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- Jan 13, 2010
Article by AngryAngy -
With England’s recent series win in India, the anglophiles and antipodeans and octopodes are all salivating (or exuding mucus, I guess) to see further pillaging of the subcontinent. But does the fact that England managed a win improve Australia’s chances? Are India seriously stuffed or was their poise momentarily disrupted?
Quite simply, I think England took a much more settled team and one that was better prepared. Not only because they’d played more tour games, but because they spent some of the last year in the UAE and Sri Lanka. Getting shellacked of course, but adversity is good for progress.
Cook, Pietersen, Bell, Trott and Prior had all faced 1000+ balls on these sorts of wickets. That meant that the loss of Strauss did not sting too badly and they quickly managed to cancel the disintegration of KP, which proved crucial. For Australia, those players they are looking to are Clarke and Watson. The retirement of Hussey is a big loss. I would argue that it hurts this tour several times more than the coming Ashes.
Now there are a few more positives than that; Hughes made runs in Sri Lanka and Khawaja also spent some time in the middle there, even though he didn’t score much in the Tests and won’t play for at least the first Test. Warner has had a lot of IPL success; for a lot of players that wouldn’t be Test preparation, but the way Warner paces a Test innings, you have to give the idea some merit. That said, he’ll also play with a broken finger.
If I might speculate, I suspect that the key to Australia’s hopes lie more in their bowlers, that they can limit the effectiveness of India’s batting and keep games moving towards results. Again, experience is limited, but the majority of bowlers have come in looking ready.
Johnson is the most experienced by far, but unfortunately Watson is the next one up. He won’t bowl, but at least he will be on the field to support his team mates. He has relied very much on skill to take wickets and has trod many paths in search of the right one. So he will be able to provide some support to uncertain bowlers and it’s often in the middle where support needs to be. Next most experienced is Lyon. For all the banter about Lyon bowling too fast, it must be noted that Monty Panesar tends to do this as well. It can work very well on slower, rougher pitches. Finally, Peter Siddle has played a Test each in India and Sri Lanka, and has done deceptively well.
Players who might have been picked include Copeland, Hilfenhaus and Bollinger. Surprisingly, Copeland is the most subcontinentally experienced having played all 3 of his Tests in Sri Lanka. But one would be very bold to steer away from the young brigade. Sacking Siddle would be madness. That leaves Johnson’s spot, and while he’s not evidently first choice, his form has been devastating and he is the most experienced bowler Australia has, in India or anywhere really. It’s perhaps also crucial that he is exposed to as few Australian batsman as possible, lest he break any more fingers. Apart from the spin section, which is injury plagued and lacking in depth anyway, the bowling is pretty much the selection of bowlers who should have been picked. They will probably see themselves as potentially the best pace attack in the world and they would be expecting to have a bigger say in the wickets column than England’s pacemen did.
But it must be said that overall, the preparations for Australia are far less ideal. It doesn’t just go down to the Tetris style timing of the tour, or to recent retirements. The 2008 tour of India was not managed well either. The foundation for that tour was not exactly well laid; instead it saw quite a number of players debut. Peter Siddle has gone on to better things. Cameron White and Jason Krejza have not. The brief 2010 tour was also shoehorned into a busy schedule. Australia took a more settled side and looked far more competent than the 2-0 defeat suggests. However, it ended the career of Nathan Hauritz and it unduly prolonged Marcus North’s career. Peter George made one appearance for Bollinger and the extremely lanky 26 year old hasn’t even been spotted playing for South Australia since October last year. Going forward from a tour of India has tended to leave Australia with less and less to take back, rather than the other way around.
Nevertheless, Hughes did tour India in 2010, as did Steve Smith. This is one way a really short whirlwind tour hurts, because in the end probably 12 or 13 play and you have to take 15. It was noted by yours truly in 2010 that Hughes had spent a long time on tour not playing cricket to be eventually called up during the Ashes of Doom in 10-11. Smith on the other hand had played Pakistan in England in 2010. And he did get a few tour games here and there; in some sense, it looked like one player was being rewarded, the other punished, or at best just forced to do extra homework. In fact from 1 less Test match, Smith has two 50s to Khawaja’s one. The player most often compared to a traffic cone might actually be a tad underrated. The argument probably has to be made that Smith is one man who has been heavily invested in and as such is quite costly to discard, especially at just 23. The nature of the team means he’s not likely to play, but he is likely to field, so there’s a lot of upside to his inclusion.
Now one might continue to blither on about how Australia’s tours of India have not enabled it to build on a foundation of experience playing Asian-style cricket, so let’s just ask the fundamental question; why should it matter? What of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or even Bangladesh? Well Australia doesn’t really go to these places. They toured Sri Lanka in 2011, for the first time in 7 years. Their only trip to Bangladesh for Tests was in 2006, though it was also the time when Jason Gillespie made 201*, so that wait is perhaps justified until we all forget. Obviously nobody has been to Pakistan for a while, but Australia’s two neutral Tests against Pakistan in the past decade were played in England. Before that was the multi-national series played in Sharjah and Colombo in 2003, immediately following the Champions Trophy. The second Test of this series produced what stood as Pakistan’s lowest and second lowest totals, until being bumped this month in South Africa. The pitch was roundly criticised by players from all parts and together with the sapping heat at certain times of year, has probably helped keep Australia from playing another Test series in the UAE.
So if we get to the end of this series and have to ask “how can Australia get better at playing cricket in the subcontinent?”, let’s not go for the easy reach of “clone Monty Panesar”. Perhaps instead, we should look for the answers here, here and maybe also here. Or perhaps even review any Test series in which more than 5 days of tour matches were played.
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With England’s recent series win in India, the anglophiles and antipodeans and octopodes are all salivating (or exuding mucus, I guess) to see further pillaging of the subcontinent. But does the fact that England managed a win improve Australia’s chances? Are India seriously stuffed or was their poise momentarily disrupted?Quite simply, I think England took a much more settled team and one that was better prepared. Not only because they’d played more tour games, but because they spent some of the last year in the UAE and Sri Lanka. Getting shellacked of course, but adversity is good for progress.
Cook, Pietersen, Bell, Trott and Prior had all faced 1000+ balls on these sorts of wickets. That meant that the loss of Strauss did not sting too badly and they quickly managed to cancel the disintegration of KP, which proved crucial. For Australia, those players they are looking to are Clarke and Watson. The retirement of Hussey is a big loss. I would argue that it hurts this tour several times more than the coming Ashes.
Now there are a few more positives than that; Hughes made runs in Sri Lanka and Khawaja also spent some time in the middle there, even though he didn’t score much in the Tests and won’t play for at least the first Test. Warner has had a lot of IPL success; for a lot of players that wouldn’t be Test preparation, but the way Warner paces a Test innings, you have to give the idea some merit. That said, he’ll also play with a broken finger.
If I might speculate, I suspect that the key to Australia’s hopes lie more in their bowlers, that they can limit the effectiveness of India’s batting and keep games moving towards results. Again, experience is limited, but the majority of bowlers have come in looking ready.
Johnson is the most experienced by far, but unfortunately Watson is the next one up. He won’t bowl, but at least he will be on the field to support his team mates. He has relied very much on skill to take wickets and has trod many paths in search of the right one. So he will be able to provide some support to uncertain bowlers and it’s often in the middle where support needs to be. Next most experienced is Lyon. For all the banter about Lyon bowling too fast, it must be noted that Monty Panesar tends to do this as well. It can work very well on slower, rougher pitches. Finally, Peter Siddle has played a Test each in India and Sri Lanka, and has done deceptively well.
Players who might have been picked include Copeland, Hilfenhaus and Bollinger. Surprisingly, Copeland is the most subcontinentally experienced having played all 3 of his Tests in Sri Lanka. But one would be very bold to steer away from the young brigade. Sacking Siddle would be madness. That leaves Johnson’s spot, and while he’s not evidently first choice, his form has been devastating and he is the most experienced bowler Australia has, in India or anywhere really. It’s perhaps also crucial that he is exposed to as few Australian batsman as possible, lest he break any more fingers. Apart from the spin section, which is injury plagued and lacking in depth anyway, the bowling is pretty much the selection of bowlers who should have been picked. They will probably see themselves as potentially the best pace attack in the world and they would be expecting to have a bigger say in the wickets column than England’s pacemen did.
But it must be said that overall, the preparations for Australia are far less ideal. It doesn’t just go down to the Tetris style timing of the tour, or to recent retirements. The 2008 tour of India was not managed well either. The foundation for that tour was not exactly well laid; instead it saw quite a number of players debut. Peter Siddle has gone on to better things. Cameron White and Jason Krejza have not. The brief 2010 tour was also shoehorned into a busy schedule. Australia took a more settled side and looked far more competent than the 2-0 defeat suggests. However, it ended the career of Nathan Hauritz and it unduly prolonged Marcus North’s career. Peter George made one appearance for Bollinger and the extremely lanky 26 year old hasn’t even been spotted playing for South Australia since October last year. Going forward from a tour of India has tended to leave Australia with less and less to take back, rather than the other way around.
Nevertheless, Hughes did tour India in 2010, as did Steve Smith. This is one way a really short whirlwind tour hurts, because in the end probably 12 or 13 play and you have to take 15. It was noted by yours truly in 2010 that Hughes had spent a long time on tour not playing cricket to be eventually called up during the Ashes of Doom in 10-11. Smith on the other hand had played Pakistan in England in 2010. And he did get a few tour games here and there; in some sense, it looked like one player was being rewarded, the other punished, or at best just forced to do extra homework. In fact from 1 less Test match, Smith has two 50s to Khawaja’s one. The player most often compared to a traffic cone might actually be a tad underrated. The argument probably has to be made that Smith is one man who has been heavily invested in and as such is quite costly to discard, especially at just 23. The nature of the team means he’s not likely to play, but he is likely to field, so there’s a lot of upside to his inclusion.
Now one might continue to blither on about how Australia’s tours of India have not enabled it to build on a foundation of experience playing Asian-style cricket, so let’s just ask the fundamental question; why should it matter? What of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or even Bangladesh? Well Australia doesn’t really go to these places. They toured Sri Lanka in 2011, for the first time in 7 years. Their only trip to Bangladesh for Tests was in 2006, though it was also the time when Jason Gillespie made 201*, so that wait is perhaps justified until we all forget. Obviously nobody has been to Pakistan for a while, but Australia’s two neutral Tests against Pakistan in the past decade were played in England. Before that was the multi-national series played in Sharjah and Colombo in 2003, immediately following the Champions Trophy. The second Test of this series produced what stood as Pakistan’s lowest and second lowest totals, until being bumped this month in South Africa. The pitch was roundly criticised by players from all parts and together with the sapping heat at certain times of year, has probably helped keep Australia from playing another Test series in the UAE.
So if we get to the end of this series and have to ask “how can Australia get better at playing cricket in the subcontinent?”, let’s not go for the easy reach of “clone Monty Panesar”. Perhaps instead, we should look for the answers here, here and maybe also here. Or perhaps even review any Test series in which more than 5 days of tour matches were played.
More...
