3rd Test: Australia v New Zealand at Adelaide on Nov 27-Dec 1, 2015

[Pete Cash]

We managed to bat through the night session and only lose 2 wickets and thats with our terrible techniques that get shown up whenever the ball moves. Smith batted about two hours in twilight. Kiwi supermen with fantastic awesome techniques really should have done better

 

[hineyrulz]

There is nothing wrong with the Pitch, the ball has played fine as well. Batsman just have no clue these days when the ball does a bit. No patience by the batsman or a willingness to dig in and get through a session. The bowling from both sides has been good on a slowish outfield. Hate to see what thee blokes would of done against the 80's Windies quick on a fast and green deck. They wouldn't reach double figures.

 

[JJ]

We managed to bat through the night session and only lose 2 wickets and thats with our terrible techniques that get shown up whenever the ball moves. Smith batted about two hours in twilight. Kiwi supermen with fantastic awesome techniques really should have done better

Nobody said ours all have great techniques - Guptill is appalling, for example.

Williamson, Watling and Latham do - Latham played a poor shot, Williamson got out the way someone with a good technique would - c.f. Guptill

There certainly are times we should have done better in this whole series - but like it or not, Llong had a huge impact on this test

 

[JJ]

The bowling from both sides has been good on a slowish outfield. Hate to see what thee blokes would of done against the 80's Windies quick on a fast and green deck. They wouldn't reach double figures.

Yep, that really is the truth

 

[Pete Cash]

The windies are such a historical outlier that it's silly to talk about them as much as we do. They are almost entirely responsible for the lower averages over the period. Batsmen in general have such long careers they tend to span over periods. Sutcliffe the 20s/30s, Bradman 30s/40s, Hutton 40s/50s, etc. For modern day tendulker 90s/00s and sangakarra 00s/10s.

What this says is that a great batsman is a great batsman across eras and that it's very rare for ball to dominate bat in cricket history. The west Indies pace attack is on the whole the Bradman of bowling. A group so good they throw all the averages out.

 

[WaznTheGreat]

If NZ can get a lead of 200 there a huge chance,gonna be a good finish to this test

 

[WaznTheGreat]

I can see us winning the comp mate

Peta Hiku to bat in the centres for Parramatta next year,we got dis

 

[Pete Cash]

Like besides Root every English batsman to average over 50 is pre 1960.

 

[WaznTheGreat]

Like besides Root every English batsman to average over 50 is pre 1960.

Joe Root will average around 44-45 when he retires,he's a dud.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

I was skeptical about night tests and still am, largely because of the bizarre fear of batting after dinner like they'll turn into pumpkins or something. It adds a weird dimension that seems to influence decision making and I'm not sure its good.

But if the past two tests with their road pitches had been played under the same conditions they might have been much better contests. If it takes a pink ball and night sessions to create a more reasonable balance between bat and ball then maybe its the way to go, at least in places where wickets are becoming flat and lifeless, especially when drop ins start becoming the norm.

 

[Pete Cash]

If that's the case though then statistically its got much harder to bat in England since the 60s....or England has just provided 55 years of duds.

 

[JJ]

Been a few comments here- but this is the worst fielding Australian side I can remember... good keeper, the rest are pretty ordinary

 

[JJ]

The windies are such a historical outlier that it's silly to talk about them as much as we do. They are almost entirely responsible for the lower averages over the period. Batsmen in general have such long careers they tend to span over periods. Sutcliffe the 20s/30s, Bradman 30s/40s, Hutton 40s/50s, etc. For modern day tendulker 90s/00s and sangakarra 00s/10s.

What this says is that a great batsman is a great batsman across eras and that it's very rare for ball to dominate bat in cricket history. The west Indies pace attack is on the whole the Bradman of bowling. A group so good they throw all the averages out.

The thing was there was no respite - if you played Australia, Lillee and Thomson couldn't bowl all day, Hadlee couldn't for NZ, Imran for India etc... But the Windies had 4 of that quality - just relentless.

That said, the likes of Gavaskar, Border, Crowe and Zaheer (I think) performed very well against them

 

[Red Bear]

Been a few comments here- but this is the worst fielding Australian side I can remember... good keeper, the rest are pretty ordinary

Smith and Warner are excellent ground fielders, but a dearth of options has Smith in the slips, and I think Warner is at mid off protecting his thumb a bit. Starc is ok in the outfield.

Burns, Khawaja, Marshes, all pretty average. Guys who are reasonable fielders elsewhere are being shown up in the cordon also.

You take good fielders for granted a bit, and Australia had a run of always having a few high quality fieldsman around. Taylor, Mark Waugh, Hayden were all sensational in the slips, Ponting was an outstanding fieldsman especially in short (he just always hit the stumps, instinctive fieldsman), obviously Symonds was good, but pretty limited test career, Clarke was n excellent fieldsman, particularly in his younger days. Current lot is quite poor - a lot are inexperienced I guess at playing under the pressure of test cricket, but it is disappointing.

Nevill has made a huge difference behind the stumps though, keeping very impressively.

 

[Pete Cash]

Yes they did but its a handful of dudes. Great bowling attacks will hurt averages and there has never been in the history of the game a bowling attack like the windies. I think it's fair to say that Marshall is the best fast bowler ever but he was surrounded by blokes who were pretty much as good.

There will always be generational talent in fast bowlers. Dale Steyn is an all time great fast bowler but just the glut the west Indies had at the time has to be considered an outlier. There have been teams with an all time great bowler and a very good bowler, there have been teams with two all time great bowlers like Warne and McGrath but...never something like that west Indian side.

I'm as proud Australian that exists when it comes to cricket history but those boys would have hurt Bradman's average....so yeah modern batsman would have struggled against them because they were such an outlier.

Where I think modern batsman have it easy is once they are set its hard to get them out for a bunch of reasons. Not just the equipment and the pitches but also fitness, better running between wickets so its harder for bowlers to build pressure.

Also modern tails are absurdly good. It should be cricket law each side must have one utter plonker with the bat.

If ropes were pushed back or abolished and bats were limited to something sensible I think that would put us back on par with the vast majority of cricket history. That's the big difference to me. Even more so than flat wickets.

 

[Pete Cash]

Smith and Warner are excellent ground fielders, but a dearth of options has Smith in the slips, and I think Warner is at mid off protecting his thumb a bit. Starc is ok in the outfield.

Burns, Khawaja, Marshes, all pretty average. Guys who are reasonable fielders elsewhere are being shown up in the cordon also.

You take good fielders for granted a bit, and Australia had a run of always having a few high quality fieldsman around. Taylor, Mark Waugh, Hayden were all sensational in the slips, Ponting was an outstanding fieldsman especially in short (he just always hit the stumps, instinctive fieldsman), obviously Symonds was good, but pretty limited test career, Clarke was n excellent fieldsman, particularly in his younger days. Current lot is quite poor - a lot are inexperienced I guess at playing under the pressure of test cricket, but it is disappointing.

Nevill has made a huge difference behind the stumps though, keeping very impressively.

The dumb DRS rule where Smith has to basically act as an umpire means he has to be in slips. He should be at point or gully but it would be impossible for him to umpire the game there.

 

[Twizzle]

forgot to mention it was great to see Boult throwing them down at 140ks last night, made it harder for us to score, this is more like test cricket for mine

 

[Red Bear]

If ropes were pushed back or abolished and bats were limited to something sensible I think that would put us back on par with the vast majority of cricket history. That's the big difference to me. Even more so than flat wickets.

I agree with this bit. There's always been flattish wickets around the place, but with everything else shifted towards batsmen (smaller grounds, bigger bats - steadily in the 2000's and ridiculous the last few years etc. whilst bowling is about the same) the balance has shifted.

I also think though, as I said earlier, it in part comes down to preparation. Look at the kiwi's, took them until day two of the WACA test to show up. They were clearly underdone, but it's really been pretty even since then and arguably in favour of the kiwi's much of the time. But teams just don't put in the effort required to adjust to conditions and so in a three test series on the back foot straight away.

 

[Twatface Magee]

I've got a feeling our bowlers will struggle in this first session without the added swing.

 

[African Monkey]

Joe Root will average around 44-45 when he retires,he's a dud.

Haynetrain -1