Summary of the last 3 years
The once mighty Australians have continued to perform well in the test arena, maintaining the top spot in the ICC test rankings. However the new Australia under Isura has failed to show the pure dominance of past teams. The retirement of Warne and McGrath, as well as the lack of promising young bowlers has meant that more tests are drawn these days. And perhaps even more unsettling has been more frequent batting collapses. An embarrassing 3-0 home loss to Pakistan last year was the lowest point under the Isura regime. The state of one day cricket is in even more trouble. Scores of even 300 are difficult to defend these days.
The batting is anchored by Hayden, Hussey, and Ponting. Ponting is still the best batsmen in Australia. He has won the Allan Border Medal and both the Test and ODI player of the year awards in the last 2 seasons. Hayden is starting to show his age, and struggles to maintain his fitness and concentration after a long hundred. Clarke, Hodge, and Jaques are the other key batsmen for the current side. 21 year old Tasmanian Eric Waites is pushing Hayden for the opening spot in tests, but it is likely that he will not make his test debut until after the 2009 Australian summer (when Hayden plans to retire from international cricket). There is a large pool of quality batsmen at State and Under 19 levels, waiting for their change to sport the baggy green.
The retirement of Warne and McGrath has weakened an already mediocre bowling attack. Gillespie and Kasprowicz take regular wickets (although at a high average). Lee and Clark are inconsistent, and nobody yet knows the full potential of Tait or Hilfenhaus (neither have cracked the test side yet).
The once mighty Australians have continued to perform well in the test arena, maintaining the top spot in the ICC test rankings. However the new Australia under Isura has failed to show the pure dominance of past teams. The retirement of Warne and McGrath, as well as the lack of promising young bowlers has meant that more tests are drawn these days. And perhaps even more unsettling has been more frequent batting collapses. An embarrassing 3-0 home loss to Pakistan last year was the lowest point under the Isura regime. The state of one day cricket is in even more trouble. Scores of even 300 are difficult to defend these days.
The batting is anchored by Hayden, Hussey, and Ponting. Ponting is still the best batsmen in Australia. He has won the Allan Border Medal and both the Test and ODI player of the year awards in the last 2 seasons. Hayden is starting to show his age, and struggles to maintain his fitness and concentration after a long hundred. Clarke, Hodge, and Jaques are the other key batsmen for the current side. 21 year old Tasmanian Eric Waites is pushing Hayden for the opening spot in tests, but it is likely that he will not make his test debut until after the 2009 Australian summer (when Hayden plans to retire from international cricket). There is a large pool of quality batsmen at State and Under 19 levels, waiting for their change to sport the baggy green.
The retirement of Warne and McGrath has weakened an already mediocre bowling attack. Gillespie and Kasprowicz take regular wickets (although at a high average). Lee and Clark are inconsistent, and nobody yet knows the full potential of Tait or Hilfenhaus (neither have cracked the test side yet).
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