Armchair selector: An Australian winter’s tale

Australia’s 75 run win in Dominica secured a 2-0 series victory, their second consecutive series win. They have now not lost a Test since their seven run defeat against New Zealand at Hobart. Unfortunately for them, they do not now play another Test until next winter. Obviously they do not entirely control the relevant parts of the Future Tours Programme, but I do think that Cricket Australia may have missed a trick by not trying to schedule something more than five ODIs for the summer. Despite their victories, we have seen some clear gaps in the side recently and there is really nothing to be done to repair them until what must be, for both Cricket Australia and the Australian public, alarmingly close to the 2013 Ashes. With that series in mind, this is how I see the current Australian side:continue reading part I and part II on the Armchair Selector…

Adelaide thoughts

The Adelaide Test is over, and I have not watched as much of it as I feel like I should. On the other hand, the bits that I have seen have been pretty much the same as the first three Tests, but there have been some interesting points:

– Most interesting was that Clarke did not enforce the follow-on despite having a huge first innings lead. The only reason for this I can think is that he wanted to rest his bowlers in the heat, but I think it was a bad idea. It didn’t make a difference to the result, but India did get 400 in the second innings at Sydney (their only score of note admittedly) and it seems unreasonable to jeopardise the match by scoring needless runs. It is the last Test of the home series and only Siddle played in the first five. They can (and maybe should) rest in the ODIs, but first they have a Test to win.

– After Clarke did declare, the declaration batting was fairly poor. Most notable was Haddin, who scored so slowly he provoked a seemingly outraged calling of the side in by Clarke. I understand that he is badly in need of runs, but after playing terrible shots for the better part of a year, the declaration was not the time to suddenly start scratching around. It was selfish play, and it in it’s own way was just as bad as his flashes in Cape Town and Hobart.

– It’s no surprise that Sehwag played like an idiot, but as captain some measure of restraint may have been warranted. In the second innings he was opening the batting in a nominal chase of 500, but in practise the goal would have been to bat out the draw and punish Clarke for not making them follow-on. It was a time for the captain to lead from the front and dig in. Instead he continued to throw his bat at everything, rode his luck past fifty (five aerial edges) and finally played a heave to the spinner that was an insult to the game. It was the very antithesis of a captain’s innings and whilst I’m not optimistic, there ought to be repercussions for his behaviour.

Ten best sporting moments of 2011

I know the sporting year isn’t over yet. I actually had a conversation on Twitter about whether I ought to write a ‘year end’ style post or save it for after the Test. I decided to save my full year in review post for later, but at the same time I would be very surprised if anything happened that warranted an inclusion on this list. If I’m wrong I can always write a revision as well, so with that in mind here are my top ten sporting moments of 2011:

10 – New Zealand winning the Hobart Test
I know my Aussie readers won’t like this, but it was a pretty important moment. New Zealanders probably care more about winning the Rugby World Cup, but they had not won a Test in Australia for 26 years before this. Doug Bracewell may be a great find for the Kiwis and the conclusion of the match was one of the most thrilling you will see.

9 – Tigers winning Game 5 of the ALDS
I love watching the Yankees lose. I love watching the Yankees lose deciding games in the playoffs even more. But most of all I love watching Alex Rodriguez strike out to lose a deciding game in the playoffs in front of a very put out Yankee Stadium crowd.

8 – Royals winning a three game series in New York
The Royals spent most of the month of April this year in or near first place. (It’s true, look it up.) Whilst losing six in a row to the Rangers and Indians at the end of April basically put an end to any notion of contending, there were still bright spots after that. In the second week of May the Royals travelled to New York and won two out of three against the Yankees. The deciding game of the series saw the Royals score six runs in the second inning, including Eric Hosmer’s second major league home run and some terrible defensive mistakes by the Yankees. It was the Royals first series win in New York since 1999.

7 – Manchester United 1-6 Manchester City
It was the match that that caused the media to accept City as genuine title contenders. More importantly it was the match that made United supporters very cross and thus made Liverpool supporters like myself very happy.

6 – Australia reduced to 21-9 at Cape Town
With apologies to my Australian readers. Though as much as I enjoyed this I was more astonished to watch the innings unfold. On no fewer than three occasions I thought there must surely be a recovery, surely they couldn’t lose another wicket. I was wrong on all three occasions, as by the time the recovery did come I had stopped expecting it. Almost as amazing as the innings itself was the shot selection of Brad Haddin and the fact that he wasn’t immediately dropped because of it. Both defy belief.

5 – England winning the Cardiff Test
I already used this in my best moments in English cricket this year, so there isn’t a lot more to say. Nonetheless, it was incredible watching England go from just wanting a few wickets to Sri Lanka not even coming close to saving the Test and certainly belongs on this list as well.

4 – Virender Sehwag making a king pair at Edgbaton/Stuart Broad’s Trent Bridge hat trick
I’ve included these together for their similarity, not only because they both involve Indian wickets falling cheaply. Broad’s hat trick marked the end of the last time India would have an advantage in the series, but I think Sehwag’s king pair marked the last time India had any real hope. It was also a moment of personal pleasure, because Sehwag is massively overrated. He has a good record on the flat pitches of the subcontinent and that is it; his aggression is not suited for English conditions or anywhere the ball does a bit. After the second Test I read about and saw Indians claiming that he would save the series for them and I rather enjoyed being vindicated.

3 – Cardinals winning Game 6 of the World Series
I’m a Royals fan, but years of living amongst Cardinals fans in Kirksville made me rather sympathetic to them. (Though I always hated when they would gripe about ‘barely being .500’ or some such.) Add that to the fact that I hate the Texas Rangers and I was definitely cheering for the Cardinals in the last World Series. Even if I hadn’t, however, I think their multiple comebacks in Game 6 would have had to rank high on a list of best sporting moments, as it was absolutely astonishing.

2 & 1 – Lancashire winning the County Championship and England winning the Ashes
How could I not copy these from my first list? England winning the Ashes in Australia is the only thing that could possibly trump Lancashire winning the title outright. Neither had ever happened before in my lifetime and for them both to happen this year is almost an embarrassment of riches. I have little doubt they will be on a list of best moments in the decade should I make one in 2020.

Edited to add: The Guardian have produced their list of cricketing moments, but there is a lot of World Cup stuff at the expense of Lancs.