1st Test: South Africa v Australia at Cape Town Nov 9-13, 2011

[madunit]

Just look at how clarke plays straight bat shots. His feet hardly move, he hits it a lot of the time with a cross bat and the ball rarely goes in the area he aims to hit in. His century had too many arsey flukes for me to consider it as a good knock

 

[Raiders_Premiers]

How did he go in the 2nd innings?

By your logic, gillespie would be one of our best batsnen because he scored a double ton.

Dickhead

You insinuated that Clarke has a high average because he's played on batsman friendly wickets, yet he has just gone out and made a ton on a wicket which you yourself have described as bowler friendly

f**king dumbarse

 

[Raiders_Premiers]

Just look at how clarke plays straight bat shots. His feet hardly move, he hits it a lot of the time with a cross bat and the ball rarely goes in the area he aims to hit in. His century had too many arsey flukes for me to consider it as a good knock

Yep, that's one arsey 150 alright when nobody else has made runs.

 

[madunit]

You didn't watch the innings then. I apologise, i thought you had.

Batsmen can fluke high scores. Johnson scored a ton, mcgrath got a 50, gillespie got a double ton.

Flukes happen. Clarke's 150 was a fluke. If he had to bat on these tracks more often he'd struggle to average mid 30's

 

[African Monkey]

:lol: you used to flog over him almost as much as Sunshine, Clarke get this tatooed fairy off ASAP.

Yes I remember that lol. You did love him for a short time locky.

 

[Panther_Daz]

Just saw the highlights...What the hell was Haddin thinking?!?!?

 

[Raiders_Premiers]

You didn't watch the innings then. I apologise, i thought you had.

Batsmen can fluke high scores. Johnson scored a ton, mcgrath got a 50, gillespie got a double ton.

Flukes happen. Clarke's 150 was a fluke. If he had to bat on these tracks more often he'd struggle to average mid 30's

:lol:

 

[Fast Eddie]

Haha classic stuff. So close to taking the record off our hands. Then the funny thing is seeing Peter Siddle nd Mitchell Johnson being the ones to cop it. I would have thought Hughes, Ponting, Haddin would have been the main ones in the firing line. Although I do agree Johnson and Siddle aren't particulary flash.

 

[madunit]

:lol:

I can appreciate an idiot who can laugh at his own stupidity.

 

[Red&BlackBear]

Everytime Australia is on the front foot to win a match, this happens. Talk about slow learners. Fair enough it's a bowlers patch but considering the experience between Ponting, Hussey and Haddin it's not good enough. In my opinion Ponting has to go, replaced by Khawaja and Haddin has to go, replaced by Paine. We can only carry one of the older brigade and I'd rather it be Hussey atm. Johnson needs to be dropped for Copeland and Siddle for Cummins with Pattison being the 12th man.

 

[Tonearm Terrorwrist]

You didn't watch the innings then. I apologise, i thought you had.

Batsmen can fluke high scores. Johnson scored a ton, mcgrath got a 50, gillespie got a double ton.

Flukes happen. Clarke's 150 was a fluke. If he had to bat on these tracks more often he'd struggle to average mid 30's

That is massively harsh. Clarke went out and stuck it to the bowlers who were bowling with zip and their tail up and played a brilliant innings. He didn't back it up in the second innings but there is no way you can honestly believe the first innings was a fluke when he played his shots.

Clarke's innings showed there isn't much wrong with the pitch.

 

[hineyrulz]

That is massively harsh. Clarke went out and stuck it to the bowlers who were bowling with zip and their tail up and played a brilliant innings. He didn't back it up in the second innings but there is no way you can honestly believe the first innings was a fluke when he played his shots.

Clarke's innings showed there isn't much wrong with the pitch.

Yep, just showed how pampered batsman are these days. The moment the pitch is seaming or spinning todays players are all at sea. Who remembers the first test wicket against Sri Lanka??? The wicket spun a bit everyone jumps up and down we put in a complaint but it was the only test that was a contest between bat and ball.

Madunit makes a good point when he mentions what batsman average these days. Their averages are all inflated due to the flat wickets and the lack of real quality bowlers in world cricket. And it will continue to happen with the obession for good batting tracks to make test matches last 5 days and the emergence of drop in wickets. If someone like Viv or AB played today they would average over 60 quite easily.

 

[aussies1st]

Haha classic stuff. So close to taking the record off our hands. Then the funny thing is seeing Peter Siddle nd Mitchell Johnson being the ones to cop it. I would have thought Hughes, Ponting, Haddin would have been the main ones in the firing line. Although I do agree Johnson and Siddle aren't particulary flash.

I think you will find each of those players are copping it.

 

[Tonearm Terrorwrist]

There's no doubt that batsman today are punching above their weight by atleast 10 runs. These days you have so many duds, especially sub continent players, averaging in the 50's and none of them can handled a wicket that isn't a highway.

 

[StormCats]

You carn't say it's a fluke when out of 36 innings in this match to my reckoning without looking at the scorecard, only 10 have made double figures with the 2nd highest being 44, his 150 was exceptional.

 

[Jobdog]

You didn't watch the innings then. I apologise, i thought you had.

Batsmen can fluke high scores. Johnson scored a ton, mcgrath got a 50, gillespie got a double ton.

Flukes happen. Clarke's 150 was a fluke. If he had to bat on these tracks more often he'd struggle to average mid 30's

C'mon unit, that's not fair and you know it. It's not very often that a player will score a magical hundred in the first innings of a test (as Clarke's was) and then back it up in the second. And you shouldn't expect them to. Someone else needed to stand up and no one did.

 

[Mr Angry]

Johnson scored a ton, mcgrath got a 50, gillespie got a double ton.

None were flukes, it was poor bowling, I saw McGrath 50, they gave it to him, same with Gillespie, very poor bowling, not fluke batting.

 

[aussies1st]

Just remembered Clarke at 4 = failure, Clarke at 5 = best innings. Obviously was going to be hard for him to back up the 100 but the theory against him batting 4 gets stronger.

 

[caylo]

None were flukes, it was poor bowling, I saw McGrath 50, they gave it to him, same with Gillespie, very poor bowling, not fluke batting.

McGrath also was dropped 3 times and should ahve been run out once. Poore bowling is an understatement!!

Clarkes Innings was exceptional but while the batting was poor how can anyone blame Haddin at #7, when bowler are on a roll like that what do you do?

I think Watson needs to be down the order, he isn't an openner and this would allow him to bowl more. Marsh (Khawaja at 3) or Warner to open, I have always back ponting but he need to go with Watson at 4 and Clarke at 5. Johnson is still a scatter gun and he needs to go with Bollinger back in then Siddle or Copeland the 3rd quick.

Not a great line up with a lot of inexperience but guys like Hazelwood and Cummins are both a couple of years away they are the best options IMO. Haddin is running it thin as well (not from this test but the last 12 months) but guys like Wade and Paine are not any better with the bat in hand. Wade has potential but needs to score consistently and Nevill may move up the pecking order if his form with the bat also continues.

 

[madunit]

I'm a fan of Clarke being in the side, but I don't think his innings was worth all the praise it got. Have a good look at his shots, he was mistiming, pushing early at a lot of balls, taking very tentative smalls steps forward, played a lot of almost cross bat drives, I only saw a couple where he had a straight bat, french cuts, nicks wide of slips, poor balance.

He scored 150, he was lucky. Just my opinion.

Just like Punters last double ton was lucky. Just my opinion.

Poor bowling or not, players like McGrath had faced poor bowling more than once in their test career and never made a 50 prior to, or after his sole 50.

Gillespie too. I don't think you can have bowling poor enough to allow a defensive tailender to score a slow double ton.

Thats the beauty of flukes though, you need all the stars to align to make them work, and when it does, miracles happen.

Thats what happened for Clarke with his 150. I've seen him play much better knocks and get next to no praise from people in here.