Looking Forward

While were not planning on a never-ending blog regurgitating never-ending themes from time to time between here and November there’ll be something of note in the early morning trawl through the websites that’ll give me something to cogitate over the course of the morning walk.

Take, for instance, Lehmann promises a 'pick and stick' policy for Test side in The Australian this morning. Given the way things have gone recently, you’d think that’s a no-brainer, but there were a couple of associated issues to muse on as I stepped out around regular the circuit.

We’ve got a fairly definite batting order with a space at either Three or Six that’ll be decided by who’s been scoring Shield runs in the early rounds and where we want them to bat. Haddin at Seven, and Siddle, Harris (if fit) and Lyon. That leaves two spaces for quickies in the twelve, so the question becomes which two?

The current contracted players list includes Cummins, Faulkner, Harris, Hilfenhaus, Johnson, McKay, Pattinson, Siddle and Starc. With Watson presumably right to bowl that’s a fair battery of quicks, with several candidates lurking on the fringe, but we have an interesting point that was raised regarding the first name on that list, so let’s leave the fringe players out of it for the moment.

Fringe players don’t have central contracts and are therefore, presumably, outside the Cricket Australia player management/rotation/whatever you want to call it policy.

There was an interesting piece in The Age from Australian team doctor Peter Brukner (Why our young fast bowlers keep breaking down) which didn’t tell us much I didn’t already know, but reinforced a couple of points.

The most significant of them is here: The bowling load of these players is monitored very closely. Total numbers of balls bowled at training and in games is planned as much as possible ahead of time and adjusted according to circumstances. What we particularly try to avoid is rapid increases in the number of balls bowled from week to week.

There was an interesting article a couple of days back that I’ve just spent a quarter of an hour trying to track down that points out Pat Cummins is involved with three separate squads when you take national, Shield and Big Bash commitments, with potentially different workloads and build ups involved with each.

He’s just twenty, with around another four years until he’s out of what Brukner cites as the extreme danger zone as far as stress fractures are concerned, so Cummins ... will have to severely limit the amount of bowling he does over the next two to three years if he wishes to remain free of injury.

On hopes these matters are being looked at, along with a number of other issues with team protocols and procedures. On 21 November we want to deliver a side onto the paddock that’s focussed and free from distractions. There are a number of things that are going to be part of that package, and the news coming out of the England team celebrations reminds us that there are issues with alcohol and socialising.

It would be hypocritical of me to suggest that players shouldn’t drink, but it’s fairly obvious that going out for a few jars with the boys from the opposition isn’t a particularly good idea at the best of times in the era of cameras in mobile phones and Twitter.

At the same time you’re not expecting the side to turn into hermits and sit up in the hotel playing the X-Box or whatever. They’re probably going to have to go out to eat, for a start.

What you want, under those circumstances, is some sort of protocol to handle these things, and a fair bit of the lap around town went into considering how these things might be done.

For a start, you’ve got three separate environments. There’s the team, and in the days of wives/ girlfriends/ kids on tour there’s the family and, lastly, there’s the bloke who’s just had a shit of a day and wants to be on his own.

That last one’s easy to handle. If you want to do a Greta Garbo and just be left alone, that’s fine. Stay in the hotel. We’ll arrange appropriate space if required.

In all these cases it should be a case of let us know what you’re after and we’ll fix it for you. That’s not a case of mollycoddling. It’s called damage control.

In a case where the city hosting a Test match is going to have a couple of thousand members of the Barmy Army prowling the pubs and clubs the last thing you want is an Australian player with a chip on his shoulder over something or other running up against the buggers.

So if you’re going to brood, the hotel’s the place to do it.

I’d presume if you’ve got the wife/girlfriend/kids in tow you mightn’t be too keen on heading off for a session with the other fellers, but if you’re looking for a dinner for two, or a family meal somewhere kid-friendly and you’d like us to arrange it...

In those environments I suspect you’re after something low key where you can relax as a couple, family or whatever.

Then there’s the group from the team bit, where there are separate but similar issues. Again, you don’t want to be running across the Barmy Army or getting photos splashed across the front pages of the tabloids. Quiet places where you can eat, have a drink or three, relax and unwind, bond or whatever.

It struck me there are a number of ex-Australian players in each of the capital cities you could draw on to make sure there are plenty of social options that could be tailored to suit whatever requirements need to be met.

Appoint one bloke as the unofficial social secretary, get him to set up the network and get people out to build up a dossier of possibilities for the side when they’re in that particular city. You could even work it to a point where there’s a bit of intercity rivalry about who can throw up the best selection.

Small things, maybe, but they’re issues that can be delegated, would probably help the internal dynamics of the team, and simultaneously limit any damage that might come from having the wrong bloke in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong company.

If the other mob are going to have a few jars and hose the odd bouncer, pitch or whatever, that’s fine. They can have the headlines. We’d just like the urn back, thank you very much.

Out of The Oval

What with the weather and all we’ve had the predictable amount of navel-gazing from people who have to write something to keep the pay cheques rolling in. Given the fact that I’m partial to a sleep in when I can manage it (and I actually did on Saturday and Sunday mornings) I figured it was an opportune time to leave the blogging alone and pursue other matters, but, at the end of the Test series we need to stop and consider a few matters, so here we go.

We could, of course, continue to blather on about The Niggle, and one notes a rather interesting bit of pot and kettle in the statement from the ECB discussed here. Uncle Fester’s remarks are supposed to constitute incitement, but one wonders exactly how far you’d get if someone was silly enough to start up a chant at The Gabba on the morning of November 21.

Hughesy has fond memories of consistent chanted sledging of the South Australian side during That Historic Sheffield Shield Final in 1995, and wonders what would happen if someone were to start up just one chant every time Mr Broad takes guard with the bat, walks back to his mark to bowl or handles the ball in the field.

Actually, if I was going to the ground that day I might be inclined to see what could be arranged, but you’d have to expect to be tapped on the shoulder by someone from Security and, more than likely, ejected from the ground to the accompaniment of orchestrated jeers from the Barmy Army.

One notes the following remark in the ECB statement: The ECB, in supporting its players, management support staff and their families, believe no one in the game condones incitement of any kind and leaves the topic muttering about pots, kettles and Barmy Armies...

Count the drinks, not the runs, wrote Brydon Coverdale a couple of days back, and we’ll probably get a little more pot and kettle action from irate England supporters claiming to be hard done by after Michael Clarke took his time towards the end of an intriguing run chase.  England took their time on Day Three, obviously out to ensure they couldn’t lose. They picked up the rate this morning, since they reckoned they were safe, ended up all out 377 and ended up being given a very gettable target in an extremely generous declaration that would have gone right down to the wire if they hadn’t gone off for bad light.

One notes their run chase started fairly brightly, and when Root departed it was 1-22. I wasn’t awake at the time, but a scan of the ball by ball doesn’t reveal anything exciting between then and Cook’s departure at 2-86 in the twentieth. It would have been interesting to see what might have happened if Clarke’s venture into spin (he had Lyon on to bowl the 9th, and bowled the 13th and 15th before trying Faulkner) had paid off with a wicket or two.

I’m quite sure, under those circumstances Pietersen would have had the same tonk he ended up having, but if he’d then got out reasonably cheaply they’d have shut up shop.

There was a bit of to and fro about England’s scoring rate on Day Three here, particularly from Faulkner, and it’s interesting to look at the comments under a fairly even handed summary of the day’s play here. I don’t usually head in that direction, and based on some of the blather there won’t be in a hurry to go back.

Because, in the end, despite the 3-0 score line, we’ve had a much closer series than most people anticipated. There seems to have been a certain amount of pooh-poohing of the story headlined Arthur reveals two-series strategy, which looks to me like a case of someone needing something to fill the column inches.

We wanted to try to push England really hard in England, but we wanted to win in Australia, Arthur told ABC Radio. Really? And this is supposed to be news?

So what have we got out of the end of this series?

First up, we’ve got a bowling attack that should be able to take twenty wickets in Australian conditions. It’s obvious the wickets we’ve just played on were tailored to suit Swann, but it’ll be a different kettle of fish when hostilities resume, assuming we’ve got a battery of fit quicks with Harris as a key player.

Second, you can probably be reasonably confident about more than half the batting order. Having chopped and changed, I’d like to see Rogers and Warner at the top, Watson at Three or Four, Clarke at Four or Five and Smith at Five or Six. Throw in Haddin, Harris if fit and Lyon and there’s eight out of the eleven with spaces for two quicks, one of whom will be Siddle and a gap at Three or Six, depending on what you’re going to do with a fit Watto.

Third, as pointed out here, England’s batting can be vulnerable if things are planned correctly, and while Australia's players - and selectors - lack resilience if tested for extended periods (good point) that batting order noted above looks to be close to as good as it’s likely to be unless Clarke’s back starts playing up again.

There’s the opportunity for someone (Hughes, Cowan or Khawaja, for starters) to claim back the Three with good scores in the early rounds of the Sheffield Shield, and the possibility of a younger bloke (Doolan is one possibility, though there are others) claiming a berth at Six with Watto staying at Three.

I like it, anyway.

There will, of course, be plenty to look forward to, though transmission from here won’t be resuming on a regular basis until mid-November, and may not be back thereafter, depending on travel arrangements and such.

The forthcoming one dayers and T20s? Push me to one side and call me a fuddy duddy with other fish to fry.

The Oval Day Two: Some things I pondered as rain washed out the first session

As I headed out on the regular lap around town this morning I realised that I must have known there was going to be a significant rain delay as I set about putting a batch of a regular kitchen staple together.

Someone, I thought, might take yesterday’s comments about the haka and Jerusalem as evidence of significant anti-Kiwi or anti-Pom sentiment in these parts. While I’ll accept there’s a bit of that in these parts it’s not what fuels a rather intense dislike of manipulating things to someone’s advantage by disrupting the opposition’s pre-match preparation.

As a result I spent a fair portion of the time I spent waiting for the start of play musing on a particularly irritating piece of time wasting that may well have cost me a chance of coaching the winning side at the 1996 Queensland Primary Schools’ state carnival and going on from there to ponder some things you’d possibly be looking to adapt if you were coaching a side at international level.

Those musings and ponderations continued through the morning walk, and form the basis of what follows here.

But, first, the background.

Primary School Cricket, back when I was involved (it may have changed in the interim, it’s been a good sixteen years since the events under consideration) might have been played in a fifty over format, but games were cut into two hour sessions. Two hours, lunch, two hours, afternoon tea, then however long you needed to wind things up.

It was also played in an environment where there were definite protocols in place when it came to coaching on the field. Two years before this particular chain of events I’d been chatted, for instance, for telling the twelfth man to take these batting gloves out to the captain, who was batting at a snail’s pace in pursuit of a difficult target, and tell him to get runs or get out.

It was going to be the third time this particular message had been sent out, and a degree of frustration may have had something to do with the fact that everyone nearby was aware of the specific instructions.

But, as The Astute Reader may gather, in this environment there are limited avenues through which instructions can be communicated to the batsmen in the middle. You had slightly more latitude when your team was fielding, but these things were watched and obvious offenders chatted.

In any case, with two hour sessions and limited avenues of communication there’s a definite advantage in maximising the number of overs you bowl in the first session, particularly if you can keep things tight and restrict the run rate.

That means the opposing coach will have fewer overs to work with when he sets out with modified instructions after the lunch break, if you catch my drift.

Crawl through the overs in the first session and he’s got more time to work things so his side throws the bat. Run through them at a fair clip, and there’s less room to work with. Do the maths yourself. Someone who goes to lunch at 2-60 off 30 overs has plenty of time to build a total. If that 2-60 comes off 35 you’re not going to be facing the same run chase, and if it’s off, say, 38 (which was, if I recall correctly, the best any of my sides managed, and I was understandably pleased) you’d definitely fancy your chances batting second.

That meant, when you went through your team preparation you used your centre wicket practice to work on a lively change between overs. Keeper and slips jog to the other end, and everyone should be in place by the time the umpires are in position with the bowler at the top of his run up ready to bowl.

The NQ speak for this was the razzle dazzle. You set out to razzle dazzle the opposition, and you worked on your batsmen to take their time and avoid being hurried when the opposition set out to razzle dazzle you. Take a moment, check your guard, that type of thing. Not deliberate time wasting, but not being hurried either.

That’s Part One of the background. There were a couple of additional factors that applied on the Sunshine Coast in 1996. One was the fact that this was my fourth go at the NQ coaching job, and having coached the winning side in 1992 and missed out in ’93 and ’94 I was hoping to depart on a winning note.

We also had a couple of kids who looked rather good chances for State selection, one of whom was the best prospect I’d sighted in the Bowen Junior Cricket Under 12s, over the twelve years I’d been involved. Maybe not quite as good as Greg Pearce, who went on to Australian Under-17 selection, but the best prospect since Pearcey, who wasn't far off graduating out of the Junior system.

There were a couple of other matters that related to this particular carnival, which was being played over venues scattered across the countryside, rather than in one central location. Constraints imposed by the calendar meant twelve teams were split into four pools of three rather than two pools of six.

Two pools of six meant you were in the Final if you finished on top of your pool. Four pools of three meant you had to win a game against one of the other two sides if you wanted to progress to the quarter finals, and from there things worked on a knock out basis.

We’d duly won our first game, had a day off for an excursion to the beach while the other two sides in the pool played, and got rolled by a Metropolitan side on Day Three. The opposing coach expressed commiserations, since the cross pool knock out bit meant our next game was against Darling Downs, rated as odds-on favourites to win the carnival and, coincidentally, historically rated as masters of the razzle dazzle.

Not the side you’d want to meet in the quarter finals when you’ve got three kids with a fair chance of State selection.

They won the toss, elected to bat, and after I’d gee’d up our boys on the Razzle dazzle (at least thirty-five by lunch would have been the instruction) out they went.

The problem came at the end of the first over.

We had a badged (qualified) umpire looking after the bowler’s end. The batting side provided someone to stand at square leg, and the coach wasn’t allowed on the field during playing time.

So, the end of the over. The umpire calls over and sets off for the other end. Keeper and slips pass him before he’s half way there. They’re in position by the time he gets to the other end, bowler’s ready to go. A quick gee up and we’re on again.

But wait.

The square leg umpire hasn’t quite made it from square leg to the pitch. Everyone stands and waits while he laboriously makes his way out to square leg. He did that for every one of the fifty overs.

By the fourth or fifth the kids in the field were totally off the boil. Flat. Looking to bowl thirty-five in the session we didn’t get to thirty, and ended up chasing more than two hundred in an environment where 150 was generally a winning score. We ended up about thirty short as I reshuffled the batting order to try to get the win and avoid being relegated to the also rans.

That caused problems over the next two games as I tried to give all the kids a go and, simultaneously, keep three of them in contention for State selection. I was copping it from parents to the point where I went up to the State coach to see if there was anything in particular he wanted to see on the final day.

Yes, was the reply. He’d like to see these two kids at the top of the order. We won the toss and batted. One of the two opened, the other went in at Three. The opener (Steve Aitken, from Bowen) went cheaply, Three (Simon Page, on his third trip away, we’d initially selected him as a ten-year-old) got a ton, and ended up making the State side along with the all-rounder who’d batted Three in the run chase against the Darling Downs.

I ended up copping heaps from parents of kids who weren’t getting a bat while Pagey carted the bowling. What was I expected to do? The State coach wanted to see this kid bat at the top of he order, so he was going to be out there until someone from the selection panel said he’d seen enough.

And, when the State side was named that afternoon we’d finished either seventh or eighth, and ended up with two in the State side. Pretty good going for seventh or eighth, I’d have thought.

Just after the side was announced the Darling Downs coach came over to congratulate me on the two selections. They’d taken out the carnival in a hand canter and ended up with a commensurate number of selections. He also suggested we’d been the only side that had stretched them.

That, I think, is a fair wrap, but The Astute Reader can probably understand why these things rankle.

I spent most of the washed out first session last night pondering what you’d be looking to do with a Test side when it came to your approach to the first session on Day One. Was there anything you could draw from that Queensland Primary Schools bit?

As it turns out, yes, I think there is.

If you’re bowling on Day One of a Test you want to bowl thirty-plus overs in the first session. England managed twenty-nine on Wednesday.

At Trent Bridge we managed 26 (England 2-98), at Lords 26 again (England 3-80), England managed 26 at Old Trafford (Australia 2-92) and at Durham we bowled 27, with England crawling to 1-57.

Those twenty-nine on Wednesday had us at 1-112.

Considering the above you might be inclined to think thirty in that first session is a bridge too far, particularly on the basis of that 1-112 and the thought of what might have happened if Warner had managed to stick around a little longer than he did, but consider:

Day One with a new rock should be optimum pace bowling conditions, so you’d figure there’s a definite advantage in getting in as many overs as possible.

The only way you’re going to get to what may be an aspirational rather than anticipated target will be by keeping things bowling and bowling dots. Fetching the ball back from the boundary takes time when the field is up.

Anything defended forward of the wicket will get back to the bowler quicker than a ball that goes through to the ‘keeper, but if it’s been defended forward of the wicket that also means you’ve forced the batsman to play, which is what you want to do with the new ball anyway.

You won’t get to the thirty unless you’ve managed to take wides and no balls out of the equation.

If you’re going to get to the thirty you’ll have to be ready to hit the openers with everything but the kitchen sink right from the time Mickey’s big hand passes the twelve on the clock and the umpire calls play.

And, most importantly, batsmen like to take their time. Razzle dazzle ‘em. Don’t give them time to settle.

If they look like getting away, of course, you can always slow things back a tad, but that thirty in the first session of Day One should go a fair way to ensuring your over rate is up where it’s supposed to be.

All of which makes sense from where I’m sitting.

As far as overnight events go, let’s just take a long read of the press reports and ponder the contents. I seem to recall hearing suggestions regarding further weather interventions over the next thee days, so we’ll need something to keep our minds occupied, won’t we?

THe Oval Day 1: The Niggle and the Damage Done (Or Not, as the case may be)

Having made the point that the difference between the two sides in this Ashes series comes down to Ian Bell it’s worth making again on the back of a better than par performance on Day One of The Oval Test.

It could, of course, have gone drastically wrong, and at 1-11 with Warner heading back to the pavilion it was hard to avoid the suspicion that the nuts were dangerously loose and we were once again in a position where the wheels could fall off.

Watson’s 176 meant they didn’t, even after Rogers went fairly cheaply (23) and Clarke got himself into trouble against the short ball and ended up bowled Anderson, 7. Throw in 66 not from Smith and 18 from nightwatchman Siddle and you’d have to be fairly upbeat about Australia’s prospects.

I’ve been muttering about the injustices of a score line that reads 3-0, but would respectfully suggest the following antidote to any Australian supporter confronted with a gloating Pom.

Give him a chance to deliver his serve, fix him with a beady eye and inquire:

Take out Bell. How good would you be looking then?

Pause, then before he can get a reply in, hit him with:

Actually, take out Bell and Broad and where’d you be then? More than likely four-nil down against a side that’s playing well short of a hundred per cent.

That last point might be stretching it a tad, but this series has been a lot closer than the score line suggests, and much of the difference, once you remove Bell from the calculations, comes down to Broad, who is rapidly becoming a major pain in the you know where.

Which, of course, brings us back to the eternal subject of The Niggle.

Prior to the start of play there was much being made of Uncle Fester’s response to Mr Broad’s remarks about That Catch That Wasn’t.

Lehmann’s suggestion that Australian crowds should give the blond English dude who looks like he could pick up a gig in the remake of Brideshead Revisited (thanks for that one, Jimbo) a constant stream of sledge was being regarded as unsporting (or something) from the Pommie-phile commentariat, largely on the basis of what a few lagered-up occupants of Bay 13 might happen to deliver.

Say what?

This, mind you, comes from people who’d describe the antics of the Barmy Army as a colourless bit of mostly harmless fun.

As The Astute Reader might guess, the conjoined subjects of The Niggle and The Sledge occupied much of Hughesy’s cogitations on the morning lap around town and a fair bit of the conversation after the right on schedule rendezvous with Jimbo at the bottom of Herbert Street.

You might, of course, be inclined to believe Hughesy’s taking these things a little too far, but much of the pre-rendezvous cogitations concerned this article by none other than Glenn McGrath from The Guardian.

Bowlers have the wood on Australians, the headline reads, but a closer examination reveals a rather thoughtful and decidedly analytical piece on the influence of The Niggle when it comes to bowler dominance over particular batsmen.

A glance at that overnight score card shows Rogers out to Swan, which now makes six out of seven innings.

The more you get a batsman out the more it becomes psychological, The Pigeon opines, and he’s right on line, just short of a length hitting the top of off stump.

You want to build the pressure, make sure the batsman knows exactly what is going on, he continues a bit further down, as Hughesy casts his mind back to the short midwicket that automatically went into place when Alderman was bowling to Gooch back in 1989.

Then McGrath delivers the blow that loops things nicely back into the Land of The Niggle: And you do not have to confine the talking to the pitch – you can always say a few things in the media as well. Get commentators and fans talking about it, make it an issue, which is, of course, exactly what Broad was doing with his comments on That Catch That Wasn’t.

Brydon Coverdale’s one of the better cricket journos going around (IMHO) but he doesn’t quite get it right here. Lehmann fires, but misses the point
Instead of trying to rattle the England players, Australia's coach should focus on the issues in his own team, the headline says, which is true up to a point.

Actually, it’s not so much a case of trying to rattle the England players, more an instance of he’s had a Niggle at us, here’s one back. Which, to me is fine. It’s all part of The Niggle.

You’re not trying to rattle anybody. It’s more a case of inserting the grain of sand in the sock and waiting to see if it becomes an irritant.

There are some rather interesting manifestations of The Niggle that sprang to mind as I headed out along the jetty this morning, with, IMHO, the prime international example being, and I know Angry is just going to love this, the All Blacks and the haka.

Now, hang on, Hughesy, someone’s going to say. That’s part of their cultural tradition. You can’t complain about that.

Actually, you not only can, but you should. The same way that you can complain about the dude who has Jerusalem booming out over the P.A. at the start of every day’s play in this Test series. Suggest they give equal time to Down Under or Waltzing Matilda and see how far you get.

Suppose you’re looking to get out on the ground and warm up before the umpires come out. I’m not sure whether this is allowed under existing protocols, but say you wanted to. Warm up, have everyone loose and ready to fire right as the batsmen arrive at the crease.

Maybe you can, but what do you do when this dude hasn’t sung Jerusalem yet? And what do you do, assuming you’re out there and loosening up, when he starts to sing?

Keep going? Yes. Definitely. Have the British broadcasters condemn you as a bunch of upstart colonials lacking in respect for our cultural traditions. Good one. It’s all about making sure these things are working in your favour at the start, that welling of national pride that delivers the final adrenaline rush before the start of play.

Recognize it for what it is.

Just like the haka, which allegedly requires the opponent to stand and show respect in the face of quite obvious and bare faced intimidation wrapped up as cultural heritage.

Think I’m kidding?

How far would this suggestion get?

Fine, you can have Jerusalem. You can have it as your side, or your batsmen take the field. Develop a protocol that says Umpires, fielding side, batsmen, with the appropriate piece of music booming out over the P.A. Under that regime later today at The Oval you’d have Jerusalem followed by, say, Down Under. Tomorrow, more than likely, with England batting, the order would be reversed. Sound fair?

Seriously, how much of a hearing would that get?

It’s time we recognized these things as what they are, fairly blatant little exercises in gamesmanship wrapped up in patriotic bunting, and if you’re going to use them, there should be something in place for both sides.

According to Coverdale It is hard to imagine that Lehmann would have called Broad a cheat had he been in a press conference full of English reporters.

Why not? A press conference full of English reporters will feel quite free to make all sorts of comments about the abilities of the side you’re coaching, and will question anything they see as constituting dodgy practice.

No, it’s all part of The Niggle. And until the other mob stops it, you have to expect the right to respond.

And so we're off to The Oval, scratching our heads...

My first reaction to what I sighted in the Cricinfo Facebook feed at five-thirty this morning was a definite suspicion that someone was taking the piss.

Five-thirty on a bin day morning when there’s cat herding to be done before you hit the hoof for the morning lap around town just after six doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for confirmation and investigation, but a quick squiz here suggested they weren’t kidding.

Oh well, Faulkner and Starc in for Khawaja and Bird would provide something to ponder on the lap around town, wouldn’t it?

As it turned out the pondering started as I stepped onto Kennedy Street and was pretty much done and dusted by the time I checked whether it was safe to cross Herbert Street. That’s a space of less than a hundred and fifty metres, folks, so it’s obvious the penny dropped fairly quickly.

In these cases you need to spot the principle the selection panel is working from. If you’re thinking this is what we’ve got and the question is which of them will be staying you’re going to be heading in with a side that’s largely unchanged from last time around. It becomes a question of which of the incumbents cement a place in the side and which of them play themselves out of it.

It’s a start with last time and figure deletions and inclusions approach.

The questions, in that mental environment, involve the possibility of reinstalling Cowan or Hughes in the top six, and which three quicks get the guernsey alongside Watson’s fourth seamer role and Lyon’s spin.

We don’t, however, seem to be working from that basis.

This time around we seem to have adopted what I’ve termed the old Primary Rep Side principle of this is what we’ve got, so how do we fill in the gaps.

Working on that basis, what we’ve got was Rogers and Warner to open, Clarke at Four/Five, Haddin to keep and Lyon to bowl offies. That’s sort of like your old known knowns.

Five names down, six to go in.

Three of those six are going to be your three specialist quicks, with Watson likely to cover the fourth seamer role.  I’d reached that conclusion as I reached the half way point along Kennedy Street, which is where the penny dropped.

It all comes down to Harris.

If he’s one of your three specialist quicks, and he certainly seems to be the first one picked, you’re going to need to cover for him if he breaks down.

Fine, you might think. Harris breaks down, so Watto’s workload increases. End of story.

This, of course, ignores the other elephant in the room. The possibility of Harris breaking down is the first one, but it’s equally obvious that Watto’s no good thing to get through a lot of donkey work without breaking down, which then ramps up the workload for the other to quicks, leaving a very real possibility of further injury issues.
So when you start pencilling in the specialist quicks, if you’ve got Harris and Siddle in the side and you’re looking for the third bloke you’ll possibly be needing a fourth to cover Harris and Watson if both of them break down.

That’s where Faulkner enters the calculations, with the third seamer being a choice between Bird and Starc and Faulkner covering the injury angle.

Wind up going with Starc and Faulkner and you’ve then got a batting order that reads:

 Rogers, Warner, Question Mark, Clarke, Question Mark, Haddin, Faulkner, Starc, Siddle, Harris, Lyon.

One of those question marks is, of course, Watson. We know he’s in there but haven’t figured where to put him.

Slot him into Five and you lose Smith, with Khawaja, Hughes and Cowan being the options at Three. You’re assuming, at this point, Smith isn’t a Three.

Figure that Watto has opened the batting and you can bat your alternative opener at Three, and you’re left with a choice of Smith, Hughes or Khawaja at Five.

So Watto goes to Three, Smith gets the guernsey at Five and everything’s done and dusted.

On that basis you’ve got an attack that’s probably going to be able to snare twenty wickets.

You’ve probably got an attack that can take twenty wickets after one of them has broken down. There’s a fair chance it’s an attack that can do that without bowling someone into the zone where they’re at risk of breaking down.

And it’s quite possible they can winkle out twenty wickets after two out of the six of ‘em have broken down.

Hell, if necessary Clarke, Warner and Smith can all roll their arms over.

The question is, of course, whether this batting line up can score enough runs.

That, one suspects, will depend on the size of the start Rogers and Warner can provide. We could well be 1-150 with Watto joining a well set Rogers or a Warner who’s pummelling the bowling hell, west and crooked.

Then again, we could just as easily be 3-20 with Clarke and Smith forced to consolidate and Haddin, Faulkner and the bowlers to come.

Time, of course, will tell...

After Durham

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the difference between the two sides in this Ashes series starts with the letter B. Quite simply, they’ve got a swag of ‘em and we’re definitely short in that department.

A look at the averages, now that we’ve left the Fourth Test in our wake, is fairly instructive.

For a start you look at Bell. Eight innings, one not out, an even 500 runs, three hundreds, two fifties and an average of 72.42. Next best Root and Pietersen at 37.14 and 34.5 and then there’s no one averaging over thirty.

With the ball, once you skip past Root, whose occasional offies have returned 3-34, there’s Broad with accumulated figures of 144.5 overs, 32 maidens, 17 for 433, averaging 25.47 with two five-fors and a ten-for. Straight underneath him is Swann with 209 overs, 37 maidens, 23 for 621, averaging an even 27 with a brace of five-fors.

The Australian side of the ledger, predictably under the circumstances, with the chopping and changing in selections, isn’t quite so rosy. Clarke is averaging just under 49.5 with the bat, Rogers an even 43, Pattinson, Agar and Warner in the thirties, with two games apiece and things sliding away from there.

With the ball it’s Harris with 20 for 385, averaging 19.25, Siddle with 17 for 447 averaging 26.29 and Lyon with an even 8 for 200 out of the two games he’s played.

You could probably go further with the analysis, but I think it’s fair to say Bell’s runs, the consistency in performance and the partnerships he’s formed with whoever has been at the other end have contributed a fair chunk of the difference between the two sides.

With England resuming overnight at 5-234, quick wickets were the key ingredient if we were going to set ourselves an achievable target, and while Bell didn’t survive the new ball (6-251) and Prior went for a first ball gozzer, Broad (13 off 7) Bresnan (45 off 90) and Swann (30 off 24) took the total to 330, leaving us with a tricky five over spell before lunch.

96 runs in less than two hours off roughly 21 overs was a bit more than you’d expect based on a fairly consistent rate around three an over through the first three days, but that’s what you get when you’re arguably above par for the wicket and conditions and you have the blokes down the end chancing their arms.

Set 299 to win, you’d probably have thought it a bridge too far, taking the wicket and conditions into account, and I was tempted to crash when rain delayed the resumption after lunch. I stuck around long enough to see Rogers’ successful referral, but at none-for, needing to catch Jimbo on the morning walk I headed to bed.

Things were looking good and the consensus among the radio commentary team seemed to be that wickets tended to fall in the morning against the new ball. They’d made much of the fact that the Broad-Bresnan-Anderson-Swann rear guard had stretched things to the point where Australia would have to negotiate two new balls.

On that basis, I reasoned, we’d probably have a tricky little chase in the first hour or two on Tuesday night, though I wasn’t confident we’d last.

Firing up the computer this morning, I wasn’t particularly surprised by the final 74 run margin, which seemed to sit comfortably with the long term stats. What really got me was the clatter of wickets from 1-109 (Rogers, 49) to 6-179 (Watson, 2).

Broad obviously must have bowled well, but a middle order that reads Khawaja 21, Clarke 21, Smith 2, Watson 2, Haddin 4 suggests a lack of stickability in a situation that demands you get your head down and grit it out.

Possibly, if just one of those five had managed to match their best score for the series (and they’ve all managed at least one fifty) and they’d all managed to bat to their fairly modest series average (Khawaja’s the only one who hasn’t got his average above twenty) we’d probably have been looking at that intriguing little struggle tonight scenario.

Instead, we’re looking to The Oval and wondering what we can salvage from the series.

At least we may have answered one question. I think you can pencil in Rogers and Warner as the opening combination at least until Boxing Day.

It’s a bit tough for Hughes and Cowan sitting on the side lines, but I’d probably stick with this middle order, Watson’s groin permitting if we were heading straight into the Fifth Test
.
But we’re not. There’s a tour match against Northamptonshire between now and The Oval, so that presents Hughes and Cowan to stake a claim, and if either can put together a reasonable score, he’d be looking good for Khawaja’s spot, though one assumes Khawaja will be getting time in the middle as well.

On that basis, Cowan or Hughes, with runs against Northants, in to Three, Khawaja or Smith with runs at Northants at Five or Six (or, possibly, both if Watson’s groin doesn’t come good). Faulkner or Agar are the alternative fall backs for Watto, but that’s going to depend on how the track at The Oval looks.

In the longer term we’ve got Rogers and Warner at the top of the order, Clarke in the middle, and three spots to fill. Someone has the opportunity to stake a firm claim on one of those spots over the next fortnight. If no one can manage that we’ve got an interesting few weeks at the start of the domestic season while we look for contenders.

Questions, questions, questions. It’d be nice to get some answers.

Durham Day 3

While it’s safe to assume we might get a question or two answered during Day Four at Durham the big issue is whether any additional questions raise their heads.

At the moment, after Day Three with England just over 200 to the good, you’d have to say things are delicately poised, but we’re not too far off the point where, on this wicket and under the conditions that seem to have run through the season at the venue, doable morphs into difficult.

Get the target up around 300 and difficult will turn into extremely tricky, and run it a bit further than that and we’re probably looking at virtually impossible.

Those calculations, by the way, would seem to apply to any batting line up.

The best score on the ground this season, and, unless I’m mistaken, the only first class score beyond 300 is the 6-339 Yorkshire put together in the fourth innings of their match against the local side, which was built around 182 from Root, who was dismissed just short of the target.

Bresnan came out and slapped the first ball he faced for four, securing the win, but the other double digit scores on the innings were 39, 26, 21 and 50.

So if there’s going to be a target near 300 here, someone is going to have to bat very long. Root needed 375 minutes and 283 balls to amass that score, and if we’re looking at a successful chase someone in a batting lineup that hasn’t demonstrated a great deal of stickability will need to get the head down and grind it out.

The key bit, in the morning at least, will be grabbing those last five English wickets, with the big question mark going over Watson’s fitness.

The time it takes to wind up the innings might not be as important as the runs that get added in the process, but with two days to play and fifteen wickets to fall you’d have to assume there’ll be a result. The scoring rate seems to be around three an over, so if England last to drinks you’d figure the total will be around 280, and if they make it to lunch you can probably pencil in 330.

Keep on adding around fifty an hour until the innings closes and deduct Australia’s 32 run advantage on the first knock and there you’ll have the target. On that basis if England make it to lunch you’d have to assume they’re close to home safe.

As far as the chase goes you’d have to look at another big innings from Rogers if we’re going to mount a serious chase. That’s fine, he’ll be batting to ensure an ongoing role in the short to medium term future.

Warner may or may not be capable of grinding, so we’ll see whether he can get patience, shot selection and stickability together. If he can bat long he’s capable of murdering anything loose, so if the head can go down...

Khawaja needs to deliver an innings similar to the one he managed on a minefield at Bellerive early in the last Australian season, and while you’d assume he’s still safe for the final Test here he’s definitely batting for his place in the side over the next three innings.

There aren’t too many question marks over Clarke, but Smith will also be looking to secure a place in the longer term, while we’ll just have to wait and see what happen with Watson’s groin as far as batting goes. On that basis the longer the top order can bat the better it has to look as far as he’s concerned.

So, with two days to go, we’ve got plenty to look at. What we don’t need are too many additional questions

Durham Day 2

If you’re inclined to question Hughesy’s suggestion that, by and large, you can only bat as well as you’re allowed to I’d point you straight towards Day Two at Chester-le-Street, where, for a while, it looked like the wheels had fallen off again.

At 2-12 and 3-49, with the three being Warner, Khawaja and Clarke there was a fair chance the total would struggle to get much past the hundred mark, and without Chris Rogers that may well have been the case. The Australian batting lineup has demonstrated extreme fragility for a while, and a repeat performance certainly looked to be on the cards this time around on a deck that seems to have form when it comes to low totals and conditions that definitely suited the bowlers.

They were the sort of conditions where it was a matter of getting the head down and grafting, and with years of experience in English conditions Rogers was the man to do the grafting, which is why he was included in the side in the first place. Sixty first class centuries, with the majority of them scored in England and all that.

We’re not suggesting for a moment that he’s a long term solution at the top of the order. Thirty-six year olds have a limited shelf life but he’ll do for the rest of the tour and if his form holds in the early part of the Australian summer he should hold his place.

We’re not suggesting there wasn’t a fair dose of luck involved with the Rogers ton either. Luck’s a fickle thing, and in those conditions you’re going to need a healthy dose of it.

The biggest talking point to come out of the day was, to me, the Decision Referral System (again), but this time I think they’ve got it wrong. Or, rather, Hughesy’s bush lawyer instincts suggest they’re about to get it severely wrong.

Unless they’ve changed the law, an appeal for a wicket covers all avenues of dismissal, and fair enough. Most of the time there’s only one called into question, and the decision is given on what the umpire considered to be the most likely form of dismissal.

Go up for a catch behind and the umpire will adjudicate on that. If you don’t like the decision and the facility to refer the decision is available, fair enough, refer it.

But if you do, you’re referring that particular decision. England referred an LBW shout, Rogers hit a four and then got given out caught behind. He refers it. Fair enough. The third umpire picks up the forensic hot spot on the pad, referral upheld, end of story. Rogers had asked the umpire to confirm the decision was for a catch behind. Everyone knew what was under scrutiny.

If England wanted to question the possibility of LBW that was the time to do it. Once the referral process kicks in everyone gets a look and it’s a bit rich to start bringing in other possibilities you’ve just noticed after the process is under way.

My understanding is that after October a referral will bring everything back into play. If you’re batting and you make the referral you’re basically looking at a question of whether you hit the ball or whether the ball did what was required to deliver the LBW decision.

As far as hitting the ball goes, batsmen aren’t always the best judges, and they’re not always inclined to be honest either, but they’ve only got two referrals, and if someone wants to try it on when he’s feathered one through to the keeper and been given out he lives or dies by the sword (or so to speak). Take a punt on the referral when you suspect you may have nicked it and have the referral turned down and it’s tough luck.

Bringing everything back into play would seem, at least from where I’m sitting, to deliver a substantial advantage to the fielding side.

If the batsman refers the catch behind because he knows he didn’t nick it and felt the ball brush the thigh pad should he reconsider the possible referral because he might be out LBW instead?

If he refers the catch behind, but then gets given out LBW, does the batting side lose a referral?

Switch the scenario slightly, and have the batsman given not out when there was a sound as the ball flew through to the keeper. Have the fielding side refer it, get a not out for the catch. That should mean they lose a referral. If they do, and the third umpire sees something that suggests LBW, fair enough.

But if the fielding side, with two referrals in hand, refer it, get a not out for the catch, then pick up an LBW and still have two referrals left that’s getting a bit rich for mine.

Almost as rich as Stuart Broad doing his nana about an umpiring mistake, but we know not to expect consistency in these matters, don’t we?

Actually, the whole DRS bit is starting to look like a field day for bush lawyers, and you can make a fair case for getting rid of it entirely. That, of course, would suit the BCCI right down to the ground, which is, of course, the strongest argument for keeping it.

From here, with three days to play and a small deficit, this particular Test is anyone’s game, and anything approaching a prediction is even dodgier than it would be under supposedly normal circumstances.

Taking things hour by hour, if Rogers and Haddin are still there at drinks, Australia should have a slim lead. If they’re both still there at lunch, that lead should be somewhere around fifty. From there, anything could happen, and more than likely will.

If you had make a call, however, you’d probably be inclined to suggest Australia has the nose in front at this point, but there’s only a nostril in it.

Durham Day 1

It was hard not to think of Henry Ford’s old line about lies, damn lies and statistics when someone on the radio commentary reeled off the scores registered by sides batting first at Chester-le-Street through the first part of the English first class season. There was a fair bit of discussion on air, and, again, when I went to look at the browser in the morning, the figures were run up the flagpole again (here).

Scores by teams batting first in five County Championship matches at Durham’s home ground read 250, 237, 259, 267 and 253. A glance at the score cards from those games reveals a dearth of familiar names, at least as far as current international players are concerned, though Collingwood and Onions play for Durham, and the Somerset side that got rolled after that 250 for 132 and 186 included Marcus Trescothick.

Root, Phil Jaques, Bairstow and Bresnan were in the Yorkshire side that chased down 339 to win after Durham made 237 batting first, Chris Rogers captained the Middlesex side that extracted a draw after Durham made 259, Warwickshire didn’t have any hint of the Quasimodo factor but just failed to chase down 257 to win after the Durham first innings of 267 and Chanderpaul was in the Derbyshire side that got walloped by 279 after Durham managed 253 in the first dig.

Look at it on that basis and you’d be forced to conclude Chester-le-Street is a fairly low scoring venue, but Test wickets are different to County tracks, right?

The Australian (here) points out that while the highest score on the ground this First Class season is the 339 registered by Yorkshire thanks to a big ton from Root those games were played on seaming pitches not this tailor-made dustbowl.

So what do we take from a first day where an England side that hasn’t delivered on their supposed ability went from 2-107 to 9-238?

Well, the first point is that Australia’s bowling is our strength, and looks to be developing an ability to hunt as a pack. Harris, I thought, was wayward early and didn’t force Cook to play enough, but the economy rates from Watson and Siddle (combined figures 30 overs, 11 maidens, 2 for 62) and Bird (21-8-1-58) set things up rather nicely for Lyon’s 4-42 off 20.

Those figures from Lyon include the relative mauling that came early on from Pietersen, who set out to dominate the spinner. KP is on record as saying he doesn’t rate spinners in general. He particularly doesn’t rate Lyon which makes, I think, for an interesting contest given the fact that Lyon learned his trade in the country, where everyone down to Eleven is inclined to have a slap.

Pietersen might have tonked the offie for 26 runs off 29 Lyon deliveries in Manchester before Clarke removed the spinner from the attack and set out to deliver another mauling here, but the combination of Clarke and Lyon set things up rather neatly here.

Lyon is very much a work in progress (I’ve made that point repeatedly) so having been tonked three fours before Clarke took the offie off this time around, you might have expected him to be shielded from Pietersen. What came next suggests there’s been a bit of thought go into this little battle.

Lyon was back at the bowling crease a mere six overs later, with one key difference. He switched to around the wicket rather than over the wicket. I was particularly interested in Lyons’ comment to the ABC’s Jim Maxwell that coming around the wicket brings in the lbw, caught slip and caught bat-pad, so it just keeps me in the game a lot more.

That seems to run right in the face of the old time conventional wisdom about right armers going around the wicket, which takes LBW out of the question if the ball pitches outside leg stump. Lyon must therefore be looking to pitch in line, straighten the offie to bring in the LBW and bat pad, and use the arm ball to bring slip into play.

It was an arm ball that ended up accounting for Pietersen, caught behind, rather than at slip, but there you go. Earlier Lyon had picked up Trott at short leg (diving effort from Khawaja under the lid), so two wickets in the space of a dozen runs (all boundaries from Pietersen) off 16 balls suggests that there’s progress being made in the work in progress.

Throw in Bell and Bairstow and you’ve got an underrated offie ripping the guts out of the much vaunted English middle order. You could, of course, be hypercritical of the approach adopted by the English bats, but I’m inclined to the view, on the whole, you can only bat as well as you’re allowed to.

From time to time, on flat tracks, with the ball doing absolutely nothing, batsmen can do absolutely as they like. Equally, once in a while, the bowlers find a track that suits them or someone manages a day when the ball comes out just right, but, on the whole, the battle between bat and ball comes down to a waiting game as the bowlers probe and the bats counter attack.

Based on Day One in Durham one has to suspect we’re in for an intriguing contest at what seems to be a low scoring venue.

Much of that will, of course, depend on how we bat when we get to the crease, and I’m reasonably bullish about the prospects after the top order finally got it together in Manchester. Forget the declaration batting in the second dig, and muse, for a moment, on what might have been had Khawaja got started rather than dudded and you’d possibly be bullish as well.

For anyone who has been missing the Hughesy take on the cricket, apologies for a total silence through the Old Trafford Test, which coincided with a fair chunk of road trip due to visitors from Japan. I managed a fair chunk of the pre-lunch session on Day One there after a long day on the water over to Whitehaven Beach, but road trip considerations, neck muscles that were giving me hell on the Friday and Saturday and an early departure for Cairns on Sunday morning meant the Sports Desk wasn’t going to get too much chance to opine on developments.

But, like the Australian side, we’re very much back in business, and if you’re after an interesting read, try this very interesting piece on Peter Siddle (here).