Bracken must tour SA

[Tommy Smith]

With Stuart Clark not fit to tour RSA, id love to see how the selectors could justify leaving out Nathan bracken for the tour.

Its been years since he had a go, and back then he was used very poorly as a containing bowler to support the likes of McGrath, Lee etc.

But now he must surely be viewed as the one fit, reliable bowler Australia has. He'll swing the new ball and keep the Saffas tied down in every spell.

Surely he at the very least deserves another shot. Doesnt being the no.1 ODI bowler in the world count for anything?

 

[Twizzle]

He was out form bowler of the ODI series, surely he is worth a run in a test match given our current injury list.

 

[Tonearm Terrorwrist]

i'll eat my hat if he makes the test squad

lee will keep his spot, bowl to his average and use all the excuses he can for his performance

 

[JJ]

making too much sense Tommy

you take the odi rankings with a grain of salt - but from what I've seen Bracken is a better bowler than any of Lee, Johnson, Tait, Hilfenhaus, Bollinger etc

 

[Matt23]

He should be there, unfortunatly he won't be

 

[HevyDevy]

Well Hilfenhaus was belted all over the place by SA, but for whatever reason he is rated highly by the selectors and Bracken isn't.

Ironic given that only one of them has a proven record against international batsmen.

 

[Matt23]

One of the reasons would be he's a left armer, unfortunatly so is the golden child Johnson.

 

[lockyno1]

No thanks, he was dead ordinary the last time in tests and is ordinary when the ball fails to swing

 

[Dutchy]

Lol!!!

 

[coach]

The suggestion is, that while Bracken can swing the white ball he cannot do the same with the red ball. Thats supposedly why he hasn't had a good run in test cricket.

In 5 tests he has tacken 12 wickets at a poor average of 42.08. His best effort being 4-48 against the West Indies. Apart from that effort he has not taken more then 2 wickets in an innings.

His last test was back in December of 2005 and has not made an overseas test tour. Nathan is 31 and I wonder if his chances of being picked for tests has passed.

 

[JJ]

No thanks, he was dead ordinary the last time in tests and is ordinary when the ball fails to swing

:lol: if he's selected and goes ok, you'll be singing his praises

 

[herbert henry1908]

the only way bracken should be considered is if we play 4 paceman in a match. With our current bowling line up struggling to take 20 wickets bracken would be a liability out there.

a career strike rate of 63 and 3.1 wickets per match in FC cricket is evidence of that.

However he could be used instead of a spinner to tie an end down.

 

[Tonearm Terrorwrist]

No thanks, he was dead ordinary the last time in tests and is ordinary when the ball fails to swing

this guy/16 year old girl has a f**king beeper for everytime bracken's name is mentioned on here

 

[simmo1]

I said he should have been picked for the last SA tour (when Clark made his debut). Was happy to be wrong then as Clark has been outstanding in his time with the Australian team, but he should have been straight into the team once McGrath retired. He's still the #1 left armer in the country.

 

[HevyDevy]

Locky doesn't seem to realise that Bracken is a far superior bowler to the one that last played in a Test match.

 

[HevyDevy]

Plus the current mob of bowlers have proven themselves to be quite useless.

 

[simmo1]

The suggestion is, that while Bracken can swing the white ball he cannot do the same with the red ball. Thats supposedly why he hasn't had a good run in test cricket.

In 5 tests he has tacken 12 wickets at a poor average of 42.08. His best effort being 4-48 against the West Indies. Apart from that effort he has not taken more then 2 wickets in an innings.

His last test was back in December of 2005 and has not made an overseas test tour. Nathan is 31 and I wonder if his chances of being picked for tests has passed.

Have a look at some of the scorecards. He was never Australias worst bowler in those games and actually outperformed some of the senior blokes in some of them.

I remember a game in Sydney against India where Lee went for about a million runs in two days, whereas Bracken kept Tendulkar and Laxman to well under 3 runs an over.

 

[fish eel]

What people ignore when talking about Bracken's test record is that his early test matches were played in a home series against India, where we were without Glen McGrath.

The pitches for that series were absolute highways. It was the series India scored 700 in Sydney. That pitch was one of the flattest Sydney pitches I've seen. It was hot and nobody from either side swung it. Bracken was used as a stock bowler by Steve Waugh. He was forced to bowl around the wicket in long spells to negative fields to stop the flow of runs.

It's all well and good to look at the guys career figures, but when he has played a small number of tests they dont also tell the full story.

 

[Bazal]

Been saying it for a long time...Bracken should be in the Test side. He's probably the best bowler in the country at the moment. He can swing the ball which we've struggled to do, and when it's not swinging he can bowl his cutters, slower balls, and other change ups to give the attack variety, which we've also struggled to do. Name any of our current quicks, and I'd have Bracken there over him to be perfectly honest

 

[Matt23]

Well unlike a certain other left arm quick...Bracken does'nt spray 'em all over the place.