Test Surely the Cummins/McDonald captain/coach setup is the worst in Australian Test history

[Gethelred]

Couldn't even captain Australia to a win in the last series against the Windies. Blown multiple away series against England and celebrated draws.

In 2023, Australia went to India, knowing that they'd have a massive 12 months. They'd just played a 5 test summer at home - against the WI and SA, which they'd won 5-0 - and the schedule was absolutely full.

They played a 4 test series against India, starting on the 9/2 and finishing on the 9/3; that's four tests in 28 days. They then played the WTC match in England on the 7th of June, with a 5 match Ashes series beginning on the 16th and ending on the 27th of July; in the final test of the Ashes, England played the 'ball's been whacked out of shape' trick and Joel Wilson took out a ball supposedly the same age as the 40+ over pill they had used that was not moving at all. This new ball didn't just swing, it moved like prime Akram and they stole the final test of the series, drawing the thing. You then had the ODI world cup in India - which we won - and in that summer, we played five tests; three against Pakistan and two against the WI before a break.

These matches used more or less the same group of around 14-15 players, and towards the end they got tired. It showed in their cricket more or less all summer; the players were professionals and played some pretty clinical cricket, but they were just burnt out.

In that final test - the test after we smashed them by 10 wickets - Shamar Joseph walked off the ground on day 3 with a toe injury that was thought to be potentially the end of his tour. He returned to the ground the next day and bowled faster than he ever had and ever has since. He's bowling 125-130 clicks now, and has never found that level again. On that day in Brisbane, he was easily as good as any I've ever seen, and they just beat us by 8 runs.

Your opponents are allowed to play well, and a 2 test series on Australian pitches - pitches which produce results - is always risking a drawn series.

Now, to the point of this exercise. Cricketers these days - compared to in the early 2000's - can theoretically play cricket at all times. Between franchise cricket and national duties, it is up to them when they choose to take a break. The blokes in this case all - with the exceptions of Marnus, Usman and Alex Carey - play IPL, and could play in any of the T20 comps worldwide. Burnout is a real ****ing thing, for any number of reasons; it could be jetlag due to nation and timezone hopping for months on end, it could be that you work a high pressure job and it's not always sunshine and rainbows and endless ****ing victories.

Sometimes you get a road. Sometimes, you get a minefield.

That's the beauty of cricket, Topkent. It's in the minutiae, in going through the results and seeing why things happened the way they did. Cricket is stories, tales, legends; it's the most narrative of sports. To focus on the results the way your post does is to skip entirely to the ending; you rob yourself of the richness of it. But that should come as no surprise, given your sneering attitude here; you're not interested in the sport, not really.

 

[beatnik]

In 2023, Australia went to India, knowing that they'd have a massive 12 months. They'd just played a 5 test summer at home - against the WI and SA, which they'd won 5-0 - and the schedule was absolutely full.

They played a 4 test series against India, starting on the 9/2 and finishing on the 9/3; that's four tests in 28 days. They then played the WTC match in England on the 7th of June, with a 5 match Ashes series beginning on the 16th and ending on the 27th of July; in the final test of the Ashes, England played the 'ball's been whacked out of shape' trick and Joel Wilson took out a ball supposedly the same age as the 40+ over pill they had used that was not moving at all. This new ball didn't just swing, it moved like prime Akram and they stole the final test of the series, drawing the thing. You then had the ODI world cup in India - which we won - and in that summer, we played six tests; three against Pakistan and two against the WI before a break.

These matches used more or less the same group of around 14-15 players, and towards the end they got tired. It showed in their cricket more or less all summer; the players were professionals and played some pretty clinical cricket, but they were just burnt out.

In that final test - the test after we smashed them by 10 wickets - Shamar Joseph walked off the ground on day 3 with a toe injury that was thought to be potentially the end of his tour. He returned to the ground the next day and bowled faster than he ever had and ever has since. He's bowling 125-130 clicks now, and has never found that level again. On that day in Brisbane, he was easily as good as any I've ever seen, and they just beat us by 8 runs.

Your opponents are allowed to play well, and a 2 test series on Australian pitches - pitches which produce results - is always risking a drawn series.

Now, to the point of this exercise. Cricketers these days - compared to in the early 2000's - can theoretically play cricket at all times. Between franchise cricket and national duties, it is up to them when they choose to take a break. The blokes in this case all - with the exceptions of Marnus, Usman and Alex Carey - play IPL, and could play in any of the T20 comps worldwide.

That's the beauty of cricket, Topkent. It's in the minutiae, in going through the results and seeing why things happened the way they did. Cricket is stories, tales, legends; it's the most narrative of sports. To focus on the results the way your post does is to skip entirely to the ending; you rob yourself of the richness of it. But that should come as no surprise, given your sneering attitude here; you're not interested in the sport, not really.

Beautifully put sir

 

[Coops93]

Like **** he is

It depends how you define a captain, really. It's a pretty fair case to make.

Ponting was often criticised for not really being a creative captain - he never needed to be, he just tossed the ball to Warney and Pidge and said cmon lads. Not having a go at him for that, everyone would do the same. But on occasions where things didn't work out it was shown he wasn't the most creative on field and was more lead by example.

Clarke was tactically good, but off field he had his issues. I think he lead by example on field better than he's given credit in fairness. But the locker room personality and off field issues mean there was never full cohesion between his on-field nous and team building behind the scenes.

Smith I thought was very good until it wasn't. Without Warner in the side he potentially goes down as one of our greatest captains - Lead by example and was creative on field while being a good locker room influence. Unfortunately, his stewardship got hijacked and taken advantage of by an angry midget and thus his captaincy legacy is soiled forever.

Paine was a decent enough emergency stop-gap solution. Did a job in setting a culture, but lacked on field nous and individually couldn't put in the big performances to lead from the front. His skippering was partially responsible for some of our all-time losses.

Cummins - Continued to change the culture and you have to say has successfully changed the image of the team entirely, in a way that has angered some demographics for some reason. We're just about the best team in the world culture wise right now. Further, his on field success includes every ICC trophy he can win as well as an Ashes retention. You could make the case we were outplayed in 4 of the 5 tests, yet somehow we got a result in our favour. One test in particular was singled handedly down to him. The other, Lords, his captaincy is what got Stokes after he was going off could have won that test as well instead of being a repeat of the last time Stokes did it.

He gets criticised for being conservative or defensive, but I can't really see a time where we've lost a game because we defended too much since he's been captain, so I don't get it as a criticism, personally. He plays the percentages and doesn't make unnecessarily aggressive decisions for the sake of them, which has worked perfectly well. Further, individually he's one of the best lead by example skippers we've had.

The only reasons not to like Pat as captain have nothing to do with cricket. He definitely has a fair case of being the best since Waugh, and is on the path to being one of the greatest.

 

[The Lobbster]

[emoji[emoji6]][emoji6][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]" data-quote="Gethelred" data-source="post: 0" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

Your opponents are allowed to play well.

This is the most important quote in this whole thread. For some reason, certain Australian cricket fans can’t believe when any other team does well against Australia. They just seem to assume that when opposition teams do well, it’s us ****ing up.

 

[Gethelred]

This is the most important quote in this whole thread. For some reason, certain Australian cricket fans can’t believe when any other team does well against Australia. They just seem to assume that when opposition teams do well, it’s us ****ing up.

I think it's due to the near decade and a half of it just point blank not mattering. During Waugh/Ponting and even early Clarke, you could have an opposition player break out and play some ****ing good cricket in a home summer and it just wouldn't matter.

It's also due to the inherent nature of the sport. A batter breaks out and scores multiple hundreds in the series, it mightn't matter a whole heap because your bats might just up and make more. A bowler breaks out - think, Rabada on the previous tour of here prior to 2022-23 - and they've taken your upper order potentially twice in a dig. Over the last few years it's been bowlers breaking out, and bowlers win tests.

 

[MJG14]

Border-Gavaskar Trophy back in Australian hands, and qualification for the WTC Final. More success from this supposedly awful captain/coach setup.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

We need a backfire tag on this thread.

Won WTC Final
Retained Ashes
Won World Cup
Won Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Qualified for 2025 WTC Final.

 

[TubbsFarquhar]

Milk ages better than this thread.

 

[big_e]

Go woke, go to Lord's.

 

[eth-dog]

I think the thread title needs to be changed to best.

 

[PhatBoy]

In 2023, Australia went to India, knowing that they'd have a massive 12 months. They'd just played a 5 test summer at home - against the WI and SA, which they'd won 5-0 - and the schedule was absolutely full.

They played a 4 test series against India, starting on the 9/2 and finishing on the 9/3; that's four tests in 28 days. They then played the WTC match in England on the 7th of June, with a 5 match Ashes series beginning on the 16th and ending on the 27th of July; in the final test of the Ashes, England played the 'ball's been whacked out of shape' trick and Joel Wilson took out a ball supposedly the same age as the 40+ over pill they had used that was not moving at all. This new ball didn't just swing, it moved like prime Akram and they stole the final test of the series, drawing the thing. You then had the ODI world cup in India - which we won - and in that summer, we played five tests; three against Pakistan and two against the WI before a break.

These matches used more or less the same group of around 14-15 players, and towards the end they got tired. It showed in their cricket more or less all summer; the players were professionals and played some pretty clinical cricket, but they were just burnt out.

In that final test - the test after we smashed them by 10 wickets - Shamar Joseph walked off the ground on day 3 with a toe injury that was thought to be potentially the end of his tour. He returned to the ground the next day and bowled faster than he ever had and ever has since. He's bowling 125-130 clicks now, and has never found that level again. On that day in Brisbane, he was easily as good as any I've ever seen, and they just beat us by 8 runs.

Your opponents are allowed to play well, and a 2 test series on Australian pitches - pitches which produce results - is always risking a drawn series.

Now, to the point of this exercise. Cricketers these days - compared to in the early 2000's - can theoretically play cricket at all times. Between franchise cricket and national duties, it is up to them when they choose to take a break. The blokes in this case all - with the exceptions of Marnus, Usman and Alex Carey - play IPL, and could play in any of the T20 comps worldwide. Burnout is a real ****ing thing, for any number of reasons; it could be jetlag due to nation and timezone hopping for months on end, it could be that you work a high pressure job and it's not always sunshine and rainbows and endless ****ing victories.

Sometimes you get a road. Sometimes, you get a minefield.

That's the beauty of cricket, Topkent. It's in the minutiae, in going through the results and seeing why things happened the way they did. Cricket is stories, tales, legends; it's the most narrative of sports. To focus on the results the way your post does is to skip entirely to the ending; you rob yourself of the richness of it. But that should come as no surprise, given your sneering attitude here; you're not interested in the sport, not really.

Some slight embellishments there mate.
Joseph had a poor tour in England for sure.
He’s since taken an excellent five wicket haul against SA and easily cracked 140km against them albeit he didn’t really go close to 150. He had a quiet test against Bangladesh where Seales was leading the charge then he took 5 for the game for 120 or so.

 

[ioppolo]

Go woke, go to Lord's.

The artist (AI?) giving Smith some serious early stage dad bod already.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Milk ages better than this thread.

We currently hold all our test series trophies

I assume we achieved this under Waugh but probably not since

 

[DaRick]

We currently hold all our test series trophies

I assume we achieved this under Waugh but probably not since

They didn't hold the Warne-Muralitharan Trophy.

 

[Zach Package]

If the plan was to be attritional and bank on the injury prone Bumrah not being able to get through then they have executed that plan to perfection.

Somewhat ironic given McSweeney did a lot of the donkey work in trying to get overs into him and then Konstas came in and profited at the end when he probably wasn’t at his scariest and then obviously once he did get injured the rest of their attack is pretty horrid and can be slapped around.

Questions to be asked about how they prepared for the summer though, they looked like they were treating Perth as a centre wicket practise session. And they still rolled them in the first innings.

 

[eddiesmith]

McDonald >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Langer

 

[Saints4ever]

How important is a coach to a cricket side?

I would’ve thought the talent in your 11 determines most matches and the coach has little impact.

 

[DaRick]

If this is the worst setup in AUS test cricket history, then there are many golden years ahead of us.

 

[Broar]

Milk ages better than this thread.

Someone has to find the Langer thread.

 

[DaTBird187]

I wish McDonald had shut his trap about the Indians intimidating Konstas. Made the lad look like a whimpy school kid.

 

[PhatBoy]

I wish McDonald had shut his trap about the Indians intimidating Konstas. Made the lad look like a whimpy school kid.

The lone remote bit of sense Gambhir made was the talk about that particular issue though it will always come across as a whinge regardless because of a) the result and b) the fact that he’s an insufferable c**t anyway.

 

[Coops93]

How important is a coach to a cricket side?

I would’ve thought the talent in your 11 determines most matches and the coach has little impact.

I don't recall many test cricket teams that have been great when coach led. The best all seem to be more player/captain led.

Think of AB, Taylor, Waugh, Ponting, or Cummins - no one really looks back and says it was the coach. Most wouldn't even know who the coach was. In 10-15 years no one will be talking about McDonald.

Whereas if you look at our coach led sides of recent years - Smiths side definitely took on the personality of Boof and we know how that worked. You could potentially make the case it was CA led, but Boof certainly supported that agenda. Clarke under Mickey was a disaster with a near mutiny taking place.

For some reason this side has taken flak for being player led and that the administration let's them do what they want to a degree, but that's not new at all. Just like every other criticism of Cummins and co. it's complete nonsense.

 

[TigerCraig]

I don't recall many test cricket teams that have been great when coach led. The best all seem to be more player/captain led.

Think of AB, Taylor, Waugh, Ponting, or Cummins - no one really looks back and says it was the coach. Most wouldn't even know who the coach was. In 10-15 years no one will be talking about McDonald.

Whereas if you look at our coach led sides of recent years - Smiths side definitely took on the personality of Boof and we know how that worked. You could potentially make the case it was CA led, but Boof certainly supported that agenda. Clarke under Mickey was a disaster with a near mutiny taking place.

For some reason this side has taken flak for being player led and that the administration let's them do what they want to a degree, but that's not new at all. Just like every other criticism of Cummins and co. it's complete nonsense.

I think Bob Simpson is one notable one. Basically invented the role, gave good support to Border in a rebuilding phase of Australian cricket with a lot of young players coming into the side

 

[Duckimus Prime]

I think Bob Simpson is one notable one. Basically invented the role, gave good support to Border in a rebuilding phase of Australian cricket with a lot of young players coming into the side

Bob Simpson didn't lead the team. He was very much there in support of Border who was leading the side.

The same applied with Geoff Marsh. It was Mark Taylor who led the team.

Next was Buchanan, he was in the background during Steve Waugh's captaincy, but he pushed forward a lot more at the end of his coaching stint after Punter replaced Waugh. Maybe its a bit because Punter wasn't as clearly senior to the rest of the side as the previous three captains. This is also around the time where we start hearing things like Warne telling Buchanan to **** off, because we know how to play cricket.

Neilsen replaced Buchanan and its very much back to the coach supporting the captain led side.

Michael Clarke takes over captaincy, and we also get Mickey Arthur. The foreign born coach that doesn't understand the culture of Australian cricket. This is exemplified with the home work saga. Where Arthur tries to be an authoritarian figure over the side. Darren Lehmann comes in a role supporting Michael Clarke and later Smith's sides.

Smith is like early Punter, in that he captains a side full of a lot players who have been there just as long as he has. So he's less of senior figure in the side. So Lehmann becomes a bit more prominent.

Then we have the ball tampering. Boof, Smith and Warner are dumped. And Justin Langer comes in. We have Justin Langer front and centre in the media talking about how he is going to lead the culture of the team. He's the authoritarian figure that rules the side. Its Mickey Arther version 2. Except he's not a foreigner, and the blow back from the ball tampering saga curtails the players hitting back. The Senior batsmen who as solidly set in the side were banned, the rest of the batsmen are questionable in their position in the side. The bowlers are ducking for cover and we don't have bowling captains. So the captain is set as Tim Paine.

The Australian captain since Graham Yallop and Kim Hughes when all the real players went to World Series Cricket. Paine shouldn't have even been in the side. Alex Carey was at his best in Redbacks sides that were actually at the top of the ladder. Chris Hartley was also playing really well at the Bulls. Tim Paine was on the verge of retiring from first class cricket. And the terrible decision in selecting Paine was compounded by making him Captain. Although it did give Justin Langer a captain that would be clearly subserviant to him. This was Justin Langer's Australian Test cricket side.

Eventually the time from the ball tampering saga ending up extending enough that the players were able to make it clear that they were sick of Langer and punted him out. It was clearly brought up when he was pushed to the background for the T20 World Cup and we won it. Finch was very much set as one of the best T20 players in the world, he wasn't a part of the ball tampering saga so he was in a position to push Langer out of the authoritarian position.

Now we're back with Andrew MacDonald who is there to support Pat Cummins' Australian cricket team.

 

[Jim Prideaux]

The lone remote bit of sense Gambhir made was the talk about that particular issue though it will always come across as a whinge regardless because of a) the result and b) the fact that he’s an insufferable c**t anyway.

I don’t see it as a whinge from GG same as I don’t see it as a whinge from Ronny. It’s a coach sticking up for his player(s), absolutely nothing wrong with that.