah they did. England were struggling against Zim in NatWest series at about 4 for 70 when rain halted play. Anything could've happened that day.

That is the thing. All sides around the world can win matches against high ranked teams, bar current Zim and Bangladesh. The area where they need to compete is to CAPITALISE on these chances.

[Django]

India did not win any matches against Australia in the VB series last year.



Let us look at the overall picture and not consider individual matches in isolation.



The important thing that I am trying to stress is that at the moment we are watching the superiority of “robot-cricketers” from Australia over “human-cricketers” from rest of the world. This has reached a stage where the matches involving Australia are not exciting to watch and are “no contests”. After all “competition” is the essence of sports and “entertainment” is the reason to watch sports. Matches involving Australia are almost always one-sided and can hardly be termed as “contests” and “entertaining”. I am sure even for Australian supporters a stage will come when they will be bored with the predictable dominance of their team.



People have been comparing this situation with the West Indian dominance of the late 70s and 80s. But one simple fact is ignored; the performance on display by the West Indians was by naturally talented cricketers (“humans”) against other “humans”. In contrast what we are seeing now are programmed “robots” from Australia in action – very mechanical in their approach, made perfect by the system (Australian Sports Academy) under the supervision of engineer (coach Buchanan) aided by latest technology. These cricketers are “programmed” to "dominate" and perform assigned tasksThe result is that ordinary cricketers of the likes of Hayden, Martyn, Langer, Lehman and company have been overhauled and made to look like invincibles. Even the up-and-coming cricketers from Australia are being moulded in the same way. Until other countries catch up, watching matches involving Australia will be nothing but one-sided and boring.

[vvvrulz]

Then as Zainub said, what happened to your so-called 'machines' in the Champions Trophy last year. Perfect team, hardly.

[Django]

One hot day does not make a summer. Even machines produce faulty products at times and robots fail to function occassionaly.

[vvvrulz]

They weren't doing all that great agaisnt the Windies the other day either, of course the Windies lacked the bowlers to close them out, but their top order was not so 'robotic' imo.

[Seamer]

One dayers are a lottery anyway. Australia can be beaten from time to time. In tests they have the odd bad session but can recover by winning every other session as did happen in the recent series vs Pakistan. One dayers do not provide that luxury. While Australia are beatable in an individual game, they are probably unbeatable in a best of seven contest. England knocked us out of the ICC trophy because it was a one off game. If they had to play them another six times the end result would have been AUS 6-1 or 5-2.