Beer and Sympathy » The aftermath

The aftermath

Ricky Ponting has won the mantle of worst ever captain, by losing the ashes a second time. Here’s my assessment of what we need to do now.

Keep Clarke and North.With 446 runs at 64 and 367 runs at 52 respectively including two centuries each, they were easily the best batsmen in the team.
Strip Ponting of the captaincy. Give it to North. Give it to Clarke. Transplant SK Warne’s brain into Hilfenhaus and give it to him, I don’t care. Just let Ponting focus on what he does best: scoring runs.
Put Watson on notice. His batting was fine for an all-rounder, but why are we selecting an all-rounder if we’re not going to bowl him? Of the part timers North, Clarke and even Katich all performed better. Watson either needs to bowl more and take wickets, or start scoring centuries.
Keep Haddin. I don’t think we have a better alternative.
Drop Katich and Hussey. Ignoring their one decent innings each, their averages were 31 and 22 respectively.
Bring Hughes back. We need to develop an opening batsman, and he’s the man. He’ll fix the short ball problem this summer, and if he doesn’t we can just drop him next year. Give the man a chance.
Bowling becomes tricky. No one took more than 6 wickets in a match. Only Hilfenhaus had an average under 30, but his best innings was 4/60. Our attack needs work. I think that, with everyone fully fit, the best lineup would be Clark, Lee, Johnson and Hilfenhaus. Hauritz is a hack. If one of those four is injured, I would bring in Nathan Bracken.

That’s it for the team. The following people should also be given the boot for their role in our defeat:

Furthermore, I propose a referendum to alter the constitution at the next election:

Should Australia lose a test cricket series to England, the Governor General shall immediately dismiss the Government and force an election.