Labuschagne is leading run scorer in county cricket this season. Has something like 1000 county runs at 70… think that’ll be enough to get him in the squad, and probably play first test.
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One has played less than 30 games the other well over 100. Paine has 1 century to his name, yes 1 over his whole career. Carey had 2 before he had reached his 25th game
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IIRC Paine’s was a double, in his first or second game.
I had totally forgotten he existed.
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Reckon the 16 man squad will look a little something like this. (Not saying that’s who I’d pick BTW - purely that this is how I expect selectors to go)
Warner
Harris
Khawaja (if fit)
Burns
Labuschagne
Smith
Head
Patterson
Paine
Carey
Pattinson
Cummins
Starc
Hazlewood
Lyon
Holland
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Not really, we are very critical of his poor performances and fumb shots, mixed in with criticism of Langer batting him at #8
Swap Holland for Behrendorff and you’ve got my squad.
I can see them justifying the selection of Mitch Marsh though
I just don’t understand the continual bashing of Paine’s batting on here. He’s no star but he’s well and truly done his job.
35 is a very good average for a wicketkeeper. Well ahead of Healy. Well ahead of Wade who many are suggesting should now be picked as a specialist bat.
Paine is near the end. I reckon at best he plays til the end of the Australian summer. He might be gone at the end of this series.
But he deserves more respect imo
If Australia wants to win the next World Cup I think they need to do the following:
-separate the test and ODI coaching roles
-stop playing the 50 over competition in September as a preseason warm up event
-develop a plan for how we want to play and stick to it.
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Pretty sure the September thing is no more next season ?
I hope not.
3 very good points.
The Shield season should coincide with the Home Test season and the games shouldnt clash, allowing test players to play as many shield games as possible. Shield final to be out of the way around the new year when people still care about cricket and not in March or whenever it is currently.
The JLT tournament should be played in feb/March, after the Big Bash. Where it can ride the momentum of the BBL, which itself needs to be condensed so it doesn’t drag on.
Aussie representives should be encouraged to participate in as many domestic games across all formats, including bbl, so that the quality of the competitions increase exposing the domestic players to world class opposition. It might also increase viewership and attendance.
We should be encouraging certain players to specialise in long or short format cricket. Offering redball and whiteball specific contract could help.
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Who gets the trophy if it rains cats and dogs for the next week?
Trophy is shared
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Head??? Hasn’t done much wrong.
Patterson’s barely hit a run for 6 months. Hopefully gets some runs in the remainder of this Aus A series.
Trav will be a starter for the tests
Hope so
Spoke to him quite recently and he has been told that he would be a starter
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Coming off a 150 and a 50 in the last Test we played, I should hope so.
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Why wasn’t he in the middle order of the WC side?