The Sledge, The Niggle and Gamesmanship in general

With fairly definite views regarding The Sledge, The Niggle and Gamesmanship in general, it’s safe to assume Hughesy will be scanning the press reports over the next few days.

What follows is an exercise in gathering content that might be relevant at some point down the track, a compendium rather than a commentary, though one can’t help commentating from time to time.

The thrice daily news bulletin from the ABC that arrived this morning pointed me towards The Ashes: Chris Rogers comes to David Warner's defence over Jonathan Trott criticism. You might find a statement like no-one in the Australian team knew about Trott's condition, and the remarks were not meant to be hurtful a trifle difficult to swallow, but that’s what he apparently said. We’re obviously looking for short term tactical advantage, not long term psychological damage. There’s also a comment from Peter Siddle along the lines of Anderson brought Clarke's sledge/threat on himself, which I’m inclined to see as a reminder that all this stuff is a two way street.

Don’t, in other words, get all holier than thou if you’re inclined to dish it up yourself.

THere’s a comment along those lines in The Ashes: James Anderson threatened George Bailey before Clarke sledge, says Shane Warne along with the  comment from a tight-lipped Bailey that Anderson must have been just a bit upset about the way the game was going, which also suggests that whatever remarks George was chirping from under the lid were hitting home.

Turning the attention to the regular items in my Safari Top Sites, I headed over to the Cricket page on ABC Grandstand for The Ashes: Kim Hughes labels David Warner comments about Jonathan Trott as 'disgraceful', where Hughes admits The Sledge is part and parcel of the game. I don't know why. They say it is, it shouldn't be. But you don't do it off the field. That's just deplorable and unacceptable in any field of endeavour.

Point taken, but see previous comments about those without sin, and consider Hughesy’s long-standing belief that what transpires on the field shouldn’t be affected by organised denigration from the other side of the boundary.

The question of who fills the vacancy created at Three for England has Mike Atherton advocating Joe Root because he played Mitchell Johnson well, ... looked compact, ... got a nice stride into the ball and also dealt with all of the verbals (Here).

Nasser Hussain and Ian Chappell tend to favour Bell, and candidates to fill the vacancy caused by either of them moving up the order are Jonny Bairstow, unless Zimbabwean-born Gary Ballance or all-rounder Ben Stokes, who, according to Atherton gives the option of bringing Monty Panesar in and playing a second spinner, with Stokes as the third seamer if the pitch looks as flat as has been suggested.

Updates in the ICC Rankings are covered in The Ashes: Mitchell Johnson and Nathan Lyon in ICC top 20 bowlers, Michael Clarke number four batsman. Johnson is now ranked 19th with the ball and 78th with the bat, Lyon 18th with the ball and Clarke up to 4th in the batting. In other moves Cook moves into 10th, Warner to 17th and Haddin 42nd with the bat, Broad and Tremlett are now 7th and 32nd with the ball).

Full rankings are here, where one notes Broad rates 4th in the All-Rounders list with Watson and Johnson 7th and 8th respectively.

Further down the page The Ashes: Jonathan Trott receives support from England players past and present after leaving tour reveals Michael Vaughan expressed regret for questioning Trott's performances in the media.

As the content increasingly disappears behind the Murdoch paywall I’ve given The Australian the flick, moving, instead to The Guardian, where, this morning Australia have no intention of changing their aggressive approach to the Ashes. Click there and you’ll find the main points are Darren Lehmann sees no reason to be less vocal and his county side Warwickshire always knew of Jonathan Trott's illness.

I may have cause to refer back to Ashes: England must learn the lessons they started studying a long time ago: Andy Flower and his team have been here before. It's not that England's chances are dead, just that the contest is alive, which is why I’ve stuck it in here.

Glenn McGrath’s Trott was right to go home, an Ashes tour is no place to sort out problems is another one I may well be referring back to on the basis of Pigeon’s suggestion that West Indian comments of Let's kill him, man. Let's kill him as he walked in to bat weren’t too far removed from Clarke’s go at Anderson.

McGrath makes the most important point when he writes:

But there is a line – it's fine as long as it doesn't get too personal. When I played, an opposition bowler (or batsman for that matter) could call me any name under the sun, I had no issue. But if they started to bring in family members, or personal issues, then that's different. That is why I thought the treatment Mitchell Johnson got on the tour of England in 2009 was a bit rough, when you start to bring in what is happening on a personal front.

Cricinfo has:

Root most likely solution for No. 3 while Australia to conserve pace resources focusses on the three day turn around between Adelaide and Perth, raises the suggestion Faulkner may come in for Bailey in Adelaide, and suggests Coulter-Nile, Bollinger, Sayers and Cutting as possible replacements should one of the current line up break down.

There’s nothing particularly new in Lehmann rejects sledging summit but

Fun turns to fear for Jonathan Trott offers a detailed and thoughtful analysis of the Trott issue that prompts Hughesy to make two points.

The first is that while Australia might not have known of the mental issues that prompted Trott’s return home they would have been aware of issues that seem to verge on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The second is, of course, to emphasise that players do actually need a break from time to time.

Time for Trott to seek new truths quotes an unnamed England player whose identity will remain secret because his assessment went to the heart of England's approach. "It can feel as if there is no escape," he said. "It as if everything you do is being assessed, as if every little thing you do is being marked and analysed and stored away. If you are not careful, it can wear you down. It's incredibly difficult to come to terms with it."

That comment, mind you, is about the England approach to the game. The opposition, of course, will be operating in the same territory as they set out looking for things that can be exploited.

Cognitive behaviour consultant Brett Morrissey, who has worked with Michael Yardy who left England's 2011 World Cup campaign is interviewed for The expert view - Big strides have been made and 'You just can't take any more' - Trescothick cites another high profile casualty.

There’s some interesting reading there to keep you going while you wait for the two squads to wend their way to Adelaide.

Developments since the close of play…

I guess it comes down to how you like your scripts.

In an old theme that’s predictable as hell, you come up with the odd new twist, and we’ve got a few of them coming into play in and around the announcement that Jonathan Trott is heading home suffering from a Stress-related illness.

To me, it’s all part of The Ongoing Niggle that was always going to feature as a key element in the series.

It has been obvious for a while that Trott had some issues with short-pitched fast bowling, as most mortals would, and David Warner’s description of his second innings at The Gabba as weak might have been better left unsaid, but, to me at least, didn’t rate as “unprofessional”.

I may have the timing wrong, but the use of the latter term by Alastair Cook preceded the he’s going home announcement and looks an awful lot like part of the approach you’d take to limit the damage inflicted in the psychological Niggle War.

You’d have to assume that the England management team were aware of the deeper issues (at any rate they claim to have been) and had adopted an array of measures to handle the problem. Some of those would have been negotiated with the batsman. Others, on a less official try it and see how it goes basis, put in place by the coach and support staff.

One way of handling those issues is to deflect scrutiny away from any perceived weakness by changing the subject. Don’t, in other words, talk about the man’s problem, divert the attention onto someone else’s unprofessionalism.

All of which, of course, depends on your definition of professionalism, doesn’t it?

If they knew there was an issue and the coach and support staff failed to take action, they’d be unprofessional.

 If someone in the England camp happened to let slip that Jonathan had a problem, to do something they’d be unprofessional.

Equally, if you’re out to induce doubts about technical issues and you suspected there was a weakness there that could be exploited, you’d be unprofessional.

And once that comment had been made if the management failed to respond by describing the comment as unprofessional, they’d be unprofessional themselves.

The main point here is that by making the announcement and talking about stress-related illness in this environment you’d reckon they’ve effectively ended Trott’s international career as far as playing against Australia and his native South Africa are concerned. That doesn’t mean his actual career is done and dusted.

Marcus Trescothick went home under similar circumstances, and is still playing for and captaining Somerset at the age of 37 (he turns 38 on Christmas Day) and is looking to play on until he’s forty. A glance at the recent matches here suggests he’s not scoring heaps of runs, but he’s there, playing on and probably enjoying it.

As far as Trott is concerned, the Australian team would have spotted what they thought was a weakness and have been busily probing away since the suggestion that there was one was raised.

The other Niggle-related issue that has come into the spotlight is the Clarke-Anderson imbroglio, and the decision to fine the Australian captain 20% of his match fee.

Hopefully Channel Nine, or whoever left the effects microphone on will pony up with the dosh, because if they were handing out the equivalent penalty every time someone used language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or insulting during an international match we’d probably have most of the English and Australian squads paying for the privilege of representing their country.

Seriously, over five days, if everyone got pinged 20% of their match fee every time they used language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or insulting during an international match you’d expect most international players would end up playing for nothing.

The key issue here isn’t whether obscene, offensive or insulting remarks are made it’s more a question of whether they’ve been disseminated.

I watched the whole thing unfold, and it was obvious that there was a fair degree of Niggle flying back and forth between Anderson and George Bailey at short leg. Whether those exchanges included a wish to punch Bailey in the face as alleged by Clarke’s mate Shane Warne, in neither here nor there (as far as I’m concerned).

You can see the whole thing through a link to the Channel Nine footage here and, for mine, there was no reason why that microphone needed to be on at the time.

Unless, of course, you’re looking for material to spice up the coverage and give commentators something to talk about. If that’s the case, and your decision is largely responsible for the matter receiving the attention it did, it’s your responsibility to come up with the readies, isn’t it?

Actually, read a bit further down that ABC News article and it’s obvious that there’s a long standing issue between Clarke and Anderson. One would suggest that neither of them are Robinson Crusoe as far as longstanding animosity towards other members of the international cricket community are concerned.

I guess what’s said on the field stays on the field only applies until commentators need something to talk about or players need something to add spice to the old autobiography or tour diary.

Look at it that way, and you’ve got the beginnings of a sustainable industry as various individuals use their memoirs to deliver their versions of events and their reactions to them.

After the Gabba: 85%

The Critical Reader might feel Hughesy’s being a trifle harsh when he rates a victory by 381 runs with a full day to spare around 85%, but cast your mind back to 6-153 at the tea break on Thursday with Haddin on 24 and Johnson on 12, and you may agree.

That partnership went on to add a further 93, and much of what followed as the bowling side of the game ran according to the script was only possible because Six and Seven dug us out of a hole.

Still unconvinced? Check the fall of wickets. 1-12 (Rogers), 2-71 Watson, just before lunch), 3-73 (Clarke), 4-83 (Warner, when we needed him to carry on), 5-100 (Bailey) and 6-132 (Smith).

Hardly what the doctor ordered, and it wasn’t as if England's bowlers were bowling particularly well. They weren’t bowling badly, but this trio of quickies with Swann as backup isn’t firing as well as the battery they had, say, three years ago. Tremlett looked to be the weak link, and you can't bank on him being there again in Adelaide.

Warner scored runs in both digs, but we really needed him to go on in the first. Clarke came good in the second, but Rogers and Watson were disappointing. Bailey needs to do more to cement his place in the side. If he does Smith will need more than his first innings 31 to hold on to Five, particularly if we start moving into batsmen who can bowl at Six or Haddin at Six with a bowler who can bat (Faulkner as one possibility) at Seven.

You don’t expect everyone in the batting order to fire in every innings, but most of them should be able to manage a decent score in one innings out of two.

The batting wasn’t the only area where there was room for improvement. We missed two run outs due to poor positioning by the bloke who was taking the return at the bowler’s end. As it turned out, neither proved particularly expensive.

But if we see fielders breaking the stumps before the ball arrives (Bailey) or taking the ball in front of the stumps and removing the bails while doing so (Lyon) there's a need for solid remedial work in the fielding drills.

Dr Hughesy would prescribe at least an hour’s rundown, throw down, underarm for the first instance, and a repetition with a relentless workout on the underarm for the second.

The bowling, on the other hand, worked very well, backed up by savvy field settings and some rather productive verbals, which is the area where I expect to hear a fair bit of Soap Dodger bleating over the next day or two.

I spent the first bit of the morning walk pondering the verbals, and came to the conclusion the Anderson sledge (the one about broken arms) may have verged on the intimidatory, but was fair enough.

With the field that was set at the time,  you wouldn’t have been expecting too much that was pitched up but you want the batsman going back so when you do pitch it up you’ve got a chance of a yorker or LBW. Comments that suggest the use of limbs to protect the head are a way of getting the batsman into the right mindset to cooperate with your game plan.

That’s fair enough in my book.

It’s much fairer than the Barmy Army’s attempts to manipulate the result by taking down key players on the Australian side.

Their main target last time around out here (and the previous series over there) was, of course, Mitchell Johnson, and given what they deliberately dished out once a degree of fragility was found they have no right of reply in this instance.

In fact, given the fact that they were still in fine voice after the second resumption yesterday afternoon I’m inclined to mark our performance down further on the grounds of insufficient dominance.

I won’t really be satisfied until they’re reduced to total silence by repeated thrashings of their precious little batch of fresh-faced provocateurs.

That’s not likely to happen when the proceedings resume in Adelaide in ten days’ time, and I doubt they’ll have been given the treatment prescribed by Dr O’Keefe on their way out to the tour game in Alice Springs. A two day trip on a Greyhound bus with faulty air-conditioning is a nice concept, but one doubts the ability to con them into it.

The new drop in pitch at the Adelaide Oval is by all accounts I’ve stumbled across, close to a feather bed, and we’ll need to score big runs in both innings to ensure the draw that is the worst desired result.

A win in Adelaide would be better, but the last thing you want is to be heading into Perth with the series level. You never know, by the time they get to Perth the Soap Dodgers might have gotten their bowling sorted out.

But even if they don’t there’s a good deal of work to be done before we head off across the Indian Ocean to face quality opposition in South Africa.

On the morning of Day Four…

On the morning of Day Four, The Inquisitive Reader may be a tad bemused by the absence of lengthy prognostications from Hughesy after Days One and Two.

I didn’t have much to add to this looks to be our best Top Six, so let’s see how they go prior to the commencement of play. Instead, I got my teeth into a lengthy Republican rant about the significance of that Ashes Test back in 1882 on the morning of Day One.

That was the only Test played on that particular tour, and a quick look at Wikipedia and Cricinfo failed to reveal any details about the rest of the tour, but then I recalled I’ve got a shelf full of cricket reference books. Suffice it to say I then spent the rest of the time before the toss and through to the start of play reading Jack Pollard, taking notes and thinking of returning to the piece I’d started on the morning of Day Two.

Day One also happened to have some personal significance, and was celebrated with some good bottles, so I was late out of bed on the morning of Day Two, skipped the morning walk and generally took it easy until the start of play.

That Republican rant will have to wait, and the content relating to WG Grace’s gamesmanship and the start of the Ashes will probably emerge at some stage, but since the subject got a bit of coverage on the ABC Radio coverage, that stage may be well into the future.

Commentary on the actual play on Day One would have been along the lines of This looks like our best Top Six, but thank goodness the lower order can bat, which could have veered off into further discussion of all-rounders, batsmen who can bowl and bowlers who can bat. We have, of course, been over that ground in reasonable detail, which is why the veering didn’t eventuate.

Yesterday morning saw me looking back at recent batting history with a variation on this is our best six and today’s the day for them to consolidate their places in the eleven intended. Tracking back over the entrails of 2009, 2010-11, India early this year and the first half of the two part series kept me going through the morning up to the resumption, and subsequent events put the kibosh on that line of thought.

On a day where Rogers and Watson could have cemented their places for the rest of the summer and Smith and Bailey needed to consolidate it would have been nice to have at least one of them put their hands up. Instead, it was Warner and Clarke, wasn’t it?

Figures.

The interesting part, for me, has been the weaknesses that seem to be emerging in the English side, something I don’t usually spend too much time on, but there are definite implications for our blokes that emerge from that sort of analysis.

The first one is that most of them don’t like it up ‘em, which means I hope we’ve seen the last of suggestions from Mitchell Johnson about slowing down and bowling line and length in the latter stages of his career. He needs to be bowling chest and throat music and extracting significant lift off a length at pace, and as long as he does that he’s worth persisting with.

Provided he’s getting bounce at pace he can afford to be slightly wayward, particularly if he’s got someone bowling dry at the other end. Siddle and Harris both managed to do that, as did Lyon, whose work with the ball should have ensured he stays on board through the rest of the series.

With Lyon as a long term Eleven, it’s up to the likes of Smith and Agar to work on their bowling (Smith) and batting (Agar, and any other contenders for a bowler who can bat spot at Six or Seven).

There’s an interesting contrast between Lyon (9-4-17-2 and 3-1-3-0, match figures 2 for 20 off 12) and Swann’s 53 overs 2 for 215. Swann, one notes, currently sits on equal seventh in the ICC Bowler rankings (with Siddle), just behind Harris at #6. Lyon will get a lot of work over the next two days, and should move upwards from his current #21 ranking.

Actually, having found them, it’s worth looking at those player rankings:

#6 on 782 is Harris.

#7 on 760 are Swann and Siddle.

#10 on 741 is Anderson, just ahead of Broad, who is #11 on 740.

#15 on 659 is Hilfenhaus, which is interesting, as is the ranking for Finn (#20 on 580).

#21 on 576 is Lyon, Johnson is #23 on 537, #24 on 524 is Bresnan, #26 on 518 is Pattinson, Tremlett #35 on 460 and Watson #40 on 423.

I’m not sure what those numbers mean, but for those who are playing in this game the rankings total 97 (Australia, including Watson, 57 if you don’t) versus 63 (England’s four specialist bowlers, this game. On the other column, with the numbers that determine the rankings you’ve got Australia 2655 (without Watson, 3078 with) versus England 2701.

Look at the figures for the four main bowlers and you’ve got a fairly tight series, much tighter than a recent 3-0 scoreline might suggest.

Based on those figures I went over to the batting list, looking at the first seven in the two batting orders, without Bailey and Carberry. The ranking totals, with lower scores being better read England 99, Australia 221. Understandable since there’s a substantial gap from Clarke (#5) to Watson (#32), Warner (#36), Smith (#43), Rogers (#46) and Haddin (#59).

The English order ranks #10 (Bell), #11 (Cook), 13 (Pietersen), 16 (Trott) and 17 (Prior) with a jump down to #33 (Root).

All of which stems from Hughesy’s attempt to get a form line between Swann and Lyon, so you can see what I mean about being sidetracked.

And it’s a good point to leave things since there’s a garden that needs some attention as the clock sneaks past seven-fifteen. Play, of course, resumes at ten, with England looking to bat two days and save the game. At 2-24 chasing another 537 to win I think we can rule out an England victory.

With an 80% chance of rain, between 2 and 8mm likely and a forecast of showers and the chance of a storm, the draw is an obvious threat, which makes for an interesting two days.

Couldn't help myself…

Try as you might, there are some things you just can’t ignore.

I was all set to give the cricket discussion the big miss until the end of Day One, but a couple of headlines in the old browser had me recapping some previous thoughts on the morning lap around downtown Bowen.

The first of them was on the ABC News feed: Ashes: Brad Haddin calls Mickey Arthur 'very, very insecure', lauds impact of coach Darren Lehmann, which doesn’t come as any surprise apart from the fact that someone felt the point needed to be made.

The second appeared in The Guardian: Australia's Michael Clarke out to put Ashes misery in England behind him, which probably comes as no surprise to anyone who has read Clarke’s diary from the first part of the series. I haven’t, and don’t plan to, because I gather it’s a depressing read. The Guardian also had Glen McGrath opining: Australia's restored self-belief will help win them back the Ashes, which looked to be a fair assessment of where things are, devoid of predictions about whitewashes.

Most of the pre-Jimbo section of morning walk was spent folding those matters into previous ideas, and it’s obvious that we don’t want to be complicating things too much. When you do that, the plot tends to go out the window.

Without dwelling too much on the Arthur era it’s obvious that, for much of that time,  we didn’t know what our best Test line up was. Uncertainty fuels insecurity, and it was a matter of plugging away until a couple of blokes stuck their hands up and looked to deliver. Pick and stick is an easy concept, but requires a bit of courage when it comes to the stick part. It’s easy to chop and change.

The side that goes out onto the paddock tomorrow is the strongest side we can assemble out of what’s available. McGrath makes the valid point that we’ll be in trouble if we lose Johnson, Harris or Siddle, but that’s not rocket surgery either.

You’d suspect Cutting is the next cab off the rank, and playing Faulkner if the track looks like it will help the quicks will share the work load, particularly since it looks like Watto will be right for a partial workload.

The cupboard might look relatively bare after that, but there are other quicks around, and if they’re needed it’ll be a case of waiting to see whether they measure up. Simple enough, that feller.

Having assembled the best side we can manage the next task is getting them to deliver, which brings us back to the Haddin article. The key quote, as far as I’m concerned, is this one re. the notorious homework incident: "That wasn't the Australian cricket team that I knew when I flew into Mohali.”

Now, it’s obvious that we not only didn’t know what our best side was, but we couldn’t get the squad working together. Allow individuals to pick and choose what they want to do, and you can probably wave a tearful farewell to unity of purpose.

Clear routines, an agreed way of going about things and some system to back them up are the key here, as is the need to make all this enjoyable. The homework issue probably stemmed from is this really necessary? matched up with a fair bit of well, this other bloke isn’t worried about it, so why should I be?

You can, of course, work your way around those mindsets by laying down the law. This is what we’re doing. Here are the reasons why. And here are the consequences if you don’t. You match those statements with a system of penalties and incentives. Impose fines for breaches, use the proceeds to provide incentives for the sort of behaviours you want to encourage.

Dummy spits and late arrivals for the team bus et cetera get pinged for the dosh that’ll create a slush fund to pay out for particularly good bits of banter. If the fund gets too big, throw a donation to some worthwhile cause, with the cheque being presented by the leading contributors.

The most recent incident with the Wallabies is a timely reminder that you need to ensure protocols regarding nights out are adhered to, so you appoint a social co-ordinator for each game who’ll generate an itinerary that will allow the team to relax away from the spotlight and have a good time doing it. That’s the official program. If you’re not keen on tonight’s option, there’s always room service at the hotel.

If you’ve got your wife, girlfriend, partner or kids along, here’s a family-friendly option you might want to consider, and for a quiet night for two, how about this one.

When you get to that point, of course, you have the risk of fragmentation, so it might be best to leave the family home for the first part of the series, but if that’s the policy, that’s the policy.

And, most particularly, if we find ourselves in a situation where we have to draft in a replacement when the cupboard looks relatively bare, there’s to be nothing resembling the can’t bowl, can’t throw incident. Don’t even think it. But if you do, and you’re sprung in the act, expect your wallet to be a fair bit lighter and anticipate being the face in the photograph when the cheque’s being handed over to the worthy cause...

The View from Two Days Out…

A visit from The Actor yesterday morning gave a welcome opportunity to clarify the thoughts three days out from the resumption of Ashes hostilities. Grigor, being a regular correspondent to the op-ed pages of the local paper but doesn’t have access to a computer or email, needs someone to type up the correspondence, which I’m happy to do since the secretarial chore is invariably followed by an interesting conversation.

Recent interesting conversations had, however, skirted around the cricket, so once I’d finished the typing I directed our attention straight to The Gabba with a question about the final composition of the Australian eleven.

Everything seems cut and dried, except for the inevitable Faulkner or Lyon question, and that, I suspect, is largely going to depend on the state of the track. I like Lyon and reckon he’s coming on nicely, but if there’s a hint of soup in the wicket I think I’d be inclined to go with Faulkner.

If he’s included he’d have to bat Eighty, with Johnson at Nine with a Test ton under his belt and Harris and Siddle, neither of whom are mugs with the bat, at Ten and Eleven.

When you look at it in those terms, that’s a rather impressive batting line up.

Rogers and Warner to open, the accumulator and the aggressor making a rather interesting pair of counterfoils. Watson has to bat somewhere, probably harbours some lingering thoughts about opening, but Three might be an acceptable compromise for a man who seems to be used to getting what he wants.

Clarke at Four, Smith at Five and Bailey at Six is probably the best middle order we can assemble at the moment. Add Haddin at Seven and the bowlers as indicated and you’d have to be optimistic about the chances.

The notion of Faulkner at Eight also gave me the opportunity to revisit some thoughts on developing all-rounders, specifically as far as the emerging quicks are concerned. If they’re going to have their fast bowling workload strictly limited, they may as well work on the batting.

You never know. One of them might turn into the sort of genuine all-rounder who can bat in the first seven and contribute a full workload with the ball.

On the other hand, with a bit of work on the batting you might have a useful contender to contribute handy runs at Eight or Nine rather than a bunny to come in at Ten or Eleven.

Every little bit helps.

The discussion progressed from there into the whole issue of injury-prone quicks, which has been revisited often enough to be skirted around here, and ended up with Grigor expressing the hope that we’d have a competitive series.

That’s probably what almost everyone wants, but almost everyone doesn’t quite include Yours Truly.

A competitive series is fine with me, provided it involves an Australian side that’s playing close to or above 100%, and that notion gave me something to ponder on the pre-Jimbo portion of today’s morning walk.

The Critical Reader might have difficulty with the concept of achieving a result that’s better than 100%, but here’s my take on the seemingly incongruous mathematics.

I had cataract surgery at the beginning of 2012, and was surprised to be informed on a follow up visit that my eyesight was now better than 100%. That threw me for a while, but things got clarified on a subsequent visit when I ran across the very bottom line of the chart on the wall.

The second bottom line, I figured, equates to 100% normal vision, the best that you can reasonably expect to have. Read onto the next line and get things right and you’ve exceeded the perfect percentage.

So, as far as Australian cricket is concerned, I want to see an Australian side performing to around 100% of its potential. I’m not interested in a competitive series against Bangla Desh or Zimbabwe if it means we have to play down to their level to get the competitiveness.

Until recently,  we haven’t been sure what our best side is, and there seem to have been definite factors within the squad that have prevented individuals and the group as a whole delivering the best they’re capable of.

When you look at this Australian Twelve, I think it’s about the best Dozen we can deliver. If they can play to their full potential we’re going to go very close to getting The Urn back, and, yes, it will probably be a competitive series.

More significantly, there are a couple of players in there who have the potential to deliver something that will really make us sit up and take notice for all the right reasons, and that’s definitely something to look forward to.

That’s where I’m coming from, anyway...

Getting ready for the resumption

Anyone sitting down, a week out from the resumption of hostilities in the Two Part Ashes Series, scratching the noggin and pondering the absence of lengthy dispatches from The Little House of Concrete Sports  Desk can relax.

We know there's someone out there since a glance at the Blogger stats reveals around twenty hits on the blog page on 12 November, around the time the side was named.

We’re back, but we’re not sure how long it’ll last because we’re not sure how much we’ll have to talk about.

I’m inclined to see the whole two part exercise as something like a football match, played in two halves. We’ve spent the first half running players on and off the field as we try to establish the right combination. We’d sort of got things right by the time we got to The Oval and a couple of players who needed to put their hands up, then headed off at half time for a break with most of the selection issues settles.

That’s most selection issues, but not all of the buggers. We have the predictable questions about who’s fit in the bowling department and one can’t help suspecting Faulkner got his guernsey in a sort of What if Watto can’t bowl scenario, which meant there was still a possible gap at Six.

White ball form had established Bailey as the most likely contender at Six, and when you look at matters like The Captain’s Back and the lack of alternative leaders in the side most likely contender probably got transformed into lay down misere.

Ain’t hindsight wonderful?

Actually, when you look at it, after all the tinkering this six at the top of the order is probably as good as we’re likely to get for the next six months. Messrs Cowan, Hughes and Khawaja haven’t done enough to upset the applecart. Doolan doesn’t quite seem to have come on as expected. Queenslanders seem to be ineligible by origin. End of story.

Which is fine, in a way, because there are longevity issues with Rogers and Clarke, Watson is a game by game proposition, so there are spots up for grabs in the medium term. All we need is a few contenders coming to the fore.

The batting may not be fine, but for the next six weeks this lot is probably as good as it gets and could do very well indeed.

The bowling ain’t too shabby either, with Johnson having hit some white ball form. He’ll deliver the shock attack (or shocking, you can never tell). Harris and Siddle will work their guts out, and Lyon continues to come along nicely. He’s a work in progress, and I think progress is being made.

And then there’s Watto to act as a fourth seamer if he’s not the fifth because we’ve included Faulkner at Lyon’s expense on a Gabba green top.

Straightforward is the term that springs to mind when it comes to this particular selection, which explains the absence of lengthy Hughesy analysis over the past fortnight or so. The only bloke who can claim a degree of disappointment is Cutting, but he’s a Queenslander, and, therefore, ineligible by origin.

There’ll be issues further down the track, and that’s where the thoughts have been headed on the morning walk over the past couple of days.

The issues, predictably, relate to the bowling, and the propensity for young quickies to break down and spend extended spells on the sideline. They also come back to the need to create a bowling attack that can take twenty wickets in a Test, bowl ninety overs in a day   and come through five days without someone breaking down.

That last point seems to have something to do with bowling more than fifty overs in a Test, so let’s just linger on the mathematics of all this once more. As we do so, we’re not looking at this series, more casting an eye towards the horizon, trying to see where we’re headed in two years’ time.

We’re looking at the standard Test eleven of six bats, a wicketkeeper and four bowlers, figuring you’re going to bowl three days out of five.

Take four specialist bowlers, divide that number into ninety, multiply the answer by three and you come up with a tad under sixty-seven, which is a fair bit more than fifty. We’re assuming there is an actual statistical base for that fifty overs in a Test bit, which may not be exactly right but you have to start from somewhere.

The easiest way to get to ninety is to look at it as four twenties and a ten, which in turn comes back to a current line up of Johnson, Harris, Siddle and Faulkner/Lyon as twenty over bowlers, with Watson taking the ten.

That standard Test eleven cited before has your four bowlers batting Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, but you can open things up and start looking at Six and Seven in the long term, or in the shorter term if Watto breaks down again.

Which means we’re back with the all-rounder question again, and we’ll have Geoffrey rolling his eyes once again. But we’re looking long term, and things possible contenders should be working on rather the here and now that might stretch into the week after next.

It all comes down to how you define your all-rounders, which in turn decides how you select them.

A genuine all rounder will be good enough to bat in the first six and go close to bowling his twenty overs in a day. He probably bats six, since batting higher up seems to bring constraints with the bowling workload. Dunno why that has to be the case, but it seems to be the way it is.

Alternatively he can bat Seven if the ‘keeper is close enough to a specialist bat to slot in at Six.

Genuine allrounders are few and far between. We tend to get bowlers who can bat, and the occasional batsman who can bowl. Bowlers who can bat will send down their twenty overs a day and contribute useful runs while occupying the crease, hopefully with an established batsman at the other end. Bowlers who can bat are good prospects at Eight and Nine.

You’re always going to have someone in the side who’s a candidate for Eleven, and more than likely another who’s a Ten. Looking at a Gabba scenario that could have Harris and Siddle at Ten and Eleven if Lyon gets the drinks waiter’s job is an atypical state of affairs. Neither of them are bunnies.

On the other side of the pseudo all-rounder coin,  we have batsmen who can bowl, and here we’re looking at someone who can bat in the top six and deliver around ten overs of Test standard bowling.

Note we’re talking Test quality here, not someone who is there and can roll the arm over if required.

And this, folks, is where we turn our eyes towards the horizon.

Along with the fifty overs in a Test there also seems to be some statistical basis for a suggestion that it’s the young quicks who are most likely to break down badly. The older ones, when they’re injured, seem to have issues that relate to normal wear and tear.

On that basis, it might seem to make sense to have some of your up and coming quicks, once they’re out of age group cricket, looking to bat up the order for club or state sides which could tend to put some constraints on their bowling workloads. Note the use of could, tend and some there, and we’re not talking right up to the top of the order, more like Seven or Eight if the ‘keeper’s batting Six.

You never know. That might just get them through the danger period safely, after which the work rate could be ramped up, and you’d have a bloke who could handle himself in a Test side at Eight, Nine or Ten.

More particularly, if you’ve got someone who can bowl and can also build himself into a Five, Six or Seven (if the ‘keeper bats six) you might have a way forward for the likes of Ashton Agar, though one notes that the all-rounder bit requires ten or twenty overs of Test standard bowling. Could be a way forward for Glenn maxwell as well, but revealed form suggests the bowling isn’t quite there yet.

If that all seems to be looking too far into the future, let’s just say you’ve got to do something while we’re waiting to see which way the coin falls at the Gabba in a week’s time.