Tag Archives: cricket

What is the NSP doing? The selection of allrounders is indicative of a deeper problem

January 15, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , Leave a comment

It was a case of another day, another selection storm for the National Selection Panel of Cricket Australia yesterday. For those who missed it Aaron Finch was replaced by David Warner, Steve Smith was replaced by Michael Clarke and Ben Cutting replaced by Moises Henriques. Kane Richardson was also left out with Mitchell Starc again fit.

Of all of those changes the one that sticks out is the replacement of Ben Cutting with Moises Henriques. In his one opportunity Cutting came to the wicket with Australia in trouble at 6/83 and scored a solid 27 runs in partnership with Brad Haddin and then with the ball took one of the two wickets Australia took against the resurgent Sri Lankans. All things considered it has to be said that Cutting did his job and, indeed, did it admirably.

In response to this he has been replaced in the squad by Moises Henriques because, to quote John Inverarity (the chairman of selectors) “we need allrounders” and “we were looking for a seam bowling allrounder to suit the conditions at the Gabba”. The other allrounder who remains in the team is Glenn Maxwell who has remained in the team despite not taking a wicket in his first six games for Australia and barely worrying the scorers in this competition so far.

The astonishing part about all of this is that the player excluded from the allrounder hunt in the favour of Henriques is a seam bowler whose home wicket is at the Gabba and who is in the form of his career this year. That is not to say that Henriques is not in form; the short answer is that he is but surely it is incongruous to suggest that you want a bowler who is going to suit the conditions at the Gabba and then drop the Gabba based player in the team?

On the one hand Cricket Australia have selected, and continue to select, a player who is clearly a “project player” for them with an eye on the Indian tour (Inverarity admitted as much in his interview) in Maxwell whilst on the other hand they have dropped a player who did his job when asked to and despite the next game being at the ground at which he is most comfortable.

All this leads one back to a point that even 24 months would have been ridiculous to consider; viz., that the Australian one day set up is nothing more than a Petri dish into which Cricket Australia is seeking to grow players for the long term and, it seems, for future involvement in four or five day cricket. This in turn shows the folly of Cricket Australia’s focus on the Big Bash League rather than the Sheffield Shield Competition which, previously, would have been the place that “project” players would have learnt their craft rather than in international one day cricket.

This is international cricket not a centre wicket practice like Cricket Australia seems to think it is. The players punished and, no doubt, confused by the regime are those very players (save for Glenn Maxwell) that Cricket Australia should be trying to nurture: Khawaja, Smith, Finch, Cutting, Richardson are all on the precipice of international careers and yet find themselves again jettisoned. Wouldn’t you be confused?

Surely it is better for cricket in this country for the Australian team to be the best team available for selection every time it plays and for “project players” to develop through the Sheffield Shield and Ryobi competitions. If I am wrong on this and, in fact, it is better for the development of the players in this country for the remaining one day fixtures this summer to continue to be the centre wicket practices they seem to be then I will happily concede the point. Until Glenn Maxwell scores a hundred at international level or takes 4 wickets in one innings no such concession will be forthcoming.

Shumpty’s Punt: it’s back!

January 11, 2013 By in Shumpty's Punt Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Well I am sure some of you will say “I told you so” and I concede that I threw the toys out of the cot last year when I stated that I would not be publishing a tipping blog again after a run of terrible form. A new year means a new start and after a couple of nights of study I think I have come up with a couple of bets on the weekend as well as a sports multi-bet that I am confident about.

Racing:

It is Magic Millions Day on the Gold Coast on Saturday and whilst I will not be down there I will have an interest in a couple of races:

Race 5:

Really like the Waterhouse horse Driefontein in this. Not sure the other fancies have much chance from the gates they have drawn and Driefontein has the plum gate of number 3. I expect Tommy Berry to salute here.

Race 6:

In the 2 year old classic no matter how much I look at this race I keep coming back to the mount of L Birchley: Missy Longstocking. Four starts for four wins is the best form you can get and from the 5 gate will get a plumb ride. The money has been for it on Sportsbet.com.au having shortened from $7.50 into $6.50 in early betting.

Race 7:

The Magic Millions Cup is a much tougher race for mine than the 2 year old classic. In this one I have always looked for form at the track as a guide more so than in the 2 year old classic. Combining good form at the track and a good gate is the Hawkes horse Stratford. I think it will win and at $6.50 at the moment is pretty good value.

Race 8:

A shorty in the last for the “get out stakes” I’m Cool. Just can not see anything beating it in this field but if you like this horse I would lock in the $2.60 about it you can get on sports bet right now as I expect it will shorten on the day.

Sports multi-bet

I have a four leg multi for the weekend that I reckon is right on the money and will reap a good return for punters without being spectular.

Leg 1: This evening kicking off at 4pm Brisbane time India at home to defeat England in their ODI fixture at $1.67.

Leg 2: On Saturday morning, in the NBA the Atlanta Hawks to cover the line (-4.0 points) against the Utah Jazz at home at $1.92.

Leg 3: On Sunday morning, in the NFL finals the San Francisco 49ers to cover the line (-3.0 points) against the Green Bay Packers at home at $2.05.

Leg 4: On Monday morning, also in the NFL finals the Atlanta Falcons to cover the line (-3.0 points) against the Seattle Seahawks at home at $2.02.

All up this multi will return $13.28 if it gets up.

Good luck and good punting to all.

A night at the cricket … or was it? My first BBL experience

January 8, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , , 2 Comments

I have been a fan of cricket for as long I can remember and have always watched every possible game I could. I have also been in a privileged position to watch more games than I can count live at the home of the game for me: the Gabba. Those facts alone probably make it a bit out of character that I had not set foot inside the Gabba for a Big Bash League fixture until last night. Indeed last night I attended my first Twenty20 game live since the very first one at the Gabba a few moons ago.

The fact is that I have never really warmed to the shortened form of the game and thus, I concede, have probably been a bit dismissive of it. Aside from watching it on TV, because I will watch any sport on TV, and aside from following the Brisbane Heat (the Queensland team after all) I have not really gotten into.

Last night, I have to confess, did little to increase my warmth for the concept. I know I will be considered to be an “old man” here but I did not like the “extras” that seemingly form part of the performance that is a BBL game. I did not like the “dance cam” or the “kiss cam”. I did not like ground announcer shouting at me between every ball and I found the “Brisbane Heat dancers” nearly as bad as the Queensland Reds before game entertainment.

All that said, there was still a cricket game on and I am more than happy to say that the cricket was pretty good. Fast bowlers charging in, another mystery spinner from the sub-continent and a viewing of some of the young batsmen who might find themselves on a plane to England were all pleasing to the cricket purest in me.

So to recap: I enjoyed the game but hated the performance that was BBL. Why stop there though? With me was a very good mate and his son (aged 8) neither of whom had watched a game of cricket live before much less picked up a bat. This is one of the target markets of the BBL, introducing new fans to the game, is it not? Surely these guys had a great time?

During the game it was clear to me that the only things that were keeping the interest of the 8 year old were the “extras” in the performance. He was enamoured with the hovercraft at half time, he liked the music (I weep for the children of today’s devotion to the cults that are Gangnam Style and One Direction) and thought it was pretty cool that there were police officers in the crowd. When it came to the cricket he was, to quote him, “bored and hungry” and if I heard the question “how long to go?” once I heard it 200 times.

In the car on the way home I steered the discussion around to how my mate enjoyed the game. His feedback was that whilst he would have preferred a comfier seat and a bit less noise he was pretty happy with the night. However, he also said it was unlikely that he would be back given the 8 year olds lack of interest in the game. Indeed when pressed further by me, the 8 year old when asked by me “do you want to play cricket now?” was fairly resounding in his negativity: well as much as an 8 year old could be.

All of this raises an interesting point for me: if BBL is designed to get people into the game of cricket is the glitz of the “performance” overshadowing the cricket to the extent that it is not succeeding in that goal. I wonder: how many people who are introduced to cricket through the BBL remain fans of the game? And how many of those people are also going to attend a test match or ODI fixture? These are questions that Cricket Australia will need to consider (if they are not already).

One final comment: the price of tickets of $30 for an adult and $10 for a child is very good and clearly is a selling point. Makes me wonder though: should that also not be the pricing for a ticket to test match cricket? I sat in the same class of seats for the test match this year and paid $68.50 for the same seat. The amenities are the same, the cost of food and drink is the same and the staffing is the same (save it is a longer day). Surely the way to get more people in the test match gates is to lower the price? Maybe that is too obvious.

Anyway, I am not sure if I will be back to watch the third instalment of the Big Bash League next year. I still can’t warm to the game if I am honest and watching the comfort of my lounge without a ground announcer shouting at me between balls certainly has some merit right now.

The third coming of Mitchell Johnson: a new beginning or a false dawn?

January 2, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , Leave a comment

I have been one of the many critics of the selection of Mitchell Johnson in the Australian cricket team this summer. The “Toughsticker Turncoat” I have called him on twitter and it would be fair to say I have not had a positive word to say about him.

Johnson’s selection to bat at number 7 in the coming test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground has given me a moment of pause and caused me to reflect on whether the return of Johnson to test match cricket and his installation as a bowling all rounder into the Australian team is really the new beginning for him (and Australian cricket) it seems to be.

Let’s start with the statistics: 49 test matches, nearly 1500 runs at an average of 22.77 and 202 wickets at an average of 30.63 does not make for bad reading although any cricket fan will tell you that the great all rounders have batting averages higher than their bowling averages.

In the two tests he has played this summer he has taken 12 wickets at an average of around 20 and has scored 102 runs at an average of 51 (92 not out at the MCG in the last test obviously assists that average).

Those statistics considered: why do we (or I) malign him so? Are we (or I) punishing him unduly for the very obvious poor performances in his career to date where he has shouldered the burden of leading the Australian attack and failed? I think the the answer to this last question is that fans do remember those poor performances and, for some, they are performances that will never leave the memory because they were so disappointing.

Is it more than that though? Tracing Johnson’s career through statistics and match reports is just not enough to get a whole picture of the player that he is. I watch a lot of live cricket and have watched a lot of Johnson playing the game. Part of what has bothered me since the disaster of the 2009 Ashes and the performances from Johnson that have followed are two things. Firstly, the body language of Johnson when things go bad on the field is often suggests a mix of indifference and of not having any answers. Secondly, one of the few things about the performances of Johnson has been the consistency in his inconsistency. All too often a grand performance (Perth 2010 comes to mind) is followed by a series of mediocre performances.

Now the Australian cricket team faces a year of 10 test matches against a presently cockahoop English team as well as a tough tour of India. Once again off the back of one excellent performance Johnson seems to be in the frame to tour with the Australian team to England and elsewhere and is touted as the cure to the team’s all rounder ills. I, for one, am worried about when the bubble of Johnson’s performances will burst and whether Australian fans will again be subjected to performances like the Ashes in 2009 and the first Ashes test at the Gabba in 2010.

The other concern I have about the selection of Johnson in the long term is the road block it creates not only for Mitchell Starc, the excellent young left arm swing bowler from New South Wales, but also the other bowling all rounders who might be knocking on the door. Ben Cutting, James Faulkner and Nathan Coulter-Nile all are performing in red ball cricket in Australia this summer and all could be seen to comfortably fit into a role batting at number 7 or 8 for Australia whilst bowling 20 overs of pace an innings.

When all is said and done I remain firmly in the camp that questions Johnson’s ongoing selection for the Australian team albeit I am able to concede that on the numbers alone his spot in the team probably makes sense. My feet sit in the “non-selection” camp now more because of the possible impact his selection may have on the next bowling all rounder to come through the ranks or, for that matter, Mitchell Starc coupled with my fear that the bursting of his performance bubble, based on the recent past, is closer than many may expect.

For Australian cricket’s sake I hope one of two things happens: either this genuinely is a second coming for Mitchell Johnson and he serves me up a big piece of humble pie with excellent and sustained performances or Johnson is jettisoned and one of the young future stars I mention above is given a shot to make the position of bowling all rounder there own.

I, like all Australian fans, want the best Australian cricket team to take the field every time it plays and, probably more importantly, to win back the Ashes this year. I am unsure whether the benefits that Johnson brings to the team are outweighed by the prospect that a couple of bad performance by him could be a deciding factor in the urn staying at Lords. I will be watching with interest as events unfold at the Sydney Cricket Ground tomorrow.

The selection of fast bowlers in Australia: time to sack the selectors or should we be looking further afield?

December 24, 2012 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

20121114-140015.jpgHere are some quotes from John Inverarity the Chairman of selectors of the Australian cricket team with respect to Mitchell Starc:

With Mitchell Starc the reality is he will not be able to do Melbourne and Sydney coming off two recent Tests, being 22 years old and bowling as much as he has in the previous two Tests.

Its bowling loads.  The science behind it is they’ve got to build up their bowling loads so the oscillations (variations) are not very significant. If they do become significant, as they have for Mitchell, you enter a danger period, a high-risk period.

So on the basis of the foregoing, Mitchell Starc has been ruled out of playing in the Boxing Day test match some 9 days after bowling his team to victory in Hobart.  He has every right to feel very very harshly done by.

The fact of the matter is the way Cricket Australia is managing the workload of its bowlers is simply not working.  Listen to former players (blowhards or not) and they are all saying “they should be bowling more: in games and in the nets”.  Why then are Pat Howard and John Inverarity not listening? Has the review of cricket undertaken since the 2009/10 Ashes debacle so blinded the powers that be in Australian cricket that they are too scared to return to “the old ways”? Is this slavish devotion to sports science the result of a non-cricket person being at the helm?

Let me be clear here: I have no doubt whatsoever that Messrs Howard and Inverarity have the best interests of the players at heart whilst also wanting to put the best team on the field.  However, by “managing” players on the one hand they are failing to reach the goal of playing the best team on the other.

That said, is the current injury “crisis” among the fast bowlers in this country really the fault of the selectors, the sports boffins and Pat Howard? The answer to this question is where one needs to forget the sports science for a minute and actually consider what players of the past are saying.

The former players are consistent in their criticism of the current way fast bowlers are managed and advocate for more bowling rather than less.  This argument is oft expanded to encompass both bowling in first class games and in the nets.  If it is that simple, why then are Australia’s fast bowlers not bowling as much as they should? The answer is equally as simple: in the chase for more dollars and part of the commercialisation of the game the bulk of Australia’s fast bowling stocks have prepared for this coming summer with an international T20 tournament, followed by the IPL Champions series and then one (at most for most) first class game.  How can they be getting enough overs in preparation for a season when they are spell limited to four overs a game every second day?

This is where the science comes back into play and, in my view, Cricket Australia needs to have a long hard look at itself.  Inverarity’s argument is that they wish to avoid too much variance (oscillation) in the workloads of our fast bowlers.  Of course there is going to be a variance when one week the fast bowlers are asked to bowl a four over spell and the next they are asked to bowl 30 overs in a day.

The very playing schedule approved by Cricket Australia is, in fact, causing there to be variances in work load which are seeing our fast bowlers rested for fear of injury.

I know it is a changed world since the days of the great Fred Trueman but I think Cricket Australia would be well advised to consider his approach to preparing for a season ahead.  Dickie Bird in his book “My Autobiography” describes how Trueman would start his season preparations in the nets by bowling off one step two months before the season started and he then built up his bowling strength so that by the time the season started two months later he was bowling in the nets at full pace and ready to go.  Correct me if I am wrong but Trueman was rarely injured, rarely rested and played significantly more days of cricket in a summer than players are asked to play now.

It is at this juncture that the new age thinkers and slaves to science will posit that I am living the past and that the game is different these days.  To those saying that I pose this question: are the positions of Cricket Australia (the avoidance of variances) and those of past players (bowling more in red ball cricket and in the nets) really that far apart?  I think they are closer than they seem and indeed am of the view that if Mitchell Starc had have played in all of the domestic 4 day games this summer in Australia in advance of the test series instead of bowling a white ball he would be in playing at the MGC.  Why? Because his workload, if he had have done, would have been consistent rather than a hodgepodge of short spells, long flights and limited red ball cricket.

Until the schedule is balanced (and goodness knows that seems to be getting more unlikely every day), the dreams of playing in a Boxing Day test match of young men like Mitchell Starc will continue to be dashed.  That, of itself, is a tragedy.

Australia v Sri Lanka, 1st test, Day 4

December 17, 2012 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

It has been a while since I posted on this blog. I apologise to followers for that: work has gotten in the way of writing which is something that vexes me greatly.

That said, having watched basically the full day of play yesterday, some similar themes about what it will take to “win” day 4 of this test match have been reverberating around my brain most of the night like a sirens song drawing me to the keyboard.

So, without further self indulgent preamble, here are my keys to success on day 4 at Blundstone Arena:

1. How many runs is enough for Captain Clarke?

Throughout the summer, Michael Clarke has shown good instincts with respect to timing of declarations only to be crueled, on the one hand, by an improving pitch (Brisbane) and, on the other hand, by one of the best rearguard innings since Atherton’s 185 off 492 balls in 1995 ( Adelaide). He is again faced here with the aegis of being one strike bowler under strength so will need to keenly balance batting Sri Lanka out of the game with giving his depleted bowling attack enough time to get the job done.

2. Who is the leader of the Sri Lankan attack and will he please stand up?

This is a Sri Lankan bowling line up that it would be fair to say is short on experience. Whilst Lasith Malinga plies his trade in the heady world of the Big Bash League (I concede he has not played in a test in over two years), the Sri Lankan fast bowlers together boast a collective experience of some 38 tests. In the first innings they looked to be bowling without a leader and, as shown by the lion hearted efforts of P Siddle, they will sorely need one in this innings to keep the Australian total down to a chaseable target. For me, the real key to a successful day for Sri Lanka will be how HMRKB Herath not only bowls but leads this young attack. With 5 left handers in the Australian top 7 and right arm bowlers foot marks growing today is a day made for a left arm orthodox tweaker.

3. Reviews, reviews and more reviews

The need to get the use of the DRS correct again raised its head yesterday with the Sri Lankans wasting their reviews on plumb LBW decisions only to see Herath dispatched by Tony Hill LBW having nearly hit the ball with the middle of his bat first. The Sri Lankan review methodology seems to be that whatever captain says goes so the pressure will be M Jayawardene to consult with this players and make reviews more prudently today. Two early “bad” reviews could, to state the obvious, be costly by the end of the day.

And that is it: how many runs is enough, Herath and the DRS are the keys to today’s play with the position the Sri Lankans are in by the end of the day largely reliant on Herath’s spinning finger.