I seriously don’t get what they’re trying to do with JFM. Thinking of Warner and hoping lightning will strike twice?
He had that much smoke blown up his arsse off the back of a handful of eye-catching hit-and-giggle games where he swung like a rusty gate and it came off. Next thing he’s being parachuted into the Shield side, as an opener no less. So, how’s that working for him/them?
Has he shown in the history of the world ever that he can structure a long-form innings? That he can manage on anything other than gunbarrel straight?
I’m far from convinced he’ll make it as a 50-over cricketer, let alone a 4/5 day cricketer.
My brother in law saw Ricky Ponting doing throw downs with his young son in full cricket gear today at a local cricket net. My brother in law said he looked about 8yr old, he hit everything out of the middle of the bat and his technique looked like a test cricketer. Said he was blown away with what he saw. Ricky was throwing them hard. Bookmark for 10 years time
I disagree. Most of what l saw from Carey Iooked very solid, and l didn’t have the nagging doubt that he could be out next ball, at any stage. l heard BJ in commentary say something along the lines of Carey’s late cut and attempts were dangerous, but to my eyes, he didn’t look like getting out. There aren’t too many other of his innings l could say that about.
Hope he’s turned the corner again now with his batting.
He’s a good guy, excellent keeper and that was a great knock. Alex did it hard after that stumping palava in England … nasty prats abusing and threatening, causing him huge anxiety I’d have thought.
He’s a gun. Not going to hear a bad word about him from me. He’s shown what he can do. Interesting that he talked about shot selection yesterday - hopefully this innings provides the blueprint for him
The make up of our test team post the 2025/26 home Ashes series is going to be fascinating.
You’d think about half of the current test XI will have finished up. A couple of them may in fact use this series as their last hoorah, for red ball cricket at least.
Khawaja
Smith
Labuschagne
Green
Head
Marsh
Carey
Starc
Cummins
Hazlewood
Lyon
I’d still be backing in Labuschagne and Head to be going strong after that series. Yeah they have been in a rut but they are proven test commodities IMO. Cummins just seems like that bowler who is smart and wily enough to stay as an effective test bowler even as his pace might drop a smidge with age. And Lyon being an off-spinner and a guy who looks after himself physically could continue on for years to come if he wished and he had CA’s backing. He doesn’t play too much white ball stuff either so his workload is pretty easily managed.
Marsh, Carey, Hazlewood could go either way. A couple call it quits or lose form and there’s your ≈ 5 changes.
How CA are planning for this transition, and who the near on half a dozen guys currently ear marked as being in the box seat to fill these spots will be interesting.
I think there are options for Marsh, Carey, Starc and Hazelwood. May not be the same quality, but can (in theory) full the same role, and have shown some signs.
Smith and Khawaja, though. Not a lot at the moment.
I hope they give some of the kids from the recent under-age World Cup a run.
Konstas (NSW) and Vidler (Qld) have already made Shield, but I hope Harry Dixon and the Peake boy aren’t kept out of the Vic team by the likes of Travis Dean (and we don’t continue to import players).
Kellaway and O’Neill, in particular, need to be persisted with.
WA lead by 100 in Melbourne. Short 53, Perry 37 as night-watchman. Maddinson, Kellaway, Handscomb, Sutherland, Harper contributed 7 runs.
Tas fell apart against SA, Doran the only real contributor with 56. McAndrew 6 wickets and Doggett 4. All 4 SA bowlers are imports, 2 from NSW, 1 from Qld and 1 from Vic.
And Qld fell for 144…Bartlett 70 with 5 6’s and backed up with a wicket first ball.
So WA every chance to hold the final in Perth if Tas completely blow it.
