Come on Aussie, come on: the triumphant chant now the pleading of the cricket fan

Hello and welcome back to my blog

While our boys in black found trouble in the tropics, our Australian neighbours were beaten down 4-0 (with one abandoned) by a rampant English team. Their coach said during the series that he wanted more 'presence' to be on display by his batsmen, more 'mongrel' in the field and from the bowlers. Ian Chappell correctly points out, in a surprisingly well written piece, that while the latter is seldom desired, the former cannot be created on a whim. Presence, the likes of which Lara, Tendulkar, Ponting, Kallis and Dravid possessed through most of their careers, is earned through deeds not acquired overnight. The coach's words were desperate at best, ignorant at worst and illuminate the point that at this moment, England have created for themselves an aura not too different from that of Steve Waugh's team of 1999-2004. For the sake of a good Ashes contest in a years time I hope the Australian's can recapture some of theirs.

The aura of which I speak is something I could feel even before I followed cricket, it was in the background of my life, a topic of conversation whenever cricket was on the television and unquestionably powerful at home and abroad. The aura is that of the certain century, that if you dismissed Langer, Hayden would make 100, if you got Hayden, then Ponting would make 200. That feeling of inevitable doom and misery when Steve Waugh got through his first few deliveries and played that first punch drive through cover. It was the impression that McGrath and Warne could and would take a wicket in every over - my father once cynically explained to me what would happen when NZ toured Australia in 2004 in the following way "well McGrath and Warne will help themselves to 10 wickets... each.. per test" and I soon learnt why. England now have created something akin to this, although I would argue it isn't perfected yet. Cook, Strauss and Trott aren't quite Langer, Hayden and Ponting (or Greenidge, Haynes and Richards) but they are quickly imbuing their innings with a familiar sense of inevitability. Anderson, Broad, Swann and Bresnan cannot touch McGrath and Warne as individuals but the some of their parts is beginning to have a recognisable hunger for wickets and the excellence to satisfy it.

What I fear is that Australia will take too long to recover their old aura like this. They almost appear to be England of 1990-91 in Australia where a few old hands made final centuries for their careers but the team went down 3-0 to a younger, tougher unit. England took until 2005 to regain their cohesiveness as a team and really until about 2009 to begin to build a no.1 mentality. I really hope it does not take that long for Australia, there is nothing more riveting in cricket than a close Ashes series but that requires too quality teams (or two terrible ones but who really wants that - some say we have that taking place in the West Indies right now!).

Australia have the bowling resources, young and old to rebuild their team and power but their batting is without obvious successors to Ponting, Clarke and Hussey to challenge and then dominate opposition attacks. They have just one year to try and develop some top-order heft before they will face an England side, probably at the peak of its powers in 2013.

Well that's it from here and I hope you join me again

It's good bye for now

Taylor comes to the party late... and so do I

Hello and welcome back to my blog

Well as New Zealand cricket fans we now stand half way through the first tour of the West Indies by the Black Caps in 10 years and find that the 2020 series is gone (2-0) and the ODI series is also gone (3-1 with 1 to play). This is a tour I had looked forward to for some time, mainly due to the fact that we hadn't been there since before I began following cricket, but it began so poorly when the team arrived to play, looking rustier than an old shed roof and their excuses ever rustier, that the novelty has worn off. Then the injuries came thick and fast - to the point that every time a dive was made in the field, domestic cricket coaches back in here in New Zealand must have been grabbing their contact list to see who was available to send over as cover (dear anyone suggest M. Sinclair?). It was a terrible beginning to what should have been a much more even contest, but after several bad losses the team pulled off a victory in the third ODI with a solid bowling and fielding effort. For the key 4th match up both Captain Taylor (who seems to have spent more of his reign injured than playing) and not-captain McCullum returned. Now if you have a side that beats the opposition by 88 runs then proceed to change that line-up with sudden, available talent who aren't accustomed to the conditions you risk a great deal on reputation.

While McCullum's return didn't seem to have much impact - although his mode of dismissal did see part of my hair pulled from my head (as I am sure was the case with John Wright) - Taylor scored a fighting century while the rest fell away. Despite improvements during the ODIs there are two big problems that persist: average death bowling or at least uncertainty in the face of aggressive slogging, but also the gifting of up to 5-6 wickets in the game by poor shot selection or plain brain-freezes. The latter issue will be more telling during the test series. Rob Nicol is the most frustrating exponent of this because he appears to be in some form (at least by comparison to the rest) but cannot seem to build an innings and needs to watch a few Nathan Astle videos instead of trying to obtain an IPL contract. Also, and I hate to have to say this of a player that i have enjoyed watching for some time, Jacob Oram only lingers in the team as long as Ellis remains incapable of playing cricket. He is now a walking injury, amazingly inconsistent at the batting crease (and I mean in terms of scores, form, tempo and pure intelligence of shot selection - he is inconsistent as if he is trying to add his name into the dictionary under 'examples of'). If his bowling didn't have the 'oh yeah he's tall so therefore he gets a bit more bounce out of his 125 kph deliveries' factor he may have been dropped already.

However, I wanted to make a couple comments about Taylor's/McCullum's return. As I mentioned above, it was a bit risky to rush Taylor back and have McCullum play suddenly but now that we have lost the series I look forward to how this affects the future and there are a couple things to point out. Taylor's century (imagine if he had got out for 0, oh the headlines!) provides him with form and time in the conditions ahead of the test series, but for me - and this is looking further into the future than just this tour - it removed from one 21-year-old-Kane Williamson the burden of captaincy that could have destroyed his career. It may have already done some damage as his play against Narine is troubling if you consider that he is supposed to be our guy for playing spin bowling. I am OK with the decision to have him lead the side if it was worked out with Taylor, Wright, Williamson and the team but if I hear that this was some Buchanan-machination then I will be more than just annoyed; to use a cricket team as a play-thing is enough without using a young player's potential in the same way.

More of a moan than I intended there but some home truths had to be said while our media is concerned with other sports (and rightfully so with the Olympics approaching). I am happy to see Taylor back in charge and back in the runs, if a little late to the Caribbean party but then I am even later considering how long it has been since my last post. I'm back now though and plan to keep 'em flowing during WI vs. NZ and ENG vs. SA

Well that's it from here and I hope you join me again

It's good bye for now