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...
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