2nd Final: Australia v Sri Lanka @Adelaide Oval (Tuesday D/N)

[King Elvis]

Clarke's batting tonight was brilliant.

His Captaincy was terrible.

 

[King Elvis]

Gotta say I'm proud of the Lankans tonight (having SL heritage). Tend to fly under the radar a bit but they really have a talented team.

Really?

I thought most people were pretty fond of them.

 

[DeadlyAkkuret]

Clarke should have bowled 10 overs and taken 10 wickets, but unfortunately we have "strike" bowlers to do that and well.....they can't.

 

[Phil McCreviss]

Really?

I thought most people were pretty fond of them.

I guess if you are comparing them to annoying teams like the Poms and in particular, the Indians, they are generally well liked. Thing the Windies probably fall in to that category as well.

 

[shurg123]

Yeah he really set the standard when he complained about a clear no ball to the umpire for about 5 minutes tonight. Top standard

Hahaha you sound like you started watching cricket a week ago. Run-along kiddo .

 

[R00StaR]

Not sure if serious?!

Doherty ain't the problem in the Australian team at all. In fact, he has been australia's best and most consistent bowler in the series. By a distance.

I'd suggest directing all complaints to the pace bowling department instead.

I also suggest having a go at whoever the goose was who decided Hilfy should be dropped for this game, on a pitch and in conditions that would have suited him better than all of our other pace bowlers tonight.

Definitely the fast bowlers, SL rolled the dice early. I dont think they fancy their chances of scoring 6 runs an over at a steady pace, they go hard n blow 100 run off the target and cruise home needing 5. They tried this last game, it didnt work out well but a great partnership almost got them home. Tonight it paid off.

We didnt help matters bowling utter garbage early on. No balls? spraying em all over the place? Really? Once they got a bit of roll our guys were completely knocked off the lines that have work so well all summer.

I still maintain we need an extra specialist batsmen or a batting alrounder. 6 bats, keeper, 4 bowlers with at least one of the four handy (Lee and Pato both are, for example). And bat Wade down the order. 4 bowlers with Watson, Hussey x 2 and Clarke should be plenty, but the added batting depth allows us to be a tad more aggressive in the early overs.

Wouldnt mind seeing us chase in the next game either. See how SL responds having to set a score - would they go that hard early?

 

[dumb]

fast bowlers were pretty much all as bad as each other. there isn't anyone we can bring in and expect improvement from (i half expect the selectors to abandon their siddle only for tests approach though), there is no guarantee the bowlers we keep will do any better. basically we are rooted unless we take early wickets.

 

[Simple Jack]

Wouldnt mind seeing us chase in the next game either. See how SL responds having to set a score - would they go that hard early?

Couldn't agree any more.

Our bowlers point blank can not handle defending a score, any score.

Even the times we have won defending we've been inches away from ****ing it up.

The thing that shits me most about Australian captains is the whole 'bat first without even thinking about it' mantra.

 

[Outshined]

fast bowlers were pretty much all as bad as each other. there isn't anyone we can bring in and expect improvement from (i half expect the selectors to abandon their siddle only for tests approach though), there is no guarantee the bowlers we keep will do any better. basically we are rooted unless we take early wickets.

It's concerning how badly our pace trio was thrashed around tonight. Sure Adelaide is flat and has short square boundaries, but 2/139 is unacceptable. Pattinson was fairly unlucky early on and probably seemed the most likely to get a wicket, but has his share of the blame with the constant extras and pressure releasing 4 balls.

Agree with the idea of bowling first. Jayawardene said that they were much more comfortable with chasing at the toss today, so we should really try and mix it up to salvage the series.

 

[Blue Heart]

Clarke's batting tonight was brilliant.

His Captaincy was terrible.

I didnt see the game so can I ask why you think his captaincy was terrible ?

And at what point of the innings did he go off with the hammy strain ?

 

[R00StaR]

The thing that shits me most about Australian captains is the whole 'bat first without even thinking about it' mantra.

Yep im not sure why, i can only assume they're worried about batsmen choking. Take the extra bat! Know as SL does that any score we can run down.

For mine you have to weigh up the pitch/ conditions and decide on a suitable score. For example today we probably thought 290-300, so thats what we have to go out and get. Best way is conserve wickets, be 150+ with wickets in the shed at 30 over then go for it. But we still have to go fairly hard and can mess it up.

But we dont know how the opposition would bat, they might only have 250 in them today. Then we run the risk off losing wickets and scoring say 240 because we had this 300 target in mind all day. Likewise they may have had 320 in them and we wasted the early overs being conservative.

Basically batting first seems to be about setting a reasonable target then getting early wickets. The odd time when someone goes off and bats nearly the innings such as Warner we might get 320+.

Anyway theres a number of nations around that simply prefer to chase, take them out of their comfort zone from time to time.

 

[eddiesmith]

Lack of Dussey overs costly in the end, when defending a shit score anyway due to playing injured batsmen they may as well have taken the risk, 1 bad over and he is done for the day? The other match he got smashed for about 5 balls then got the big wicket

 

[King Elvis]

I didnt see the game so can I ask why you think his captaincy was terrible ?

And at what point of the innings did he go off with the hammy strain ?

Poor use of the bowlers.

Poor fielding positioning - the amount of runs the Lankans got by opening the face and running ones and twos through gully and down to third man; one over, they did it 5 times in a row, we did nothing.

 

[DeadlyAkkuret]

So, bowling line-up for the final match? Lee and Pattinson got the only wickets today, plus they've both got a 3fa and 4fa respectively in recent games.

Do we round it out with Hilfenhaus or McKay, or bring in someone else? Do we even have anyone else available? I think Christian should go for Forrest as that strengthens our batting and it's not like Christian is offering that much with the ball or bat lately.

 

[drummond2fevola]

I'm all for chasing a total next game.

Wade & Warner go hard early with the Hussey brothers to bring it home.

 

[Outshined]

I think Christian should go for Forrest as that strengthens our batting and it's not like Christian is offering that much with the ball or bat lately.

Errr... http://www.espncricinfo.com/commonwealth-bank-series-2012/engine/current/match/518967.html

Batting hasn't really been the problem of late (aside from the match above), it's been the bowling. We haven't had many games where both the bowlers and the batsmen have performed well, and it's telling against sides such as Sri-Lanka.

Unfortunately, whichever combination you pick out of Pattinson, McKay, Hilfenhaus and Lee seems to be a bit like reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic at the moment. It's a pretty good attack on paper, but they can't seem to fire consistently. I'd keep Christian for variety. Would love to see McDermott given a shot but that's asking a bit much in a deciding final.

 

[Plugger35]

What a smashing that was.

271 was never going to be enough on that pitch, needed at least 300. Even though Warner got a ton he soaked up too many balls and didn't leave enough time for the Husseys and Christian to hit out at the end.

Sri Lanka would have to be favourites to win on Thursday going by today's result.

 

[aussie1st]

The opening overs were as much to blame as the pacing by the batsmen. If McKay didn't overstep this could have been a different ball game. The wasting of the swing in the new ball was another factor, that ball was hopping around and we couldn't get a wicket. And then you have the extras, after 10 overs SL had 15 runs from extras and only Jayawardene was scoring at a run a ball yet they had 74 runs on the board.

 

[Bucking Beads]

No balance or variation in our bowling attack is hurting us IMO. Didn't make enough runs either IMO. Warner needed 180 off the 140 balls he faced for us to be a chance but even then they way our bowlers are performing at the moment it wouldn't have been enough. Hopefully this latest Clarke injury doesn't hurt his form.

 

[The Passenger]

didn't see a ball of us bowling, but i wasn't confident in defending 270 at all.

i hate bagging blokes that get a ton, but the end of dave's innings was pretty costly. at 80 of 104 he was started to push that strike rate up and we all know he is capable of pushing his strike rate up to 100 in quck time from that point, but he only scored 20 runs of his last 36 balls and that hurt a lot.

can't comment on the bowling, but a quick scan of here and on cricinfo and they weren't too complimentary about it, but it does sound like the sri lankan's batted very well.

game 3 will be interesting.

 

[King Elvis]

Our bowling was shit.

Lankans batted really aggressive and boldly; had a bit of luck (so did we, how many catches did they drop?), but they rode their luck, which put our guys under even more pressure, and nobody had an answer. Clarke's use of the bowlers was very ordinary, and I thought his field positioning was rubbish as well - but we all have bad days, and he played a brilliant innings; maybe his back was bothering him too much?

Warner should be embarrassed by his innings, but he'll learn from it, not the end of the world.

Our bowlers got slaughtered anyway, so it probably wouldn't have mattered, but on that pitch, with wickets in hand, when you're set like he was, you need to accelerate, not slow down.

 

[King Elvis]

PS - 15,300 odd to the game; decent result considering it was a Tuesday.

 

[FRUMPY]

The first 5-10 overs was where the game was won. Lee bowled a howler of an over, mckay looked ok at times but had 1 bad ball an over. Patto looked good but was unlucky. Should have had a wicket if he had a 2nd slip. I think clarke buggered up there. The ball is swinging all over the shop and he has one slip? crazy.

Good for us though we get to watch another game, and hopefully a better performance. No Clarke will hurt and would rather have baily than forrest (forrest has too many dot balls).

Not sure about doherty, doesnt try to spin it, just bowls flat and fast. Would love him to throw up a few and try to get them out rather than letting them get themselves out with bad shots. Interesting Lyon has been added for last game, maybe a change?

Would have it like this:

Wade
Warner
Watson
D Hussey
M Hussey
Baily
Christian
Pattison
McKay
Doherty
Lyon

Attack of Pattison/McKay/Watson/Christian/Lyon/Doherty/Hussey

 

[Bucking Beads]

I reckon you'd have to be pretty thick to be picking Bailey over Forrest at this point.

 

[eddiesmith]

Whilst the bowling may have been tonked, it was alot to do with no pressure on the sri lankans due to the sub par score the batsmen had set, yet there is no need to add extra batsmen because that wont change a thing given they only lost a couple of wickets for a majority of the innings

If Dussey had come in with 10 overs to go they might have been able to salvage something