Maybe I underestimated the toughness of the South Africans. In England this year they made significant inroads. They fought gamely for a draw at Lords after following on 346 runs in arrears. At Trent Bridge, they chased down 281, which is a testing total. And apart from Neil McKenzie, the Proteas' batting order looks decidedly classy.
But that would underplay the complete failure of the Australian outfit in this match. While managing to compose two totals of 300+, there were still a legion of missed opportunities. Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke found ingenious ways to dismiss themselves rather than fall to quality bowling. Michael Hussey looked as bad as he has in any test match during his career, but that will pass.
For mine, only Simon Katich, Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson get passing grades from me. I'll excuse Jason Krejza as well - he was asked to make his home debut on the most unfriendly of pitches for a spinner. Unfortunately for Krejza, Melbourne comes before Sydney, and the MCG has been playing like Antigua this season domestically.
Matthew Hayden looked good before getting out in the first knock, and then got a howler in the second innings. Ricky Ponting is doing all the things he does when he it out of form. He needs to learn to leave the ball more early in his innings.
Fortunately for these two their favourite ground for batting awaits. For Australia's sake, here's hoping there is another couple of MCG hundreds for these two.
Symonds continues to frustrate, and Clarke can only seem to make 100s when Australia least needs them. Clarke has never made a hundred when Australia has scored less than 400, although he deserved one in Brisbane which would have bucked the trend.
Peter Siddle didn't look up to it, and I'd be hard pressed to keep him in for the Boxing Day Test. While I'd love to see a Victorian run around on the MCG later this week, I'd rather see Australia win. While I'm not ready to concede he won't make it, I look at Siddle and see a lot of other short lived Australian quick bowlers of the last 20 years.
Here's how Siddle looks compared to some others of similar ilk:
Peter Siddle 2 tests, 5 wickets @ 60.80
Jo Angel 4 tests, 10 wickets @ 46.30
Simon Cook 2 tests, 7 wickets @ 20.28
Scott Muller 2 tests, 7 wickets @ 36.85
Matthew Nicholson 1 test, 4 wickets @ 28.75
Paul Wilson 1 test, 0 wickets
On those numbers, Siddle can count himself lucky. Brett Lee is another who deserves some mention. He looked complete benign in that 2nd innings, and while Lee has taken 300 test wickets, he has received more chances than most.
Overall, the Australian 2nd innings bowling effort could be compared to a soccer team that loses 1-0, with one shot on goal. It wasn't a day of missed chances for Australia yesterday; it was a day of no chances being created.
Unfortunately, the selectors are continuing to misplace their focus. The time is now for Ben Hilfenhaus, so he can play five tests before going to England. Doug Bollinger may be bowling well, but we have a left armer who is in some form, and the Australian attack needs some variety right now. That would be my only change for Boxing Day: Hilfenhaus in for Siddle.
However, if Australia were to lose the Boxing Day test match, then look out. If that happens, only a 100 saves Hayden or Symonds, and at least 6 wickets is needed to save Lee. With youngsters waiting in the wings (Hughes, Watson, Bollinger) a lost series may provide an opportunity for renewal and inspiration before the Ashes.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Deja vu happening all over again
Two years ago, when Shane Warne coaxed the impossible from a previously dull test match in Adelaide to effectively grab The Ashes back from the mother country, I quoted Yogi Berra's famous quote about decades of New York Yankee success against the Boston Red Sox. He said "Don't worry; we;ve been beating these guys for eighty years".
When I heard about what happened last night I was disappointed I hadn't seen it live (I was Christmas shopping with Rose), but I wasn't surprised. When it comes to test match cricket against South Africa, someone always seems to pop their head up.
Whether it is Mark Waugh's heroics in Port Elizabeth or 12 months later in Adelaide, or Ian Healy's towering six, or Stuart MacGill bowling out the Proteas in Sydney, or Stuart Clark's incredible debut series, someone from the Australian side always seems to deliver the goods.
With Australia 3/15 on the first morning, you could forgive the South Africans for having visions on bowling the Aussies out for less than 200. But after sending Ponting and Hussey back to the pavillion for no score, Simon Katich, along with the next three batsmen in, combined to score 248 runs between them.
And then that most pesky of Australian traits reared its head: the tailed wagged. Perhaps the most underplayed aspect of Australia's decade long dominance in the longer form of the game is the ability of batsmen 8-11 in the order to produce runs. This has frustrated many oppositions, and South Africa were no exception. Lee, Krejza, Johnson and Siddle scored exactly 100 between them, with no one scoring less than 18. It turned a modest, if defendable, total into a healthy one.
Yet none of the South Africans could kick on in reply. Smith 48, Amla 47, Kallis and de Villiers 63 each. The rest of the batting order looks like binary code, with lots of 0s and 1s.
But the story was that it was Mitchell Johnson who was destined to be the player to step up on this occasion. Johnson's record before yesterday was modest: 61 wickets at a shade under 30. With Lee averaging about the same, and newcomers Siddle and Krejza in support, Johnson produced an incredible spell of 5-2 in 21 balls, removing de Villiers, Kallis, debutant Duminy, Morkel and Harris. South Africa now find themselves 132 runs behind with 2 wickets in hand. Expect Australia to achieve a 100 run 1st Innings lead.
From here it will be up to Australia to bat well and set the South Africans 350-400 to chase in about five sessions. It will be interesting to see if the Australians can succeed in almost the same position in which they failed three years ago against the Proteas in the corresponding Perth test match, but it would be a brave soul indeed to suggest they couldn't.
When I heard about what happened last night I was disappointed I hadn't seen it live (I was Christmas shopping with Rose), but I wasn't surprised. When it comes to test match cricket against South Africa, someone always seems to pop their head up.
Whether it is Mark Waugh's heroics in Port Elizabeth or 12 months later in Adelaide, or Ian Healy's towering six, or Stuart MacGill bowling out the Proteas in Sydney, or Stuart Clark's incredible debut series, someone from the Australian side always seems to deliver the goods.
With Australia 3/15 on the first morning, you could forgive the South Africans for having visions on bowling the Aussies out for less than 200. But after sending Ponting and Hussey back to the pavillion for no score, Simon Katich, along with the next three batsmen in, combined to score 248 runs between them.
And then that most pesky of Australian traits reared its head: the tailed wagged. Perhaps the most underplayed aspect of Australia's decade long dominance in the longer form of the game is the ability of batsmen 8-11 in the order to produce runs. This has frustrated many oppositions, and South Africa were no exception. Lee, Krejza, Johnson and Siddle scored exactly 100 between them, with no one scoring less than 18. It turned a modest, if defendable, total into a healthy one.
Yet none of the South Africans could kick on in reply. Smith 48, Amla 47, Kallis and de Villiers 63 each. The rest of the batting order looks like binary code, with lots of 0s and 1s.
But the story was that it was Mitchell Johnson who was destined to be the player to step up on this occasion. Johnson's record before yesterday was modest: 61 wickets at a shade under 30. With Lee averaging about the same, and newcomers Siddle and Krejza in support, Johnson produced an incredible spell of 5-2 in 21 balls, removing de Villiers, Kallis, debutant Duminy, Morkel and Harris. South Africa now find themselves 132 runs behind with 2 wickets in hand. Expect Australia to achieve a 100 run 1st Innings lead.
From here it will be up to Australia to bat well and set the South Africans 350-400 to chase in about five sessions. It will be interesting to see if the Australians can succeed in almost the same position in which they failed three years ago against the Proteas in the corresponding Perth test match, but it would be a brave soul indeed to suggest they couldn't.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Australia v South Africa - Series Preview
The Proteas are talented, and well placed to challenge the Aussies, it will be a corker of a series, blah, blah, blah. We've heard it all before from a media desperate for a contest, and to create one where one doesn't really exist.
The South Africans have always been talented. They've usually been in form before gracing our shores. But except for the exploitation of a team with a problem with chasing small targets by a wily veteran, South Africa hasn't won a test match in Australia since returning to world cricket.
In 1997 they came full of confidence, against an Australian side that had retained the Frank Worrell Trophy and the Ashes, but with more difficulty than was expected. It was an engrossing series, with Jacques Kallis and Brian McMillan fighting for a draw in Melbourne, Shane Warne at his brilliant best taking his 300th test wicket on his way to winning the Sydney test match, and the enthralling final day in Adelaide, when an Australian side weakened by injury managed a draw, thanks to Mark Taylor carrying his bat in the 1st Innings, and Mark Waugh making an unbeaten, inspirational 100 in the 2nd.
In the last two series the Aussies have won 5 of 6 test matches, with only a most docile Perth wicket preventing a whitewash.
The South African teams that have played these matches have been good, talented, cricket teams. But as Karl Stefanovic put it on the Today show last week, they have "heart-ledge" issues. Their problems are mental, not physical.
Australia no longer has the guile of Taylor, the sheer will of Steve Waugh, or the incredible talent of the 2005/06 team to ensure victory. Ricky Ponting will have to captain well (and make a few runs on the way), the Australian pace attack will have to adapt without the players of the series the last time Australia visited South Africa, Stuart Clark, and Jason Krejza will have to get some results against a team Warnie loved to torment.
And I think it will happen. The South Africans will discover another fatal flaw, another way to lose. The Australians will find a way to have the better of de Villiers and Amla, and will get to Steyn and Morkel. They always have, and this is not the South African team of the late 1960s coming over. They're good, but they're not great.
It does promise to be interesting, if over a little too quickly. The entire series will be over in 22 days.
The South Africans have always been talented. They've usually been in form before gracing our shores. But except for the exploitation of a team with a problem with chasing small targets by a wily veteran, South Africa hasn't won a test match in Australia since returning to world cricket.
In 1997 they came full of confidence, against an Australian side that had retained the Frank Worrell Trophy and the Ashes, but with more difficulty than was expected. It was an engrossing series, with Jacques Kallis and Brian McMillan fighting for a draw in Melbourne, Shane Warne at his brilliant best taking his 300th test wicket on his way to winning the Sydney test match, and the enthralling final day in Adelaide, when an Australian side weakened by injury managed a draw, thanks to Mark Taylor carrying his bat in the 1st Innings, and Mark Waugh making an unbeaten, inspirational 100 in the 2nd.
In the last two series the Aussies have won 5 of 6 test matches, with only a most docile Perth wicket preventing a whitewash.
The South African teams that have played these matches have been good, talented, cricket teams. But as Karl Stefanovic put it on the Today show last week, they have "heart-ledge" issues. Their problems are mental, not physical.
Australia no longer has the guile of Taylor, the sheer will of Steve Waugh, or the incredible talent of the 2005/06 team to ensure victory. Ricky Ponting will have to captain well (and make a few runs on the way), the Australian pace attack will have to adapt without the players of the series the last time Australia visited South Africa, Stuart Clark, and Jason Krejza will have to get some results against a team Warnie loved to torment.
And I think it will happen. The South Africans will discover another fatal flaw, another way to lose. The Australians will find a way to have the better of de Villiers and Amla, and will get to Steyn and Morkel. They always have, and this is not the South African team of the late 1960s coming over. They're good, but they're not great.
It does promise to be interesting, if over a little too quickly. The entire series will be over in 22 days.
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