Big Cricket Thread

[THE A5]

Finch has retired from International cricket. Probably done the right thing but it has been a tremendous career for him

 

[Altum Volantes]

Good call from Finch - he went some ways to repairing his short form reputation this summer, better to go out now than get pushed when he hits another rough patch.

They have to think about Ash Turner as a long term skipper option…but more than likely it will be Steve Smith you’d assume.

 

[Tugga27]

Good call from Finch - he went some ways to repairing his short form reputation this summer, better to go out now than get pushed when he hits another rough patch.

They have to think about Ash Turner as a long term skipper option…but more than likely it will be Steve Smith you’d assume.

A good all would've been 18 months ago IMO.

Not sure Smith will get the captaincy.
He couldn't get a game in the last WC.

Maxwwell is a possibilty.
Hopefully not Wade.
He shouldn't even be captaining the Hurricanes.

Think there will be some retirements and axings for the next series.
They might drop Wade and give it to carey.

 

[Doashuey]

A good all would've been 18 months ago IMO.

Not sure Smith will get the captaincy.
He couldn't get a game in the last WC.

Maxwwell is a possibilty.
Hopefully not Wade.
He shouldn't even be captaining the Hurricanes.

Think there will be some retirements and axings for the next series.
They might drop Wade and give it to carey.

I think they might have learnt their lesson since then. Smith has shown he is the best T20 bat in Australia in just 4 games.
That said, I never rated his captaincy so happy for someone else to get the gig but he is first picked in International T20s now.

 

[Tugga27]

I think they might have learnt their lesson since then. Smith has shown he is the best T20 bat in Australia in just 4 games.
That said, I never rated his captaincy so happy for someone else to get the gig but he is first picked in International T20s now.

I'm interested to see how his BBL form will translate to internationals TBH.
He did look a class above everyone else but some of the attacks he was facing weren't great.

I agree though.
A straight swap Smith for Finch.

 

[Rowan18]

I'm interested to see how his BBL form will translate to internationals TBH.
He did look a class above everyone else but some of the attacks he was facing weren't great.

I agree though.
A straight swap Smith for Finch.

He was pretty average in his two games against us, which shows he's nothing special against good bowlers.

 

[Agent93]

They might drop Wade and give it to carey.

You've misspelled Inglis my good man.

They have to think about Ash Turner as a long term skipper option…but more than likely it will be Steve Smith you’d assume.

The thing about Turner is it's more the team he captains rather than individual nous. Guys like Warner, Smith, Maxwell, Stoinis, Starc, and Cummins would all need to buy in otherwise the national side will have the same issues it currently does, just with a different bloke making the on-field decisions on a very short leash.

Also, Turner's 30. There's no way he gets a decent go at it unless he comes in with some Mike Hussey-like form initially.

He did look a class above everyone else but some of the attacks he was facing weren't great.

The same could be said for a lot of the Scorchers batting. It may not translate against international grade bowling attacks.

 

[THE A5]

Turner has salvaged many innings and not a Turner issue but I actually worry how powersurges will impact players at the next level.

 

[Ochre]

A good all would've been 18 months ago IMO.

He captained a world cup win 16 months ago

 

[Tugga27]

He captained a world cup win 16 months ago

And he did SFA in it.

You think he had a good tournament?

We were carried by Warner and Marsh and winning the majority of tosses.

 

[Agent93]

He captained a world cup win 16 months ago

With a sub 20 average and SR below 120. If you take out beating up on Bangladesh (chasing 73) that drops to an average below 16 at a SR below 100.

Another blight on his performance in that WC is as captain he was part of the on tour selection process which left Bison out for the match lost to England.

 

[Ochre]

And he did SFA in it.

You think he had a good tournament?

We were carried by Warner and Marsh and winning the majority of tosses.

Listening to him during the BBL this season it's clear he's very good tactically. Judging him purely on his batting is selling him short.

 

[Dazzler9]

Finch deserved a WC title. It's now time to depart the scene. The end.

 

[Tugga27]

Listening to him during the BBL this season it's clear he's very good tactically. Judging him purely on his batting is selling him short.

He's had a great career but IMO went on 18 to 24 months too long.

Yes he's been a good captain, bit you can't/shouldn't have the captain being the worst player in the side.
If he wasn't captain, doubtful he would've gotten a game.

 

[Tugga27]

Finch deserved a WC title. It's now time to depart the scene. The end.

Should've retired after the WC cup win in 2021/22.

 

[free2play]

Poll indicating 63% said the Scorchers would beat Australia.

BBL final: Data analysis shows Perth Scorchers should form bulk of Australia’s T20 team​

Perth Scorchers have long been the benchmark of T20 cricket in Australia — now data proves the BBL powerhouse would give the national side a run for its money.

Don't miss out on the headlines from Big Bash. Followed categories will be added to My News.


They say a champion team is always better than a team of champions, and research claims Twenty20 cricket could be just the vehicle to prove it.
So with T20 by far Australia’s weakest format and the team at a crossroads following this summer’s World Cup failure … has a perfect storm arrived where selectors should consider making the Perth Scorchers the nucleus of the national side?

This bold question might make the eastern states turn bright orange, but it’s based on compelling data, which explains that the All Blacks are a rugby juggernaut largely because of the innate ‘cohesion’ its players have formed coming through together via a limited number of provincial clubs.
Cricket is of course a completely different sport to rugby, in that the collective unity of the group is very much secondary to individual skill.
But leading consultancy company Gain Line is adamant ‘cohesion analytics’ has a crucial role to play in the T20 format where every single ball is paramount to the outcome of the match.

Specifically, cohesive T20 teams gain a major advantage in defending totals — a facet of the game that can be make or break in a format where teams generally prefer to chase to win.

WHO WOULD WIN? SCORCHERS V AUSTRALIA​

AUSSIE SCORCHERS
Cameron Bancroft
Josh Inglis
Mitchell Marsh (capt)
Cameron Green
Ashton Turner
Aaron Hardie
Ashton Agar
Andrew Tye
Jhye Richardson
Lance Morris
Jason Behrendorff

AUSTRALIA
Steve Smith
David Warner
Marcus Stoinis
Aaron Finch (capt)
Glenn Maxwell
Tim David
Matthew Wade
Mitchell Starc
Pat Cummins
Adam Zampa
Josh Hazlewood

It’s no coincidence that when Gain Line — co-founded by Simon Strachan and former Wallaby Ben Darwin — last advised Cricket Australia about its T20 program back in 2018, the Perth Scorchers, with the stability of its roster, were at the forefront of its research, as they are now.
“High cohesion teams have the ability to defend their total better than low cohesion teams,” Strachan told News Corp.
“When we did this work in the BBL a few years ago, Perth was a natural standout in the system.
“They naturally drove high understanding through the way they recruited. You don’t get a lot of people coming in and out of Perth and that basically drove their system. They might have a bad year but they quickly come back up, which is indicative of a lot of other high cohesion environments, including Chennai in the IPL.

“Overall the trend in T20 cricket is if you win the toss you field first so you can bat second and control the chase.
“But if you lose the toss and you’re fielding second, higher cohesion teams have the ability to work better in that scenario and defend to win.
“What we found with T20 cricket specifically is how a level of understanding between players, drives the ability to withstand stress and pressure. Every one of the 120 deliveries is critical in the outcome of the game, and most critical for the team fielding second.
“Once you have that level of understanding, it drives a level of trust – so when you’re under pressure you can make correct decisions and effectively trust your teammate and perhaps most importantly, trust the captain.

“Even this season, if you look at Perth at the top of the ladder and the Melbourne Stars at the bottom; whether by choice or not, Perth fielded second four times and won three of those games. The poor old Melbourne Stars had to field second nine times and only won two.”

Gain Line’s research documents that the Wallabies fall from grace as a rugby superpower coincided with new domestic franchise teams the Western Force and Melbourne Rebels being introduced, which diluted the historical concentration of NSW, Queensland and ACT players in the Australian team.
The splitting of cricketers among eight Big Bash teams combined with the fact that between World Cups, Australia very rarely gets to field a consistent T20 side due to the unrelenting nature of the schedule – makes cohesion a difficult power to harness for selectors.

So why not a radical new model, where the Perth Scorchers became the centrepoint of the Australian T20 team?
Theoretically, the logic is flawed because cricket is more about the execution of individual skill than teamwork.
“I can choose my core group of Scorchers, but what if that means Steve Smith doesn’t get a run,” Strachan concedes.

But where the perfect storm element comes into play is Western Australia, and by proxy the Perth Scorchers, are currently the epicentre of talent production in Australian cricket – and the majority of the line-up either has played international cricket or is firmly in the conversation to do so.

The core of the Scorchers side would not be out of place in Australian shirts and it would not cheapen the caps by picking them.
Also, it’s likely a number of Australian greats from the last World Cup may retire from T20 cricket or be moved on before next year’s tournament in the West Indies and the Caribbean.

Aaron Finch, Matthew Wade and the all-format fast bowlers Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc are right on the edge, while Steve Smith, David Warner, Marcus Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell aren’t getting any younger either.

Few would argue against Australia urgently needing to move towards picking more T20 specialists, and if there are lineball calls on certain positions – perhaps selectors might consider favouring Scorchers over the rest, given what the data says about cohesion.

“Definitely. Because they walk in the room, they already have that shared understanding,” Strachan said.
“They already have the language between each other.

“So many games are decided by so few runs … (that cohesion) is sometimes the difference.
“If you can’t choose by skill, choose by understanding.”

Yeah it is interesting looking at that AUS team I would really only go there are 3 definitively better players than Scorchers at their relevant positions. Basically Smith over Bancroft, Cummins/Hazelwood over Tye (historically a great bowler I just think he has lost his edge) and I would personally rate Zampa over Morris. Otherwise I would be really comfortable with the rest of the Scorchers team representing AUS in this scenario.

 

[Mulldogg]

Well well well, what have we here?

The hosts seemingly expect all of Warner, Khawaja, Head, Renshaw, Carey & Agar to be in the XI come Thursday.

 

[Truckosaurus]

Indian groundstaff prepare pitch to assist their spinners. In other news, Don Bradman was quite good.

 

[Keys]

Cricket pitches in each country all have characteristics that are specific/unique to that country which are largely dictated by local conditions

So English pitches are usually reasonably well grassed and favour seam bowlers and swing bowlers when it’s overcast

Sub-continent pitches are dry and dusty giving little bounce and good conditions for spinners. Unless they roll/compact the **** out of it so it becomes like concrete and gives nothing to anyone

Possibly because Australia is so much bigger than other test playing nations (2.4x the size of India) it seems are pitches have greater variation although generally they have more bounce

So doctoring of pitches is always going to be raised even when curators do nothing more than prepare the wicket to play to its normal characteristics

That said, and it may well be my Australian bias, we don’t seem to try and exaggerate the characteristics of our pitches to our own advantage to the same extent as India seem to

If anything I think on recent Indian tours here we’ve gone out of our away to prepare pitches that diminish the unique characteristics of our pitches

No surprise to see some odd preparation going on over there before the first test

 

[Mulldogg]

Indian groundstaff prepare pitch to assist their spinners. In other news, Don Bradman was quite good.

A rank turner (for both RH & LHB) is to be expected in India.

To specifically not water outside the left handers’ off stump knowing the likely batting line ups of the respective XIs is getting a bit beyond the pale for mine.

 

[matthew_s]

A rank turner (for both RH & LHB) is to be expected in India.

To specifically not water outside the left handers’ off stump knowing the likely batting line ups of the respective XIs is getting a bit beyond the pale for mine.

Here, here, to suggest otherwise is crazy.

 

[Keys]

I would concede the Ashes if it guarantees we beat these pricks

Most annoying fan base of any team in any sport that I’ve come across

 

[Truckosaurus]

A rank turner (for both RH & LHB) is to be expected in India.

To specifically not water outside the left handers’ off stump knowing the likely batting line ups of the respective XIs is getting a bit beyond the pale for mine.

They have in the past selectively watered the pitch to create dry patches where Ashwin would pitch the ball. I'm not condoning the behaviour but this is standard practice for India.

 

[Dazzler9]

They have in the past selectively watered the pitch to create dry patches where Ashwin would pitch the ball. I'm not condoning the behaviour but this is standard practice for India.

It's literally pitch doctoring.

 

[FKASC]

India bias