Resuming the Commentary

While I was always confident we’d be retrieving The Ashes from foreign interests by the end of this series I didn't expect to be sitting down two days out from Boxing Day contemplating a five-nil whitewash.

The Inquisitive Reader may have been wondering at the lengthy silence following the win at The Gabba, something that stemmed from the fact that Hughesy wasn’t in the country. We were still part way through the English half of the two part series when I heard about a run of four Elvis Costello Spinning Songbook concerts in Japan. That looked like a reasonable excuse to head across to ride around on bullet trains.

The Interested Reader will find details of those shows over on The LHoC Music blog, or the LHoC web site but in between concerts and shinkansen excursions I was actually following the scores. Things would have been better if the feed from the Cricket Australia app on the iPad wasn’t geoblocked, but you can’t have everything.

And even with the prospect of a whitewash there’s no room for complacency because from what I’ve read it looks like we’re still only operating around 95%.

The important thing to remember before we get down to gloating is that this is a side that has been assembled to complete a task, and while we’re well on the way to doing that, a couple of issues will need to be dealt with on the way to reclaiming that #1 Test ranking, which is what we’re after.

Look at the current side and we’ve got Rogers, Haddin and the pace bowling trio that's the heart of what may well be the best attack going around at the moment (Australia's attack 'best in the world' - McDermott) all needing to replaced in the medium term, and we also need to build up the spin bowling department for future tours to spin-friendly environments on the subcontinent.

We’ve also got the prospect of a three Test Series in South Africa in the New Year, and one notes recent developments that suggest we’ll need to be firing on all cylinders if we’re going to win that one. We’re still ranked #5 on 101 with South Africa well ahead of the pack on 131 (India 119, England 116, Pakistan 102). They’ve got de Villiers, Amla and Smith at 1, 2 and 9 in the batting rankings (Clarke 5) and Philander and Steyn at 1 and 2 in the bowling (Harris and Siddle 5 and 6).

And while it’s rather pleasant to watch the wheels start to fall off the much vaunted England line up one notes suggestions of burnout as a significant factor. They’ve kept a fairly tight core of players together through a lot of cricket, and the strain is going to show eventually. We don't want to end up in the same pickle.

On our part,  we’re looking for a long term replacement for Rogers as The Steady Opener, cover for Watson as The All Rounder (or, if you prefer, The Batsman Who Bowls), Haddin behind the stumps and depth and variation in the spin bowling department (Backup Offie, as well as a leftie and a left arm orthodox). Throw in another top order bat and someone who can bat in the middle and you’d have the makings of a decent medium to long term prospect.

Those players need to be identified and brought on, with a degree of rotation involved when we play the likes of Zimbabwe, Bangla Desh, the West Indies and New Zealand.

The fast bowling department looks reasonably good, with plenty of depth coming through, but there are two questions over that way. The first, of course, is getting them on to the park, something that we haven’t quite managed to do consistently. If you’re not convinced of that, take a squiz at the injury list.

Then, assuming you’ve got the resources fit and ready to fire, it’s a question of getting the right mix. In many ways,  this current attack reminds me of the bowling group that got us home against the West Indies back in 1995. That attack went into a Test series having just lost McDermott to injury, and while it included Warne and an emerging McGrath the other two quicks (Reiffel and Julian) aren’t going to end up being ranked along Australia’s all-time greats.

That lineup, however, offered a blend of talents that gave options to attack the West Indies batting order, and, just as importantly, weren’t afraid to ruffle the West Indian tailenders who were used to monstering the opposition without getting a great deal of retaliation when they batted.

One notes some of the same thing happening here where Messrs Anderson and Broad are concerned.

So when it comes to replacing Johnson, Harris and Siddle it might not be a case of a straight like for like swap. Johnson may be The Leftie With the Terror Factor, but that doesn’t mean he can be replaced by, say, Starc, who may be The Leftie, but mightn’t fit into the Terrifying Pace side of things.

No, it’s a matter of getting the right combination, and that’s not necessarily going to be a matter of selecting the three most obvious choices.

The other matter that needs to be commented on is, of course, the rapid depletion of English resources in this series, and I’d direct The Argumentative Reader’s attention in that direction if he or she thinks I’m getting a little over the top in the comments above.

The first point to be made here is that we’ve turned on the aggression and the verbals, and one notes a report in this morning’s ABC News digest where Graeme Swann’s granny is blaming unwelcoming Australians for the lad’s decision to retire.

There are two telling comments in that report.

"I do not think they have been (made) very welcome, the team. He is not easily upset, there is something nasty happened.”

Well, you don’t (or shouldn’t) expect to be welcomed with open arms when you’re looking towards a four-series drubbing of your hosts. One doesn’t get the impression there are open arms when our blokes step onto the paddock over there. The words Barmy and Army spring to mind here.

She’s also reported as saying "When the team went down to Australia and that young lad [Jonathan Trott] came back, there was something going wrong then,” which moves the debate over the verbals into a whole new ball game.

Now, you might think that what I’m about to say is heartless, and you may be right, but both Trott and Swann came into this series with their own issues.

With Trott the psychological issues were, to some extent, known, and how much the Australian side knew about his actual mental state doesn’t matter. He was known to be a stickler for routine, fussy about his preparation for each ball he faced and that makes him liable to a little hurry up.

If I’d been on the field when he was batting I’d have been making fairly pointed comments about time wasting, particularly if it was the morning of Day One and I was looking to get through thirty overs before lunch.

As far as any damage inflicted is concerned, in this context I’m reminded of a sequence of photos I saw somewhere years ago.

Taken at what may have been a County match they showed a batsman, possibly Colin Cowdrey, lying on the ground after being struck by an Andy Roberts bouncer. There were a number of concerned individuals clustered around the figure on the ground, but Roberts wasn’t one of them.

Roberts was standing at the top of his run, ready to steam in for the next delivery.

Apparently, questioned about what might be interpreted as a heartless attitude, Roberts said something like “It’s my job to bowl it. It’s his job to deal with it.”

Go down the track and take a look at the damage you’ve done and you may lose some of your effectiveness. Using the short ball to get a batsman moving onto the back foot, then spearing in the yorker to clean him up is a fairly standard strategy. If the batsman’s technique of dealing with the short stuff has him swaying back and being hit by a ball that follows him, it isn’t the bowler’s fault.

No, if he’s batting Three he has to expect pressure, and it’s the opposition’s job to deliver it.

In Swann’s case, elbow surgery had already reduced his effectiveness, and Lehmann is on record as saying the plan was to attack him in an endeavour to force Cook to bring back the quicks (and, more than likely, bowl them to the point where they’re increasingly susceptible to injury).

What is interesting, at least from where I’m sitting, is that Swann opted to come on tour knowing he wasn’t going to be able to deliver the lengthy spells he had been used to, and then, faced with the prospect of a five-nil drubbing with a major question mark over whether Broad will take the field and turn out to be fully effective, chose to make an early departure from a side that had already been considerably weakened.

But, for all that, now I’m in a position to resume watching, roll on Boxing Day…

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...

Off to Lords..,

It may be delusional, but Hughesy’s expectation that we’re going to go close to retrieving the urn over the course of the next four Tests is based on an expectation that eventually we’ll work out the best way to use our existing resources, and when that happens Australia will be extremely competitive.

The process of figuring out the best way to use our existing resources is, of course, the tricky bit, and is more than likely the cause of any friction or rifts within the side. Eventually, however, we’ll sort things out to the point where we’re competitive at the very highest level, and when we do the success that should naturally follow will bring its own issues with it.

There’ll inevitably be friction in any collection of humans unless you’ve been lucky enough to assemble a group that’s absolutely committed to a common target with every individual within the group in total agreement about how the target’s supposed to be reached.

There’ll inevitably be members of the Australian side who take, shall we say, exception to the presence of others in the team, and resent the manner in which responsibilities are allocated.

Whether the Scott Muller incident was down to Joe the Cameraman or the formerly chubby Victorian leg spinner, there are always going to be players in the side who aren’t convinced that recent additions are good enough. Don’t just think Warne and Muller, go back to, say Ian Chappell and Graham Yallop and continue from there through the squads selected. You’ll find any number of other examples.

Questions regarding the leadership will invariably generate friction. Expectations and ambitions on one side will be resented, but hopefully grudgingly accepted. We’ve heard recent suggestions that Michael Hussey’s departure was hastened by issues with Michael Clarke’s captaincy, and if you cast your eye back a bit over thirty years you’ll see obvious friction between three West Australians named Kim Hughes, Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee.

So while these things are, I think, inevitable, at some point someone makes a call and says this is how it is, fellas, and, hopefully, at that point given a decision the protagonists pull their heads in and get on with the game.

Warne may have resented Gilchrist landing the vice-captaincy but he kept on bowling, and did it rather well.

Inevitably, you’ll see examples of people who are used to getting their own way and attempt to influence decisions to make sure the trend continues.

That, of course, brings us to the question of likely changes to the starting eleven this time around as we wait to see the side for Lords. We took our time and dropped a bombshell for Trent Bridge, so while there may or may not be any bombshells for Lords, you can bet your bottom dollar that, ten or so hours out from the start with the side and the management pushing up Zs, we’ll be taking our time.

As far as I can see there are only two spots where changes are likely, and the overnight rumours suggest a Khawaja for Cowan swap is unlikely. If it doesn’t happen, either Cowan does enough to cement a spot this time or he doesn’t.

His spot, however, didn’t necessarily have to be at Three, which is where the Watto conundrum kicks in. Maybe it doesn’t quite constitute whiteanting, may or may not be a cancer on the side, and almost certainly constitutes the actions of a man who’s used to getting what he wants the decisions about where Watson bats and how much he bowls have been heavily influenced by the man and his actions.

Those decisions have, however, been made, the judge’s decision is in, no correspondence will be entered into and the choice is down to Cowan or Khawaja at Three.

The other question’s a bit more tricky, since it involves the composition of the bowling group. Based on Trent Bridge you’d have to say Agar holds his place, batting Eight and doing his share of the bowling. Siddle and Pattinson look safe (barring injury) so the final spot comes down to whether Starc stays and, if he doesn’t, who replaces him.

A bowling Watson would open up a chance for Lyon to return if it looks like the track will turn, but I’m assuming Watson’s role with the ball will constitute cameos rather than donkey work, so it’s either Bird, Faulkner or Harris (as always I try to keep these things alphabetical).

There’s a case for each of the three.

Bird, as our prospective new McGrath, would be an obvious candidate for the work horse role behind Pattinson and attack leader Siddle.

Faulkner can bat, and would be a left arm for left arm replacement, but is probably the least likely of the three prospects with the ball. Of course, having said that, name him in the side and he’ll more than likely deliver.

Harris, who is no good thing to hold down a spot for four games, but will work his guts out while he’s there.

In the end, not having seen any of the three in action on the tour I’m half inclined to go for Harris, but the question mark over the longevity means I’m more inclined to play it safe and opt for Bird.

Who knows? Typing this at ten-thirty-nine on a post-State of Origin morning, I’m more inclined to adopt a wait and see approach, Pressed to make a call. I’d go Khawaja for Cowan and Bird for Starc, but we’ll see...

This is the must win game, and winning is difficult if you’re a bowler short, which explains my preference for Bird over Harris...

Trent Bridge Day 5: The Entrails Part 1

Putting issues like walking and the Decision Review System to one side, if we can get that close playing at those levels I definitely like our chances of heading out of The Oval with the urn in hand, and if we can’t quite manage that I reckon we’re looking good to have the prize reclaimed by the end of the Australian summer.

I’m not in the business of assigning percentages to the opposition, though I’m fairly definite in saying England were playing somewhere beyond 100% back in 2005. That’s an easy call. They were playing out of their skins, far better than they, or anyone else, had a right to expect.

So I’m not sure about the level of performance from this England side in that particular Test, but I’d rate our batting somewhere between 75 and 80% and the bowling somewhere between 85 and 90. There’s room for substantial improvement with the bat and a significant lift with the ball and we still only fell 14 runs short.

Pattinson, Starc, Siddle and Agar may well be our best specialist bowling quartet, but there’s room for improvement in the lines we bowl and the percentage of deliveries we force their batsmen to play at. If Trent Bridge is a sign of the surfaces we’re going to see through the rest of the English summer we’re not going to see anything resembling bowler friendly conditions unless weather and atmospherics intervene so attack off stump, get the length right and we’re going to be a big show.

Looking at the English bowling, this particular quartet is handy, and they under bowled Broad in the first dig after he got collected in the shoulder. There may be room for improvement there, but not having seen enough of them in the past it’d difficult to judge. There’s no doubting Anderson’s class, but I think there’s a fair gap between this group and their 2005 combo, which was boosted by the Flintoff all rounder factor.

If you scratch your head and wonder why we get our knickers in a knot looking for a Botham or Flintoff, take a look at our lineup and ask yourself how good it would look with Watson assuming a fair proportion of the workload. Four overs in the first innings and fifteen in the second when his four colleagues were all in the thirties doesn’t rank as a fair proportion of the workload from where I’m sitting.

At his best he’s not far behind the best of them for pace and aggression, which is why I’ve never been happy about having him open the batting, but that, it seems, is where he’ll be staying for the foreseeable future, so there you go.

The batting is the department where there’s the most room for improvement, and the first thing I’d do is issue an edict that an unsuccessful referral will result in a thousand dollar fine. No, make that ten thousand. Let’s see an end to the speculative or opportunistic referral, and limit them to setting the absolute howlers right rather than allowing a batsman who’s made a mistake the possibility of a lifeline.

At the moment it seems to be a case of maybe I can get away with one here rather than hang on a minute, that decision was wrong.

I suspect a decline in the number of referrals will result in a decrease in the number of referable decisions, and everyone will end up benefiting.

I also believe that taking out the lifeline will make a couple of our batsmen more responsible for technical deficiencies, and in the case of unsuccessful referrals from Watson I’d double the amount of the fine (apply the same figure to Rogers if you think that’s unfair, but Watto seems like the sort of bloke who’d be likely to blow the whole allocation within the first ten overs, which, to me, is another reason I’d prefer to see him down the order.

Having whizzed Warner off to Zimbabwe and South Africa, where he’ll get more time in the middle against better attacks than an English county side resting key players will throw up, and with Khawaja as the other specialist bat in the squad, I’d have him back in the side at three.

That means a batting order that reads Rogers, Watson, Khawaja, Clarke, Smith, Hughes, Haddin, Agar, Pattinson, Siddle, Starc which is, I guess about as good as we can muster at the moment and puts Hughes and Smith under the spotlight with a chance to cement their places over the next two or three Tests, which is fair enough in my book.

Any changes in the bowling lineup would be slotted in after Starc.

That’s my take on what’s gone down at Trent Bridge, and having allowed myself the ineluctable luxury of sleeping in until nine-thirty this morning, it’s one that hasn’t been influenced by at length cogitations on the morning walk or extensive perusals of opinions expressed in the press and over on Cricinfo.

We might be taking a squiz at those tomorrow, and casting an eye forward to Lords on Wednesday and/or Thursday. Stay tuned...

Trent Bridge Day 4

To err, they say, is human. The question is, of course, what you do after the inevitable error has occurred.

Overnight developments have kept the issues relating to umpiring in what was always going to be a fiercely contested Ashes series firmly in the spotlight, and it’s reasonably certain those issues aren’t going to be disappearing any time soon.

I’ve done my share of umpiring over the years, and while I wouldn’t presume to second guess the thought processes of those who do it at the highest level, I think I’ve got a fair handle on what goes through your mind when you realise you might have made a mistake.

That little word might is the key element here. Sometimes, on further reflection, you realise that yes, you did. Other times, as you run back your mind back over it, you conclude no, everything’s cool. What you don’t want to do is dwell on the detail, that way lies madness and the likelihood of further error.

The last thing you want to do is to try to square things up. All that does is open the path to total disaster.

One thing that’s handy is to have some sort of pressure release valve, the sort of thing I used to use when I signalled byes and the batsman, aggrieved that I was doing him out of a run or two, claimed to have hit the ball.

“Fine,” was my standard reply. “If the wicket keeper had caught it I would have given it not out.”

That usually ended the complaints.

Test match umpires, of course, can’t do that sort of thing (or at least they can’t do it while anyone’s watching, and if someone was silly enough to try to do it behind closed doors he’d be asking for trouble).

It’s fair to assume that, having realised the error has been made, the first thing the umpire does is to look at ways of avoiding the possibility of a recurrence. That means (and I’m guessing this is what happened) after you’ve made an obvious mistake with a catch behind when there’s another appeal and you’ve got a distinct impression of a snick but a question mark over whether it has carried you’ll consult with your colleague at square leg who might be able to confirm whether it did.

This appears to have been the case with Clarke’s dismissal, though Pup’s subsequent squandering of the remaining referral will undoubtedly turn around to bite us on the arse some time tomorrow morning.

The umpires, for mine, will do a certain amount of self correcting, and if you leave them alone you’ve got a better chance of that ending up in your favour.

Not that it’s a conscious thing, of course. Umpires don’t (or shouldn’t) go looking for a conscious squaring up, but as the impressions flow though the decision making process I suspect there’s a certain amount of subconscious filtering that amounts to much the same thing.

Beyond that, from my understanding of things, Test match umpires can call on a theoretically infinite number of referrals, though one suspects frequent use of that possibility will raise a number of fresh issues. You want your umpires using that sort of thing as a last resort rather than a crutch.

As far as the teams’ two referrals are concerned, I think you’re actually going to get more dodgy decisions if you’re inclined to refer things at the drop of a hat.

The other issue that seemed to be coming through in the radio commentary was that, due to the situation within the ICC Umpires Panel, we’re probably looking at the two blokes out in the middle (Aleem Dar and HDPK Dharmasena) and Marais Erasmus, who’s looking after the TV side of proceedings, throughout the rest of the series.

On that basis I’m hoping the poison pens of the Pommy press are dumb enough to go on about the standard of the decision making because I suspect we’ve done enough damage to our own cause with our own apparent take on the referral system.

You trap more ants with sugar than you do with vinegar, and we’d probably be better off if we were suggesting they’re doing a fair job and not firing in an opportunistic or speculative referral whenever it seems there’s a sniff of possible advantage to be gained.

Each side has two referrals, and hot headed self preservation is likely to be counterproductive. I suspect a willingness to fire them in makes the umpire less likely to ask the colleague up in the referral centre for clarification.

In any case, the first session tomorrow will, of course, be key, as will the role of the heavy roller before play resumes. It seems the failure of the track to deteriorate as predicted owes a lot to the heavy roller, and if that’s true there’s every possibility things will be done and dusted by the time the roller’s morning ministrations have been negated.

It could, of course, be all over within ten minutes, but the aim should be to go about our business as usual, playing each ball on it merits and seeing how much pressure can be put back on the England XI.

It’s fairly obvious (at least it’s fairly obvious to me) that England aren’t as good as their public thinks they are, and Australia is definitely on the way back. I think the Day Five result will be very close, and with three days before we head into the Lords Test any momentum that’s starting to build should be able to be maintained.

Particularly if Haddin, Agar, Siddle, Pattinson and Starc can cobble together those hundred and thirty-seven runs.

Actually, the best outcome would be for the quintet to cobble them together, head off to Lords one-nil up and watch as the poison pens of the Pommy press set out on an orgy of we was robbed due to lousy umpiring, which would, IMHO, more than likely produce a continuing flow of contentious decisions with the majority of them working in our favour.

But that’ll come after what will hopefully be a very interesting two-plus hours tonight...

Thirty-five hours out...

About thirty-six hours out from the first of ten Tests in back to back Ashes series, Hughesy is pretty upbeat about Australia’s chances of holding the urn by the end of the Australian summer.

Actually, I’m pretty upbeat about our chances of our having matters under control by the time we head home from The Oval, but I’m willing to concede some things take time to build.

While there’s every possibility something will roll along to upset the apple cart between now and the resumption of hostilities, recent speculation about who decides the Australian batting order and ponderings about whether Peter Siddle will be all right on the night (here) has me thinking things are shaping up rather well.

The question of who decides the batting order and the possibility of some sort of ruction between the Australian captain and the Australian coach suggests, to me at least, the journos covering the tour are in need of a story.

And since we haven’t had any members of the touring party making mugs of themselves in the course of a night on the tiles, with nothing else to write about, we get attempts to generate a storm in a teacup in the quest for column inches.

I’m willing to concede there’s the possibility of some disagreement, but it’s hard to imagine that Michael Clarke’s first sighting of the side he’s being handed will occur immediately before the toss.

The twelve will be done and dusted by now, with the most likely eleven just about set in stone. It’s just that they’re not telling anyone.

Which is fine with me, because we’re looking at a situation where any advantage, however slight, is going to be helpful. We’re actually looking at a situation where any member of the touring party except Matthew Wade and, possibly (but only possibly) Ashton Agar is likely to find themselves in the final eleven.

That means when the Poms are doing their planning they have a few more things to take into account, which delivers a slight tactical advantage. We already have a fair idea of what we’re up against, don’t we? The other side has a bit more guess work to do.

Getting back to that matter of the batting order, pause for a moment and consider the statement that the captain decides the batting order, which, of course, he does because the order in which the batsmen enter the arena is a tactical one, and tactical decisions are the captain’s realm.

I’d be betting that when Lehmann hands over the team list it’ll contain eleven names in alphabetical order and a specified twelfth man. Clarke will have a second list, which will be the suggested or likely batting order, so let’s pause for a moment and cast an eye over that little devil.

The only apparent given in the eleven is that it will feature Rogers and Watson at the top of the order, Clarke in the middle somewhere and Haddin at Six or Seven, depending on whether Faulkner is included in the eleven along with four other bowlers. Once you’ve made that call, One, Two, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten and Eleven are more or less set in stone, aren’t they?

So the only decisions that Clarke has to make will involve the blokes who slot into the scoreboard at Three, Four, Five and Six. Compris?

So let’s pause for a moment and look at the candidates. In Rogers and Watson we’ve got a left hand right hand combination, and Clarke’s a right hander. So, for that matter, in the course of these calculations, is Haddin.

Cowan, Hughes, Khawaja and Warner all bat left, Smith is the only other rightie among the specialist bats. What’s to stop Clarke and whoever gets the nod out of the first three of those lefties both padded up as the openers go out?

A left hand/right hand opening combination is held to be useful because if they’re able to rotate the strike the bowlers are going to have a little added difficulty in maintaining a consistent line and length and building pressure.

Assume, for a moment that the first four reads something like Watson, Rogers, Hughes and Clarke. Pencil in the possibility that whoever goes in at Three (which should be the best bat in the side according to the conventional wisdom) depends on who is the first bat to be dismissed. If you want to keep the left/right combination going, Hughes replaces Rogers, Clarke replaces Watson.

Might be tricky if Watson goes early, but if that’s the way you’re thinking, you’d be looking at a definite order, wouldn’t you?

AS far as the bowling goes, things are fairly open, and I suspect the actual line up will depend on the team’s assessment of the best options against the English top order. You’d reckon Pattinson and Starc are certainties, so the question becomes whether you play a spinner, with Lyon most likely, but not a certainty, to get the nod.

Assume he does, and you’re going in with four specialist bowlers, and the choice comes down to one out of Siddle, Harris, Bird and Faulkner.

In these circumstances, kicking off a series where the batting has the question mark over it, I’d have Haddin at Seven, and I’d be going with the four bowlers, so I’d be giving the nod to Siddle and telling him to expect the work horse role.

Anyway, for what it’s worth, Hughesy’s side for Trent Bridge: Watson, Rogers, Hughes, Clarke, Khawaja, Warner, Haddin, Siddle, Pattinson, Starc, Lyon, Bird (12th man).

Par score after Day One, assuming weather, atmospherics, or any devils in the pitch don’t come into play 8 for 300. More than eight wickets or less than 300, advantage to the side bowling first. Less than eight wickets advantage definitely to the batting side, though they’re level pegging if there’s more than thirteen...

And tomorrow, reflections on the dynamics of a series, and why 2005 wasn’t the wonderful series it was cracked up to be..

The Ashes Squad 2013

You may think it's rather like a dog that persists in gnawing at a bone long after whatever meat was there in the first place but I continue to see reminders of that fateful morning in 2005 when Glenn McGrath turned his ankle on a stray cricket ball, Ricky Ponting won the toss and sent them in and Brett Lee proceeded to bowl in a most profligate manner.

It was a decision that might seem to belong to the dim and distant past, but we're still seeing the ripples of its effect, most recently in the question of why we've recalled a thirty-five year old veteran of a single Test to the Australian squad for the Ashes tour.

Regardless of the implications (cited here) of being issued with a baggy green that may or may not have been too small and seems to have resulted in a migraine, Chris Rogers was always going to have to make way for Matthew Hayden's return to the side. That was in the summer of 2007-2008, when the Australian side was rebuilding after the retirements of Langer and Martyn (and Warne and McGrath) with Gilchrist and Hayden on the verge of leaving and Ponting and Hussey starting to approach their use by dates, so you can see why Hayden had to come back in the short term.

Had we held the Ashes in 2005, one suspects the retirement/rebuilding process would have been managed differently.

Still, having chosen to bring on younger players in the interim (Phil Jaques, Simon Katich, Phil Hughes, Shane Watson, David Warner and Ed Cowan) there's the possibility of a pleasingly ironic turn of The Ashes tail if we regain the urn thanks to the efforts of an opening batsman who's spent the past five Australian winters amassing a mountain of runs and gaining valuable experience in English conditions, playing County cricket because he wasn't in the Australian side.

That said, with the predictable reinstatement of Brad Haddin to the premier glove man position yesterday's announcement of The Ashes squad provided few surprises, though it does raise some interesting possibilities and a few intriguing conundrums.

For a start it does look like a bowling attack that'll be able to take twenty wickets in English conditions. Three out of Siddle, Pattinson, Starc, Harris and Bird with either Watson or Faulkner as a fourth seamer and Lyon, who has finally managed a bag of wickets in a Test (and, one notes, is moving to New South Wales, put a big tick in the developing the spinner box) looks like a pretty sharp attack.

It's also interesting to note four of those five quicks in the Australia A squad, along with Lyon and young Ashton Agar as well as Haddin and Khawaja. There'll be plenty of chances to assess form and performance prior to the start of the First Test at Trent Bridge on 10 July. There are tour matches against Somerset and Worcestershire before that,  and Australia A play Scotland, Ireland and Gloucestershire while they get the Champions' Trophy sorted out.

On that basis, crystal ball gazing three months out might seem pretty pointless. You'd expect the twelve for Trent Bridge to include four of the five quicks plus Lyon, with Clarke and Haddin the only obvious certainties. Throw in Rogers and Watson as highly likely, and you've got three batting spots up for grabs with Warner, Cowan, Hughes and Khawaja as the candidates.

Pretty straightforward for mine. Rogers is an opening bat, so put him in first, with Cowan, Hughes at Three, Clarke at Four, Watson at Five and Warner at Six. Haddin is the obvious Seven, Starc, Siddle, Pattinson and Lyon rounding out the eleven with Harris or Bird carrying the drinks.

But we'll see. There are several bridges with quite a bit of water to flow under them between now and then.

Ashes squad:
Michael Clarke (capt), Brad Haddin (vice-capt, wk), David Warner, Ed Cowan, Phillip Hughes, Shane Watson, Usman Khawaja, Chris Rogers, Matthew Wade (wk), James Faulkner, Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle, James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Jackson Bird.

Australia A squad:
Brad Haddin (capt), Steven Smith (vice-capt), Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird, Alex Doolan, Ryan Harris, Moises Henriques, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Nic Maddinson, James Pattinson, Chadd Sayers, Peter Siddle, Jordan Silk.

Chennai: After Day Four...

Given a lack of pay television in these parts and the refusal of the BCCI to offer a reasonably priced radio option I wasn't going to bother commenting on the current Test series in India but after what has every appearance of a tightly fought four days I can't help myself.

It would be easy to look at things and denounce the batting as not good enough and label the bowling as completely the wrong option, but from where I'm sitting it looks like we've been suckered into this foolhardy notion of we'll play our best side.

That's fair enough, but too often our best side doesn't coincide with the conditions or current forrm, and too often it's built around aspirations rather than reality.

Looking at the two Australian innings in this Test, you'd probably assume we don't play spin very well, and you'd probably be right. Michael Clarke does, but we knew that, and it really looks like we went in on a wing and a prayer with the rest of the top six. After Chennai you'd have to say the only blokes who should be guaranteed a spot in the top six are Clarke and Henriques, who may be better suited ahead of Wade than after him since he might manage to stick around longer.

We don't have a lot of other options on hand over there, so the others are possibly safe once one of them has made way for Khawaja. Until, that is, you decide to turn your attention to the bowling.

Three quicks, a medium paced all-rounder and an offie might be our best bowling attack in these parts, and these three quicks plus Watson and Lyon might be our best bowling attack period, but Watto's not bowling, and you need to consider the conditions.

Given the weather, the track and the general welfare of the players it's obvious we've got at least one quick too many, which brings us back to the on-going Watto conundrum as far as the batting order is concerned.

Bowling Watto and Henriques with a strike bowler (Pattinson) and someone to do the donkey work (take a bow there Mr Siddle) would possibly work just as well as this lineup, but Watto doesn't bowl at the moment, and if he did we'd probably be looking at Henriques and saying, well, that's Watto's job, so we're right in that department.

As far as I can see you need someone to take the new ball and once the shine is off it, it's down to spin, reverse swing and, possibly, someone bowling short sharp bursts. If you go the short sharp bursts bit, it's Pattinson or Starc but not both of 'em.

But, I hear you suggest in your search for wisdom, we've got to play both Pattinson and Starc because they're part of our best bowling attack and, anyway, we don't have any decent spinners.

I'd counter that point with the argument that we don't get 'em because we don't bowl 'em when the conditions are likely to suit, so they don't come on.

I think it's obvious that Maxwell needs to be given a run to see how he goes, and you could probably make an equally strong case for Doherty. Warner needs to bowl more, around the same workload as Clarke, and Clarke needs to bowl a bit more anyway.

Writing this we're nine down and around forty in front going into Day Five, so we know the likely result. Hell, we might even look at it and say that without Dhoni's quite remarkable achievement we haven't done that badly, but we really need to do a bit of thinking before Hyderabad, assuming we actually get there after the recent bomb blasts…

Throwing Maxwell in would strengthen the batting, and given the fact that he tends to be a little prickly, he might contribute some useful niggle. Put him in ahead of Starc and you've got someone to bat Seven or Eight with hitman Pattinson at Nine, Siddle at Ten and Lyon at Eleven.

Up at the top of the order we've got the ongoing Watto conundrum, but I would definitely have Khawaja in for Hughes and leave everything else as is for the moment, with the note that non-bowling Watto needs to contribute runs, and that if he's going to open it doesn't have to be at Cowan's expense. You could always go with Warner at Three and drop Khawaja down a slot, or decide to get Warner to give it a bit of hammer at Four or Five.

Anyway, assuming fitness and the absence of gastric issues, Hughesy's eleven for Hyderabad, track unseen and conditions unknown:

Warner, Cowan, Khawaja, Watson, Clarke, Henriques, Maxwell, Wade, Pattinson/Starc, Siddle, Lyon.

Sydney 2012: A Postscript

On yesterday's evidence, my conclusion at the end of yesterday's effort, namely:

Chasing 120, I think we can. Have the lead blow out to 150 and it starts to get dodgy. Make it 175 and I've got my doubts and 200 is where I'm starting to concede a considerable degree of difficulty

Looks to be reasonably close to the money, and much closer than some of my other predictions over the past couple of months.

In any case it's obvious we wouldn't have wanted to be chasing more than 200 batting last, and, despite a fairly impressive effort with the ball a side with a bit more steel and a dash less rash in the batting department would have been setting us a target closer to 250, and would probably have had a little more oomph in the bowling to make the target harder to reach.

Issues with the line feed in the whippersnipper meant I hadn't started on the parts of the yard I really wanted to get to when The Supervisor stuck her head around the door to advise it was nine-twenty-five, and had she managed to do that a little earlier (as requested) I'd probably have put the whippersnipping in the it'll still be there tomorrow basket and caught the action live.

As it was, by the time I'd completed the tasks I'd set myself (and spent close to three-quarters of an hour fiddling with glorified fishing line) it was nine-for, and by the time I'd had a shower and started on brunch the tenth wicket partnership was still in progress and the target climbing steadily. Herath and Lakmal had gone in the way tailenders are supposed to, but Pradeep stuck around for close to an hour as Chandimal farmed the strike. As far as the bowling went, of course, it was a case of not seeing, cannot tell, but in the end the new ball did what it's supposed to do and the target was set at 141.

You can argue all you like about what might have happened had Warner got going, but the point here is that he didn't, and the new ball did what it's always likely to do and he went for a duck. Cowan looked very iffy, probably due to uncertainty as to his spot in the pecking order and Hughes dominated the scoring.

Both went lbw to Herath, which didn't come as much of a surprise and with Clarke holing out for 29 when Cowan went at 4-108 it was up to Hussey and Wade to get us home safely. Wade didn't quite last the distance, bowled by Herath nine short of the target, and all round Mitch got off the mark with the winning run, depriving Mr Cricket of the scripted end to a glorious career.

Looking back it's obvious we've still got significant question marks about every place in the batting order, including Clarke's (though in his case it's a question of Four or Five).

The bowling looks a little better, and you'd suggest that Siddle, Bird and Starc/Johnson would do pretty well until Pattinson is fit, and there are a few other options out there that could do with a bit of assessing.

So there are any number of questions that need close and careful scrutiny, and a limited number of avenues through which that scrutiny can be achieved. In days gone by you'd have set off on a tour to England with a squad of seventeen or eighteen and three or four first class games to find your feet before the first Test. Not any more.

These days you're lucky to get a one-dayer and a three dayer against England A.

So, while there are those in the media who are decrying rotations and spelling, Hughesy's response is to ask when we're going to get a chance to look at some options. Pat Howard is on the record as saying that we're probably only going to field our strongest side against South Africa and England, a suggestion that produced all sorts of objections, so let's pause and take a closer squiz at things.

We're sitting at Three in the Test rankings (on 117, behind England on 118 and South Africa on 123) with Pakistan (109), India (105) Sri Lanka (92) and West Indies (91) between us and the also-rans.

New Zealanders would bristle at that last remark, and start pointing to Bellerive 2011 but, seriously, with their rating on 79 and daylight between seventh and eighth it's hard to think of a more accurate label. Bangladesh rates a 0, and Zimbabwe hasn't played enough matches.

So the first question I'd put to the decriers is who they'd include in a touring party to New Zealand, Bangladesh or Zimbabwe?

Given the question marks about the batting at the moment, and the prospect of tours to India and England on the horizon you'd probably go with close to your side for England if you were heading to New Zealand first, and close to the side you'd be taking to the subcontinent if you were heading to Bangladesh.

In a more ideal universe, you wouldn't be heading to England and New Zealand, or to Bangladesh and India, in the same year, so your touring party to both of those would include a core of established players fleshed out with players who you'd expect to go well in English or Indian conditions, the same way you'd pick blokes who'd be likely to do OK in South Africa on a tour to Zimbabwe.

Playing Pakistan isn't going to happen on their home turf any time soon, so when you play them away you're looking at England or the Gulf, and in the latter case you'd be tailoring your selections to fit climatic conditions you don't find anywhere else in the cricketing world.

Given the crowded schedule players will need to be spelled from time to time, so when are you going to do it?

And what happens when an established player is forced to withdraw for personal/family reasons? No one spelled out the detail when Haddin headed back from the West Indies, but recent reports involving the coincidence of the words kid and cancer suggest a refusal to allow him leave would attract descriptors like unreasonable and cold-hearted.

So, what have we got with this ODI squad, remembering we're playing Sri Lanka in a five game series that doesn't mean a thing apart from bums on seats?

Well, for a start, missing from the Test XI are Clarke, Wade and Hussey. Unreasonable? Possibly, if you're looking to give Mr Cricket a last hurrah, but Clarke has to be rested some time, and giving Wade a break offers a touch of reassurance to Haddin and a reminder to Paine that he needs to deliver with the bat.

But with Hussey not being part of the calculations for the next World Cup what'd be the point of running him around for another ten meaningless games?

So who else is missing from the Test Twelve? Warner, who won't be missing for long, and Cowan, who was probably never going to enter ODI calculations anyway. Out of the bowlers, they're definite Siddle is Tests only, which is fair enough, and Lyon probably isn't going to enter into ODI calculations either.

The only bloke from the Test eleven who might be entitled to feel hard done by (and you can underline that might half a dozen times and insert a couple of question marks after it) is Bird.

Now, I'm possibly on rather risky ground here, but I suspect the selection panel started with the Test Eleven and put lines through the names that need a spell and don't come into calculations for the short forms. That's the way I'd be looking at it if I was the National Selector, anyway.

So, who's left?

Hughes, Johnson and Starc. Check the exclusions. Warner (rested), Cowan (not in the picture), Clarke (rested), Hussey (retired), Wade (rested), Siddle and Lyon (not in the picture).

So, who to draft in? You're going to need a captain, since none of the three names you've got will be filling that role and a keeper. Anybody who doesn't think Bailey and Haddin would get the nod there has serious issues with reality.

At that point you put the names on a list in batting order, which gives you Hughes, Bailey, Haddin, Johnson, Starc.

Haddin and Hughes can both open if necessary, but presumably you won't use Haddin in that role when we're batting second, so you need another opener, and Finch looks to be an obvious candidate, so:
Finch, Hughes, Bailey, Haddin, Johnson, Starc.

Which is where we turn to the middle order options and slot in Khawaja as the next cab off the rank. There's a spot there for another bloke in the middle, possibly two, depending on whether Haddin goes in at Six or Seven, and at the moment we've only got two front line bowlers. I don't think there's any surprise in Clint McKay or Xavier Doherty, So, for a squad of thirteen:

Finch, Hughes, Khawaja, Bailey, (Five), (another bat), Haddin, (all-rounder at Seven?), Johnson, Starc, McKay, (another quick), Doherty.

Since Glenn Maxwell was in the twelve for the Test he's the logical choice for the all-rounder at Seven.

And you'd have got to that point pretty quickly. Most of he discussion around the table would have concerned those last three spots, and that's where it really becomes line ball.  Whether another panel would come up with Steve Smith and David Hussey for the batting slots (and noting both can bowl) is the sort of thing you could spend half an hour debating, but Cutting for the last bowler's spot looks like a logical move.

The interesting bit will come when Clarke comes back, and Warner, Wade and Bird are back in calculations. There'll still be eight ODIs to play at that stage, so there'll be a bit of chopping and changing, but if we were heading to the ODI World Cup rather than the Twenty20 in June how's about this as a side:

Warner, Finch, Hughes, Clarke, Khawaja, Hussey/Maxwell, Haddin, Johnson, Starc, McKay/Bird, Doherty.

Slot Bailey in for Clarke, and that's possibly close to the Twenty20 World Cup side…

Sydney 2012: Into Day Two...

I was late switching on the TV yesterday, and when I did they were right into the Tony Greig tributes, so I didn't get a chance to pick up on the forensic details about the pitch, so I've got no way of knowing whether there was anything in the track to justify Michael Clarke's decision to insert Sri Lanka after he won the toss.

On paper, with the eleven we chose to take into the game, you'd reckon there'd have to be plenty of soup in there for the quicks, and on the evidence of the first session you'd be forced to conclude that anything that was seen in there was, largely, an illusion.

There were plenty of comments early about the four quicks being used as a means to avoid rotating someone out to bring Starc back in, but I'm more inclined to look at it as a means of evaluating the stocks we've got on hand, the same way that playing Maxwell at Seven or a traditional Sydney turner would have given us a good look at the off-spinning options.

The same way winning the toss and batting might have done a bit to sort out where we are with the top three, and would have delivered those two offies into the position where they'd be bowling last on a wicket that usually turns before the end of Day Five.

But no, for whatever reason, we went in with the four quicks and the chance to sort out a pecking order among them, and the simultaneous rating of Mitchell Johnson as a de facto all-rounder batting Seven. The alternative to that, one assumes, would have been to rest Lyon and go with Maxwell in the spinning department, batting him at Seven.

So, what have we established in the bowling department?

Well, for a start, it's obvious Bird now comes into contention for a regular spot in an attack that's approaching the best we can put on the park. It's early days yet, but in a situation where you're looking at First Choices and Fill Ins Bird looks to be heading towards the former rather than the latter.

The First Choices are the group you'd be looking at a (close to) automatic selections when they're fit, the Fill Ins are the blokes you use to cover when someone isn't.

And second, if Mitch can't cut it with the bat when the time comes yesterday's bowling performance suggests a Fill In rating rather than a First Choice. On yesterday's evidence, if we're looking at a left arm quick, Starc is the first choice and Mitch fills the vacancy if he's not fit and available under the rotation policy.

Mitch looked a lot sharper with the new ball in Melbourne than he did bowling second change yesterday, and, in any case, I think you want him getting a run with the new ball and a licence to menace with the thing while it's still hard and bouncy.

In any case, on what appears to be a reasonable batting track at the moment, he gets his chance with the bat at some point over the next two days and again, possibly, on Day Five, when the track should be taking turn. That should give some indication as far as all-round Mitch is concerned.

The big question, and the one that remains largely unanswered, is how we get three ninety-over days out of the way without bowling anyone past that fifty over mark that supposedly brings an increased likelihood of injury. Your chances of doing that are far better with five front line bowlers, which is where all-round Mitch or bowling Watto become key factors.

That fifty over mark, of course, is probably able to be bent. Siddle, I think, would go closer to sixty or sixty-five, while an up and coming tyro tearaway (Cummins) might be flat out getting to forty.

I think it's sage to assume that our best three quicks (with associated tags) at the moment are Siddle as leader of the attack, go to man and workhorse, Starc as the lefty and Bird as the nagging economy man. He doesn't like the McGrath comparisons, but that's the role he'll probably be asked to fill. Pattinson, when fit, I think is the strike man, and you can probably cast your eye around the first class scene and spot contenders who could cover for each of those four, with Johnson/Starc being one obvious match.

So now, I guess, it comes down to how we do with the bat, with plenty of questions to be sorted out on what should be a fairly decent batting track against an attack that shouldn't threaten. With these two innings as the last of the long form until we head to India in February there are several boxes that can be ticked or replaced with question marks.

The inquisitive reader may be wondering, amid all this, about Hughesy's assessment of the opposition, who showed a bit more stickability than expected on a track that didn't have the demons you might have expected from the four quicks and send them in side of things. Assessing the opposition, however, isn't really my thing, particularly when the opposition are ranked at Number Six, and are apparently unlikely to be playing any more Test cricket in the immediate future.

The two Sri Lankan commentators on the radio yesterday were doing a rather detailed forensic job on their Test prospects, with Russell Arnold, in particular, impressing me with his attention to detail, consideration of possibilities and analysis of the factors involved. Much of it went by to the keeper since I don't have anything resembling a detailed knowledge of the Sri Lankan cricket sign except that they're apparently close to broke, that Mahela has problems with the board at home and they're probably going to be depending on the money they can pull in from the short forms to keep things viable.

That said, yesterday's display with the bat suggests there's talent there, and they're going to be competitive when circumstances aren't too obviously weighed against them. Now it's a matter of seeing how they bowl.

The logical assumption is, of course, that we'll match their three hundred odd today, and hopefully bat on well into tomorrow establishing a lead that will need to be run down. That'll be difficult with just the five specialist bats plus 'keeper Wade and all-round Mitch, so you'd be inclined to suspect a possible lead around 150, a Sri Lankan response through Day Four and the prospect of a potentially nasty chase on the last day.

At least that's the way it looks now. Let's see what happens in an hour's time (he wrote as the computer clock ticks past 8:23 Queensland non-Daylight Saving Time)…

Melbourne 2012: Day One

You can say what you like about the rotation policy (whether the beast actually exists or not, which is, of course, an entirely different kettle of fish) but it's hard to imagine an Australian attack doing much better than Messrs Siddle, Bird, Johnson and Watson did against Sri Lanka yesterday.

True, it was against a side batting first on a track that had a little early life (as they should if we're not going to paint a line down the middle of the thing).

Yes, it was against a side that was brought up on flat decks who don't like it bouncy in the first place, even if they have chosen to bat after winning the toss.

Agreed, it wasn't the best trio plus Watson we could put on the park, but Pattinson and Cummins are injured, and Starc, if you can believe the word that's being put out, had some niggles so it wasn't a rigid enforcement of a policy that may not exist (that's according to the same sources that're suggesting Starc wasn't quite right).

That, however, is the point.

We have an issue with fast bowlers breaking down, so it's increasingly unlikely we'll have our best trio plus Watson on the park at any time in the foreseeable future, though it's always nice to dream. What we need is a viable bowling group that's capable of taking twenty wickets between them, and this one definitely looked the part yesterday.

They might not look the part tomorrow, or next week, or at some unspecified time in the future, but they looked the part yesterday, and that's what mattered.

Bird, the controversial part of the equation (assuming the final decision was based on Bird or Starc rather than Johnson or Starc) looked the goods and did enough to suggest he'll be an ongoing part of the group. He'll probably bowl better and do worse in terms of results in the wickets taken column, and he may not go on at all, but he did enough to suggest he's going to be around for a bit.

Siddle was Siddle, which is what we expect, and the issue where he's concerned is to ensure that he's there rather than sitting on the sidelines, which means he may need to be rested some time, and you'd think Sydney may be the occasion.

And if Siddle was Siddle, Johnson was definitely Johnson, leaking a few runs when Sangakkara got onto him, but I think you want the bats fancying their chances against him.

And when Lyon came on to help with the mopping up he obliged.

Generally, I thought, it was a tidy performance. Maybe not a great one, but as good as you're entitled to expect.

It's a pity you can't say the same thing about the batting.

Another run out that results from ball watching was what actually did the damage, of course, but I definitely heard echoes of Geoffrey Boycott suggesting things wouldn't look so cheery if you added three quick wickets to the score as we went from 0/95 to 3/117.

Warner went the way he's always likely to go, perhaps a little earlier than he should have done to a trap that had obviously just been set, but that's the way he bats and he's there with a licence to give it a go.

Cowan's dismissal wasn't that bad a shot snared by a very good catch, but that's what happens at the top level, so you take the good with the bad even if you do occasionally get the rough end of the pineapple.

Which brings me to Hughes, and a second run out in a fairly short time span since his recall to the side. This is what shouldn't happen at the top level, though it's hard to see how the fault can be rectified when it does.

If you were running a squad of juniors with a couple of coaches on the ground you could address this sort of thing in a centre wicket practice session, with bowlers bowling, batsmen batting and running between wickets and the coaching staff keeping an eagle eye on proceedings, dismissing batsmen for failure to call correctly, failing to respond, turning blind or using any other pernickety excuse to pounce on bad habits before they become ingrained. One mistake and you're out, next please, and you'd be looking to run through the side in about half an hour.

You'd then send 'em off for a drink, call them back, deliver the lecture and remind them of the way things are supposed to work, and then spend an hour on a similar exercise with slightly less stringent supervision.

I'm not sure you'd be able to do that with an international side. Maybe a return to the basics as per the coaching manual would be possible by invoking an automatic $10 (or 20, or 100, the amount probably isn't important) fine for the team slush fund if someone is spotted watching the ball rather than going on the partner's call).

In a competitive environment you'd expect the entire dressing room to be on the lookout once one or two of them had been pinged for the hundred or whatever. After all, once you've been pinged there's a score to settle with the blokes who pinged you...

But it's something that needs thinking about. We hear all sorts of justifications for things that don't quite fit into the conventional thinking and the coaching manual, such as Dean Jones' suggestion that turning blind gave him extra microseconds to turn ones into twos, twos into threes. I'm sure it did, but if it also happened to cost a wicket or two the extra couple of runs probably wasn't worth it.

In any case, at 3/150 casing 156, Clarke and Watson at the crease, Hussey, Wade and the tail to come you'd be looking towards something between 400 and 450 as a par score by stumps today, and a win by an innings and a bit around the middle of the last session on Day Four, but there's many a slip between the cup and the lip…

Melbourne 2012: Pre-Test Prognostications

You might think, given the quantity of column inches devoted to the fast bowling rotation policy and the question mark over Michael Clarke's hamstring, there's not much that can be added to what's already out there, but as I set off around the morning lap around town last Friday I devoted a fair bit of thought to these matters, and though it's close to a week later I'm still inclined to have a go at transferring those thoughts into digital data.

Now, I should make it clear from the start that I don't have an issue with the rotation policy, arbitrary and inconsistent as it would seem to be. That inconsistency, by the way, is largely an issue because there seems to be one rule for the trundlers and another for the willow-wielders.

But we already knew that, didn't we? As Freddie Trueman was wont to remark the last bowler to receive a knighthood was Sir Francis Drake. That's not actually true either, but the astute reader will catch my drift.

So, predictably, Starc makes way for Bird to make his debut, and a bit over three hours before the start of the Boxing Day Test a squiz at the ABC News website has Clarke 'positive' about Boxing Day Test.

So let's tick all the boxes beside the Clarke will play argument.

He's the captain, so he gets to decide his own fate, having watched while Ponting did the same thing. Check.

He's a batsman. Say no more. Check.

There's a chance he'll pass Punter's record for the number of runs scored in a calendar year if he plays, and there's an outside chance he can run down Mohammad Yousuf's record number of runs in a calendar year. He'll need a triple century to do it (or perhaps a double and a single) to do it, which would effectively rule out any niggling questions about his hammie if he managed to do it.

Along the way, even if he doesn't reach an aggregate of 1789 for 2012, he's sitting on 1489, and may well pass Ponting's 1503 from 2003 and 1544 from 2005, Tendulkar's 1562 from 2010, Graham Smith's 1656 from 2008, and possibly Viv Richards' 1710 from 1976.

So there are records out there that might be rewritten. Check.

And there's the question of whether Watto is the right man to fill in the captaincy if Pup doesn't play. See He's the captain above. Check.

But let's pause for a moment and consider what happens if he does play, scores that triple century and does the hammie again, ruling him out of India and The Ashes. Worth the risk?

From where I'm sitting the whole chamozzle is the result of long standing issues that run all the way back to that fateful morning in 2005 when McGrath trod on the cricket ball, turned his ankle and lost us The Ashes.

You might think that's drawing a long bow, but stop for a moment and consider what ensued out of that loss.

First, we had a whole slew of retirements that were postponed until after we got the urn back in 2007. Virtually every member of that 2005 side played on until things were put right, and when you're looking at the who else could do the job as skipper bit today question, the first thing you note is the absence of established senior players apart from Messrs Clarke and Hussey.

Then, when we'd got the urn back we promptly yielded it again in 2009, with the Mitchell Johnson issue influencing team selection (we might need Watto to bowl, so how do we fit him in the eleven? Well, I guess he has to open) and subsequent desire on Ponting's part to go over and bring the thing back again.

The result of all that is a batting order where One, Two and Three are still finding their feet, and while we've possibly got an adequate substitute waiting in the wings the uncertainty about the top means you might be tempted to play it sort of safe by giving Pup a run.

Actually, if you take the building up the stocks argument that is used to justify rotating the quicks, Clarke should not play. Give Khawaja the run and spell Hussey for Sydney so either Khawaja gets a second go or Doolan gets a guernsey to see how he looks.

After all, Starc gets rested to make sure he's fit for India and England, and slots into a pace battery that reads (at the moment, fully fit) Siddle, Starc, Johnson, Bird, Watson with Pattinson, Cummins, Hilfenhaus, Hastings and any number of other contenders lurking on the fringes waiting for a chance to prove their fitness.

I'm fairly upbeat about getting a strong attack out of that bunch, a collective of seven to nine bowlers who can be mixed and matched without losing too much.

But when it comes to the batting, no, we have to play Clarke (or Ponting or Hussey, take your pick, the name's not important, it's the principle) because he's the best we've got for that job even if he's got a question mark over fitness, form or whatever.

I recently heard someone ask what happened to South Australia's Callum Ferguson, who seemed, at one point, to be the next cab off the batting rank. Well, it's obvious, isn't it? He might have been scoring runs at the time but we don't do rotations as far as the batting's concerned, because batsmen are less likely to break down...

But it is, and arguably has always been, a batsman's game…

Hobart 2012: Day Five

It took a bit longer than one would have liked, but in the end Hobart wound up delivering the 1-0 lead in the three Test series that should ensure Australia's spot in the Test rankings doesn't slip.

At the same time this wasn't the performance of a side that's going to be moving upwards in those rankings either. It's difficult to see us outgunning South Africa any time in the immediate future and England have done remarkably well on the subcontinent. If either is going to slip from their current spots in the pecking order it'll most likely be the result of failure to deliver their full potential.

That could happen, of course. Kevin Pietersen could have another spat with everyone else in the England dressing room, and the entire South African pace attack could be struck down with a case of food poisoning that leaves them incapable of hitting the 120kph mark for the next eighteen months, but those are the sort of factors you can't bank on.

The only things you can work on, in the long run, are the things you control, and the performances of teams playing in other games isn't one of them.

So, at this point, how do we look?

Well, it must be said, we're probably about where we could reasonably expect to be, with one or two major problems.

The first of those is that the attack needs to include Siddle since he's the one bloke who seems able to perform consistently. Take him out and the difference is obvious.

The second is that Lyon seems to have run into the wall in the Work in Progress department. Maybe there's a bit of the we're missing one of the quicks factor in there, but he's failed to deliver the last day knockout blow twice now. Alarm bells should be ringing.

As far as the batting order is concerned the top three look to be about as good as we can come up with, though none of them have concreted themselves into their spot in the order.

Warner looks secure in one opener's spot, Cowan looked ugly in the first dig and much better in the second and Hughes did enough to justify selection without staking a cast iron claim to Three.

I'm not entirely convinced Watson is the answer at Four either, but he can sort that bit out by scoring some runs. In any case I think he's better there than opening. He should be good enough to bat Four, Five or Six and at the moment we need his overs to round out the bowling attack. Twenty overs in the first innings (Starc 24, Siddle 25, Lyon 25) and twenty-seven in the second (Starc 28, Siddle 26, Lyon 32) are probably a bit more than you'd want him to bowl, but he's shown he can do his share of the workload, and there's a bit of snarl in there as well. That's always useful.

Clarke at Five and Hussey at Six are safe, though you can't help wondering if Hussey will be there come April next year.

I'm not sure about Wade behind the sticks, but then again we've moved on from Haddin, there's a question mark over Paine and there isn't an obvious next cab on the rank.

Of the bowlers a fit Siddle is a Shoo-in, Starc is coming along in leaps and bounds, and Lyon will be looking nervously over his shoulder if a spinner starts taking a swag of wickets when the Shield resumes. I don't see any in the leading wicket takers' table at the moment, and that starts with Bird on 27 and runs down to McDermott, Herrick and Siddle with 11, so you'd reckon he's safe for the moment, but still needs to deliver.

Still needs to deliver is, of course, a comment you can attach to Warner, Cowan, Hughes and Wade at the moment, so he's hardly Robinson Crusoe in that department. You'd throw Watson into that list as well if he didn't have the old two bites of the cheery when it comes to performing and there wasn't the issue of bowlers breaking down and the side needing Watto's overs.

As far as Sydney and Melbourne are concerned, Hobart showed there's a bit of fight in this Sri Lankan side, but a 1-0 lead in home conditions with Melbourne next should be enough to bring home the bacon.

Perth 2012: Day Four

And, in the end, it was as comprehensively clinical as the most pessimistic observers might have feared.

But at least it didn't happen the same way in Brisbane and Adelaide, which would have run towards nightmare territory. That, of course, raises the question of whether the Proteas were happy to accept the draws in the first two Tests because they fancied their chances in Perth but we don't really want to go down that road, do we?

What Perth 2012 does underline, however, is the gap between the current #1 side and everyone else, and between the top three and just about everyone else. The pecking order is, it seems, largely unchanged.

South Africa are opening up a break from the rest of the field and look like maintaining that ranking because it's difficult to see how anyone's going to manage to knock them over at home, and unless they're served up a diet of subcontinental raging turners it's hard to see a comprehensive defeat when they're touring.

Look at the batting lineup and with the emergence of duPlessis and Duminy to come back they've got someone to cover for Kallis when he goes. They still need a top ranked spinner, but in a setting where Steyn, Philander and Morkel are operating, with or without Kallis, Peterson is always going to have a chance since he's the bloke the batsmen are likely to go after.

As I remarked to Jimbo in the walk this morning Clarke and Hussey might have been looking to hit him out of the attack to force Smith to turn to someone else, but if you were in Smith's shoes why would you?

Defending more than 600 over two days it doesn't matter if the spinner goes at a run a ball provided the bats are having a go at him. It'll establish whether the bowler can handle a serious assault, and while the bats are chancing their arm the bowler's always got a chance.

Looking at our batting on the day there wasn't a whole lot to be cheerful about apart from the Starc/Lyon cameo at the end.

Warner went early, and was probably always in danger having to start up twice.

Watson got a pretty thorough working over before getting caught at slip without answering any of the questions about his suitability at Three, which won't come as a surprise to anyone who has watched his progress (or lack thereof) over the years.

I first saw him as a ten-year-old and it was obvious he was expected to develop into something special. He's shown glimpses of that since, but hasn't managed to deliver consistently. Whether he ever will is going to depend on factors that still need to be sorted out. I don't think he's opener material unless he's going to limit the bowling, and he's obviously seen as an important part of the attack, so that's unlikely.

Technically he's probably good enough to slot into Three, but has failed to deliver when he's there, which means he's probably not happy and would prefer to bat somewhere else. That's a problem because, as the captain of my 92 NQ Schoolboys' side remarked, Watto tends to get what he wants.

Actually, what I think he needs is an obvious rival for the all-rounder slot so that he has to knuckle down to hold his place rather than being assured of slotting straight back in as soon as he's over his latest injury.

Much was made of the Protea guard of honour as Ponting walked to the crease but, seriously, you're going to do that, aren't you? The ABC commentary team were referring back to Bradman's last Test appearance, where the English team gave him three cheers and he was bowled second ball, allegedly unable to focus on the ball because he was a bit teary.

I'm not sure about the teary bit, but all the great batsmen have their own ways of setting themselves before the start of their innings, and if there's something you can do to disrupt that you're going to try it, aren't you?

Cowan fell to a fairly obvious trap, playing on instinct and hooking the short one from around the wicket, caught in the deep off Steyn. He'd done his job and should have been looking to go on, but there you go.

Clarke got himself stumped seemingly trying to hit the spinner out of the attack, which is all very well in theory, but in this situation it doesn't seem to have been the smartest option. Here, it didn't matter if Peterson went for 300 because he was always likely to pick up a couple of wickets.

Hussey drove, nicked and got caught behind off Steyn, Wade got caught at short midwicket off Peterson, Johnson caught behind off Philander and Hastings slammed a few off Peterson before getting caught at slip off Morkel.

The Starc/Lyon cameo got itself underway whileI went down the street to follow up on some missing cat sightings, but was never going to do anything more than provide a little bit of light relief at the end of a comprehensive trouncing.

From here, looking towards the Sri Lanka series the big questions involve Ponting's replacement at Four, where Watto fits, how long for Hussey and who, apart from Siddle (and possibly Starc) is going to join Lyon in the four man bowling attack.

My team, pending the Chairman's XI game:

Cowan, Warner, Khawaja, Clarke, Watson, Hussey, Wade, Siddle, Starc, Hilfenhaus, Lyon, Johnston. Hilfie or Johnston for drinks waiter duties...

Perth 2012: Day One

Given the fact that I was away from a TV screen for most of the first two sessions, you might think I've got a bit of a nerve commenting on what went down on Day One in Perth, but there are a couple of points that have arisen over the past forty-eight hours that need to be commented on before things proceed too much further.

For a start there's the Ponting retirement, and one could spend a couple of hours poring over and reflecting on the various mushroom-like analyses of the man and his career that have sprung up over the past forty-eight hours.

Most of them, probably, had already been composed over the preceding twelve months and placed on hold until the appropriate time following the long-anticipated press conference. In any case I didn't spend much time on them, largely since the reason I was going to miss most of the first two sessions' TV coverage was our end of the month retired teachers' lunch.

Fine, you might think. Lunch, no problem there.

Ordinarily, yes. But this one was the end of the year special excursion to Montes on the Gloucester Passage, which tacked an hour and a bit onto the time allocated for a lengthy lunch to allow you to get there and a further hour and a bit to make the return journey.

So a two hour lunch, two and a half hours transit time and whatever time gets tacked on if the driver decides to divert to Cannonvale for retail therapy and a few more things that needed to be attended to before we left didn't leave much time for an extended perusal of the tributes.

I have my own axes to grind about Punter, largely involving his role in losing the Ashes twice and his exaggerated view of his own tactical nous, but he's definitely one of the best bats I've seen in the space of the last forty years.

I'm not into who was the best arguments, but he was definitely one of the greats in the modern era.
And I'm not interested in whatever speculation might be going around as to whether he fell, jumped or was pushed.

In the long run that issue doesn't matter.

From here on, questions about the longevity of whoever's sitting in the #4 batting slot will concern the incumbent's ability and current form rather than the appropriate time for the bloke to retire and the associated question of whether he's still got it.

The timing means we can look at things against Sri Lanka and hopefully have things reasonably sorted before the Ashes, so from here we'll be asking whether Khawaja, Forrest, Hughes or whoever has the goods rather than whether Ponting can still cut it at the top level.

The other matter that needs comment concerns the bowling, and the ups and downs associated with Australia's pace bowling stocks.

It wasn't that long ago we were looking at the injured list, wondering what happened to all the reserves and muttering things like I thought we were supposed to have a bit of depth in that department.

Now, until Lyon came on to bowl, we had four blokes (Starc, Hastings, Watson, Johnston) all having their first trundle for the series and reducing the #1 Test ranked nation to 6/75. Amla's run out helped, but by all accounts the three specialist quicks and Watson all bowled very well. That was the impression I got from the radio commentary once we were in the car for the return journey, anyway…

On yesterday's evidence, assuming they're still fit, any of the current trio could well be pushing Siddle and Hilfenhaus for a slot in Melbourne and beyond, with the likes of Bird, Butterworth, Feldman and Cutting all breathing down their necks.

One thing that comes through strongly here is the importance of Watson's role as an all-rounder, which is arguably what got Lyon into the eleven. I thought his 3/41 off 12 was a good performance by an offie in Perth on Day One. He's still very much a work in progress, but the key word here is progress, which is being made and is travelling in the right direction.

That, by the way, is something that didn't seem to happen with Hauritz and Krejza under the previous captain.

The important point here is that with Watson bowling a couple of sharpish three over spells he'll relieve some of the workload on the other quicks, provide an avenue to play a spinner and, hopefully, mean we're not likely to have anyone out of the pace battery getting through the workload that did for Siddle and Hilfenhaus on the way to Perth.

Give 'em all a run, shuffle and sample, mix and match and see where we are when it's time to select the side for the Ashes.

And that, of course, is the long term priority once this current game is done and dusted.

Adelaide 2012: Day Four

While you'd have been pretty sure the horse had bolted when Australia went to lunch yesterday at 7/206 with Wade and Pattinson still there after Clarke and Hussey departed in the morning session by the tea break with Smith and Amla gone it was a definite case of no use shutting the gate.

Sure, they've got de Villiers and du Plessis at the crease with Kallis to come, but you'd reckon that unless rain intervenes you wouldn't need much more than two sessions to find the half dozen decent deliveries that would wrap up proceedings on a fifth day track in Adelaide. As for 353 runs to win, regardless of what was accomplished in Perth on an improving autobahn four years ago, you can rule a South African victory right out of contention.

More particularly, given the fact that the Proteas managed 37 off the same number of overs between tea and stumps and Lyon's rather remarkable figures of 15 overs, 7 maidens, 2 for 15 you'd figure the offie will be getting more than his share of action with men clustered around the bat.

If that doesn't work, and Siddle and Hilfenhaus can't deliver the goods at the other end there's always the prospect of Clarke and Warner rolling their arms over with slightly less aggressive fields.

Actually, given an early wicket or two, it could all be over by lunch.

The part time bowling side of things, with Clarke, Warner, Quiney and Ponting getting a trundle yesterday, and sending down just under a quarter of the fifty overs so far, would have you suggesting that up and coming batsmen with ambitions of playing at the international level might be advised to work on their bowling a bit.

After all, there has been a considerable amount of work put into getting the likes of Glenn McGrath to the point where they can stick around with the willow, you'd reckon there'd be a fair case for getting the batsmen to spend net practice doing a bit more than just rolling the arm over and trundling them down at medium pace or sending down a bit of half-hearted spin.

It's not as if you're talking rocket surgery in that department. You're not looking for someone who has mastered the factors that induce reverse swing, the dodgy biodynamics of the doosra or the intricacies of the flipper. All you need is someone who can land the ball fairly tidily for a couple of overs and has reasonable mastery of a variation (or, at the most, two).

That presents some intriguing possibilities. Quiney delivered some tidy medium pace, and it would be interesting to know whether he has anything else in his armoury. At that pace, something like the old knuckle ball would possibly be worth working on, and if that didn't work out it'd be worth investigating other variations that would deliver a slower ball.

Even if it didn't translate into a spell at the bowling crease you'd think that sort of work would definitely come in useful when it comes to the batsman's key role, which is, of course, to deliver large quantities of runs without getting out.

Let's pause a moment and consider these things a little further. Not that I'm suggesting Quiney isn't going to find himself back playing for the Bushrangers as soon as Watson's fit or Khawaja is deemed to have displayed a run of form that deserves a recall.

The point behind the pace bowler's slower ball (and I'm applying the same principle to anything from military medium upwards) is to induce the batsman into a false shot by getting them through the stroke early so the ball is hit in the air rather than along the deck. That means you bowl it with the same arm action you'd usually use but find a way of slowing the ball down as it leaves the hand.

Arm speed the same, but slower out of the hand, compris?

There are a couple of ways of doing that, and the topic gets fairly detailed coverage in Dennis Lillee's The Art of Fast Bowling, which is where I picked up on the knuckle ball.

The trick here involved folding the middle finger in behind the ball and flicking the knuckle upwards as the ball leaves the hand. What this should do is impart a bit of topspin as it slows the release speed so the ball will loop a bit, arrive slightly later and bounce slightly higher, hopefully inducing that elusive catch.

It should be almost impossible to read out of the hand, since there isn't much change in the wrist action and could, in the right hands, be a rather tricky little delivery to deal with.

In any case, if your military medium net bowler is consciously working on and exploring the various ways you can cut back the release speed the knowledge is quite likely to be helpful as far as your main job description is concerned.

The same principle would seem to apply to a batsman who explores the intricacies of wrist spin or sets about a part time career as a finger spinner. There's plenty to be learned there, even if it doesn't translate to a swag of wickets under match conditions.

And, if you've got that little variation in your bag of tricks Clarke looks like the sort of innovative captain who's likely to make use of it.

As far as Perth is concerned, of course, you'd have to reckon Quiney's days are numbered, and assuming Watson is fit he'd slot straight into Three, with Starc replacing Pattinson and possibly Bird from Tasmania or Queenslander Feldman getting some exposure to the Australian setup by being named in the twelve. Bird's got 25 wickets at a tad under 20 in the Shield this season after a 6/25 yesterday against the Warriors, and you'd reckon he's be free to fly across to Perth to join the squad by tomorrow afternoon, given the state of play at Bellerive (WA 67, Tasmania 2/201).

Lyon, of course, could well end up carrying the drinks, and the selection panel might go for a squad of thirteen by slotting Mitchell Johnson into the squad as well.

The other question, of course, concerns Ponting. Watch the press conference this afternoon for more in that department...

Off to Adelaide

And so we're off to Adelaide later this morning, looking towards securing the 4-0 result that will lift Australia level with India in third place in the Test rankings.

Well, as far as the LHoC is concerned we're not physically heading that way, but we will be watching with interest.

The interest this time around goes a little beyond the eventual score line, since we've already got a few things that need to be looked at.

You could, for example, start by looking at comments from the Indian camp about the tracks they've been given and Gambhir's call for raging turners when we're next in their neighbourhood, which hardly comes as a surprise, but was interesting to read after previously noted comments about result reversals on the subcontinent.

We might just let the possibility of a repeat of the minefield on which Clarke took 6-9 go through to the keeper without further comment.

Right around the Test venues so far this summer we've had pace bowler friendly conditions, though one would hardly describe that as earth-shattering news in Brisbane and Perth, would we?

Adelaide is, traditionally, flatter, and you'd expect the Indian batting lineup to go better there, but the big question is going to involve the damage inflicted on confidence in the first three Tests, isn't it?

That, in turn, raises the question of what they were thinking of and how they prepared before setting off on tour, doesn't it?

We're due to head across to India in 2014, so preparations for that tour will be a matter of interest here in the LHoC. We might get a little insight from Adelaide, since the four quicks approach in Perth has reverted to the three quicks and a spinner that's been in operation through the rest of the summer.

The first issue that comes out of that is, of course, the question of rotation, with Siddle having played through the summer and looking tired towards the end in Perth. Under a rotation policy you'd think he'd have been the logical bloke to rest, but he's been given the nod to play, with Starc combining the drinks waiter role with a chance to play in the Big Bash Final.

I've got no issue with that decision, by the way, provided it's part of a this is something we're working on gig rather than a he's the leader of the attack so he's got to play routine.

Contrary to expectations in these parts he has been the leader of the attack through the summer, though one would have been inclined to be using that term to describe young Mr Pattinson by this stage if he'd been fit throughout the series.

Adelaide, however, with the quickie-friendly factors being taken out of the equation, is going to be a situation where reverse rather than normal swing comes into play on a track that'll resemble what we might find in India in two years' time, so if we're looking at that side of things the decision to go with Siddle rather than Starc would make a fair bit of sense. He can, after all, be given a break through the one dayers, can't he?

So we'll be watching the approach with the ball rather closely.

Spin, on the other hand, will be a significant factor, with India looking towards playing two with a third in acting captain Sehwag. They mightn't actually bite the bullet and do that, since you'd expect Zaheer Khan to be safe, Ishant Sharma to be persevered with and Yadav to be hard done by if he was the one to get the chop. He's an emerging talent, and would have been the first one of their bowlers picked if I was doing the selecting.

But I'm not doing the selecting, so we'll wait and see.

On the spin front, one notes with some alarm that Lyon has been looking to Ponting for advice, which would presumably have the rest of the ex-Test spinners' fraternity raising the odd eyebrow, but the suggestion that they're working on the same lines as Ashley Mallett was suggesting and bowling closer to the stumps to improve his angles and take the shots through the leg side out of the picture. Hmmm. Time will tell.


Predictions? Well, win the toss and bat, for a start. From an Australian point of view we want to see either a substantial opening partnership with substantial runs to Marsh at Three or a disciplined spell with the new ball while the thing is likely to swing.

Not that either of those is an earth-shattering suggestion.

And if India wins the toss and bats we've got the prospect of a final chance to enjoy Messrs Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman at the crease in an Australian free to air friendly time frame.

Add the possibility of a close examination of how far the Lyon as a work in progress has progressed against a batting lineup that would devour a couple of spinners before the daily breakfast and there's plenty to look forward to, isn't there?

Technical issues with broadband usage has been a major preoccupation in these parts recently, which explains the lack of clickable links above, and there's a substantial backlog of writing projects that needs to be attended to, so at this point we might just close the preview, promising to return with a comment on Day One tomorrow morning.