Unstoppable Australians

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LOL

Put it this way England wil beat ur ass, Vaughan has it sorted and flintof will see it throgh, they always do, you cant beat us, were undeniably godlike!

 

Who do you think should come in at number 3 for the test side Slayer of the Coast? Fat bot Robert Key, new boy Kevin Pietersen or old (and unreliable, so far) boy Vaughany?
And do you agree with handing Hoggy the new ball from the off?
Does Ian Bell deserve a place in the squad after his good performances with bat and ball for the A's?

 

I think it is always a good plan to bring in someone new to face the Aussies. They are so technical when it comes to analysing the weaknesses of opposition batsmen that the less chance you give them to see the new guy the better. Examples:
- highest score by a NZ batsman in the test series so far was 146 by Hamish Marshall on debut. Since then, McGrath has worked him out and he's got nothing since
- McGrath worked out weakness in our best batsman of 2004, Stephen Fleming, such that he has got nothing in this series
- Last time we toured Australia, Lou Vincent scored a 100 on debut but has done nothing since.

I think I also remember Australia figuring out some weakness in Trescothick's batting last time they played as well.

Based on this admittedly flimsy analysis, I reckon you give Pietersen a bash and see how he goes. I predict that Michael Vaughan will get nothing as Australia are famed for especially targetting the opposition captain's batting.

 

@ Slayer Of The Coast:

Mwahahahahahaaaaaaaaa!

I haven't laughed that hard in years! They always see it through, eh? That explains why England hasn't held the Ashes since 1989.

@ HB: Shhh! Don't tell them that, they'll wheel out a bunch of rookies and make us look bad! And Vettori isn't just "ok", he's going to be one of the all-time greats, barring something unforeseen happening to him; he can only get better, and that's a scary prospect.

 

Thats coz we can defend till the cows come home.
Dravid, Laxman, Sachin & Ganguly (when he figures out how to hold a bat again) can keep at the crease till it drives the Aussies out of their minds. Its just not in their system to play like that. This seems to be the only way to face the Australians.
Plus we pretty much got Warne and McGrath figured out. Last test series, it was Kasprowic who claimed all the wickets.

 

Hmm, I'm not sure about how 'great' Vettori is. His bowling average would suggest that he is only slightly above average. He just looks good compared to the rest of our lineup (with the ball, and more scarily, the bat too). He's nowhere near the same class as the likes of Warne and Murilitharan.

 

Vettori is actually very very good. Half the time though, he's carrying our entire bowling attack. There is no backup from other bowlers. Everyone defends against Vettori and attacks the other bowler. Then they get set and attack Vettori. Australia are good because all their bowlers can exert pressure.

Re: #3 batsman - chuck in Pietersen. He looks like the next Chris Cairns (in terms of big hitting) but better! He will scare the Aussies.

 

He is very under-rated. Part of the Aussie strength is that even their 'lesser' players are still awesome.

 

@HB
You guys run out of ideas so you resorting to this? :
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3226997a10133,00.html

 

We're hoping this strategu will allow us to field an extra player as the Australians might think James and Hamish are the same person.

 

LOL If we can't tell them apart, there's no way the Aussies can!

 

I think you can distinguish them by their shoes Having one bowling and the other keeping might make the batsman a bit worried "Where is the ball going to come from again?"

 

Well, they are both batting at the moment. I think you can tell them aprart because one of them has wristbands on. It's all very amusing really. They run pretty fast together between the wickets, though. Must be some sort of twin-power ESP.

 

About the whole spin/slow bowling thing and India...it IS true that they have some good bowlers in that department, but it is the unfortunate story of India that every match the bowlers do well, the batsmen let them down...or vice versa.

The Indian cricket team is a collection of BRILLIANT CRICKETERS...but a very poor team.

 

We always end up chasing the series from the first session of the series onwards when we play the Aussies. Hopefully a reasonable first day (260-5 either way for instance) and we'll not lose the mental edge. I'd pick:

Trescothick
Strauss
Vaughan
Thorpe
Pieterson
Flintoff
GJones
Giles
Hoggard
Harmison
SJones

A balanced team with ability with both bat and ball. So long as the sometimes idiotc selectors don't pick James Anderson in front of Simon Jones, I think that's our strongest line up. I always feel that the Australians are most likely to be beaten if you play positive cricket against them in all departments of the game. We can beat them, it's unlikely to happen but you never know, all we can do is play to the best of our abilities and hope that things go our way.