Australian test side
After losing the most exciting home test series for a long time, Australia needs to have a good look at their lineup if we are to beat South Africa in the return tour. With the help of Statsguru v2.0, I have come up with the following list of players who deserve to keep their place in the team.
Batsmen:
- MJ Clarke – 383 runs @ 76.6. Brilliant.
- SM Katich – 297 runs @ 49.5. Not at his best, but still the second best of the summer.
- RT Ponting – 285 runs @ 47.5. Shit captain, still a great batsman.
- BJ Haddin – 228 runs @ 45.6. His place isn’t really in question anyway.
These guys were the only batsmen who outperformed Mitchell Johnson, who had an average of 23.4 before this summer. Everyone else should be dropped.
Bowlers:
- MJ Johnson – 17 wickets @ 25.88. With Johnson in the team, the selectors can stop farting around looking for an all-rounder, and we can pick five strike bowlers instead. His spell of 5/2 in Perth was incredible. I love him; I wanna boof him; get him up here.
- PM Siddle – 13 wickets @ 27.38. A decent showing. I think he has solved the problem of trying to find a fourth bowler.
Obviously Lee underperformed in this series, but he did look good, and I think he suffered from not having Stuart Clark at the other end. Andrew McDonald did alright, and I think he would be good as a replacement for when Clark is injured with his consistent line and length.
So if Clark and Lee are both back from injury, we need to grab a fifth bowler and two more batsman for the first test in Jo’burg. Hussey will keep his place, but I think Hayden will go. The jury is still out on his replacement.
January 8, 2009 4:10 pm 1 Comment
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By Duncan
, January 8, 2009 @ 4:42 pm
Yay, I love talking about cricket.
I’ve come around to the point of view that Hayden has to go. It’s hard to argue against it after he dropped that catch. Jacques will be fit again by then, so he should come back in as opener and they should take Hughes so he can get a taste of what it’s like to tour with Australia. I don’t think Lee’s going to be fit for SA (correct me if I’m wrong), so it will probably be Clark, Johnson and Siddle as the fast bowlers, Krejza or Hauritz and an all-rounder. I’m wondering what happened to Ashley Noffke. I like the cut of his jib.