That was an ugly shot from KP. Still hard to see the lead being less than 450, which would be far too much for this Aussie batting line-up.
Good analysis on Wisden on Shane Watson, the bastman
[SIZE=6][FONT=Tahoma][SIZE=23px]Watson’s a myth as he never learns[/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=11px][FONT=Tahoma]Shane Watson’s innings was so predictable as to be sad; flattering to deceive then an lbw that was nothing but out yet he still reviewed it[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=11px][FONT=Tahoma][/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=11px][FONT=Tahoma]Jarrod Kimber[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=11px][FONT=Tahoma] [/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma][U]Shane Watson[/U]'s ESPNcricinfo profile is smiling at me. It shouldn’t be. It should be looking sheepish. It should be apologising. It should be trying to show me that he’s changed, that he’s learnt and that in the future things will get better.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]I don’t know how you convey that in a picture, but Shane Watson needs to learn it. But Shane Watson doesn’t learn, does he.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]If he was a learner, he might not put his front foot in the exact same place every single delivery. If he was a learner, he might not continually fail to turn starts into bigger scores. If he was a learner, he would not decide to review decisions based on no actual evidence.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]There is no current player in world cricket who should understand the Laws of lbw more than Shane Watson. Shane Watson is a walking lbw against seam bowling. That massive trunk he calls a leg slams down in front of off stump and dares bowlers to hit it. And they do. Even in a game where he goes out in another way, or dominates the attack, they hit his pad repeatedly.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]He should know the Laws inside and out. He should, just by feel of where the ball hits him, now know whether he is out or not. I mean his leg never moves, so he’s more reliable than the blue stripe on the pitch or any weapon technology that a TV company can pay for. He is the constant.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]And yet, he never seems to believe it is even possible for him to be out lbw. This was his sixth review of such a dismissal. That is six times Shane Watson has believed he will overturn the umpire’s decision on a form of dismissal that he is out to almost 30% of the time. Does he think his pad is being picked on, or does he really just not understand the Laws of the game?[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]Or is it the playing conditions of the game?[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]Thanks to Charlotte Edwards, even the Queen now understands DRS. Yet it seems that to Shane Watson it is a mystery. To get a decision overturned on an lbw, the ball needs to be missing the stumps completely, hitting 100% outside the line of off stump or to have pitched outside leg stump.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]Being that Watson’s kind of lbws never really include the leg side, he has picked the two 100% rules of the DRS to overcome. That is stupid. And to do it more than once, twice or even thrice, is unprofessional and egotistical. We’ve all seen the Hawk Eye, it’s like that digital ball always nicks the stumps, no matter what the situation. So taking that on seems joyless.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]And as for being outside the line of off stump, Watson should know that the chances are if you put your foot in the same place every single time, your leg isn’t about to be outside off stump that one time. Watson could even just look at the hole on the pitch he has made from the repetitive footprints to double check.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]If you’ve never seen a batsman use a review based purely on his own ego, you’ve not watched modern cricket. But to do it so often and recklessly with so little chance of redemption in a team with more managers and staff than a Tina Turner gig is nowhere near good enough.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]When you have a weak batting side, you need to use your reviews smartly. Overturning lbws that you haven’t smashed onto your pads is not smart. The follow on effect from a shockingly idiotic review is that the next person doesn’t want to use the review for fear of using both of them. So Chris Rogers, who could have gone about his quiet quirky accumulation on his home pitch, was instead sent off the field confused having missed one of the worst balls to get a wicket in Test cricket history.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]All the reviews were gone by the time Michael Clarke came in.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]This pitiful batting performance reminds us again just how ordinary Australia’s batting line-up is. It doesn’t need a batsman using a review based on the fact that he simply cannot believe he might be out lbw.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]That was the review of a petulant child not a 32-year-old veteran of world cricket.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]Some ex players leapt to his defence when Pat Howard said: “I know Shane reasonably well - I think he acts in the best interests of the team - sometimes.” Those same players would find it hard to defend Watson on grounds he was acting in the best interests of the team. He was hit plumb in front of the stumps. Rogers seemed to tell him not to refer it. The English players openly laughed at him as he referred it. Yet, Watson still did.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]This is a man who has dominated world tournaments. Who can bowl immaculate dry spells. Who has a safe pair of hands. Who can change the shape of a match in so many ways.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]But Shane Watson is a Test opener with an average of 35. He regularly gets out in the same way. He has tried to retire from bowling a few times. He was suspended while vice-captain. He has issues with his captain. He bowled in the IPL after stating he wouldn’t bowl in Tests. And he uses reviews in a way that does not help his side.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]It’s hard to be on his side.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]Shane Watson may have the natural skills and confidence to win Australia Test matches, but he has the behaviour and results of a man who virtually never has.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=13px][FONT=Tahoma]Since I first heard his name, I’ve wanted to believe in Shane Watson. But in Test cricket he’s a myth. And he can review my findings if he wants, but right at this moment, I’m pretty sure the evidence backs me up.[/FONT][/SIZE]
Just watching the highlights there. Australia are utterly shit. Surely they’re staring down the barrel of a 5-0 whitewash?
Looking increasingly like it, unless their top order finds runs from somewhere.
England 119-3, lead of 352.
254/4. A century for Root and Bell motoring along too beside him. No weather concerns so I don’t think there’ll be any thought of declarations until tomorrow, even though the lead is nearly 500.
333/5 at stumps. Lead of 566. Root 178 n.o. Imagine Cook will give Root a chance to bring up his double century before declaring. That should bring the lead to around the 600 mark. Hard to see Australia batting to stumps tomorrow night yet alone to stumps on Monday for a draw.
The killing thing about Australia is that this England team are far from the real deal. I can’t remember an Australian team as bad.
Oz really are shit. And Cook and Petersen haven’t scored a run yet.
They both got important 50s second innings at Trent Bridge to be fair, though both clearly have a lot more in them. Last two days are what Oz would have been having nightmares about before the series. Lehmann’s job starts in earnest in the gap before the third Test. Bottom line is that he doesn’t have the raw material in batting to work with though.
Australia are three second innings wickets down already.
Prior missed a stumping off Clarke too, which would have just put the tin cap on the morning for them. Watson out LBW falling over again, he’s just not an opener.
Fucking hell. I feel empty.
one of the poorest sunday’s for sport in a long time with no important GAA on, we really are in the dead of summer so ill stick with this on TMS.
The target Australia need to chase is being described as “notional” on the radio and various websites in a similar manner to the word bellicose was associated to North Korea.
Michael Clarke here needs to pull out a similar innings to Michael Atherton’s matching saving 185 no in the 1995 Johannesburg test , can he do it? unlikely,
The game appears to be in a lull right now post lunch, Glenn McGrath is handing over to Jonathon Agnew as Henry Blowfeld is enjpying an afternoon snooze…
91-3
2 slips, gully and a short cover surrounding Kharajwa who is just defending to Anderson
Michael Vaughan has just joined the proceedings and we have a semblance of a contest developing in the baking afternoon sun
104-3, partnership 68
- drinks
the Anderson - Kharwaja stalemeate continues in the sun
106-3
Clarke & Khawaja decent enough partnership going to get to 134/3. Three wickets fell then in the last 10 minutes before lunch, slumping to 136/6. 158/7 now, still 425 runs adrift. This will be a whopping defeat.
England one wicket away now. This could be a long six months for Australia.
What can Australia do ahead of Old Trafford? There’ll have to be a few changes in the batting line up. With three more spin friendly surfaces coming up, surely they need to get Nathan Lyon back in. Agar could improve in time, but he’s not the answer at the moment. As I’ve said many time, the much maligned Lyon is the best option in the spin department.
The short answer to your first question is probably to turn the clock back at least four years to have any reasonable chance.
Lyon has to play at Old Trafford I think. Unless you are spectacularly talented, 19 is too young to be playing Test cricket as a spin bowler. Of all the positions in the side, that is probably the one that develops most with experience and loses least with the ageing process. Agar looks to have something, but he needs to go and learn his game. Lyon has been perfectly adequate in his career to date without being spectacular, and acquitted himself quite well in India. They need to stop looking for the post-Warne silver bullet in their spin bowlers. They might give Jackson Bird a whirl too. I’m sure Harris won’t play all three of the remaining Tests, so it’s a case of which one they will rest him for. Pattinson might be in trouble after his awful display at Lord’s too, though I suspect he’ll get the benefit of the doubt for one more Test.
They are in a strange position with their batsmen. While clearly they have been woeful, each of the top seven has at least one score of 46. Now none of them could complain if they were dropped, but there is no blindingly obvious candidate for the chop either in the way that Cowan was after the first Test. They need to get Warner back I think. He’s a ferocious cunt, but he’s definitely in their best six batsmen. I’d probably bring him back to open alongside Rogers, move Watson down to six (a particular hobby horse of mine I’ll admit) and drop Hughes or Smith. I suspect they won’t bring Warner back yet though, he scored bollocks all for Aus A in their last game. They are playing another game starting on Wednesday, so maybe if he makes some runs there. Wade as a specialist batsman or Faulkner as an all-rounder might come into consideration, I’m sure they’ll both play against Sussex anyway. That’s starting Friday, and I’d imagine anyone that bats well there will be well placed to get a game at Old Trafford.