Martin’s Blog

We once again* saw an international cricket team have no idea what to do when the score is tied with one ball to go (actually Younus Khan looked like he had no idea what was going on at all).

*England had a whole over of missing easy runouts against The Netherlands, I think, in the World T20. That may have been Stuart Broad at the bowler’s end but the same principle applies.

Some simple ideas:
- wicketkeeper up at the stumps
- if you can’t do that, train your keeper so that he can hit the striker’s end stumps 3/4 of the time
- if that doesn’t work, have a short leg there to receive the ball
- also have a short midoff to receive the throw to the other end to prevent the delayed steal*

*This would work, right? The non-striker takes the absurd lead he is allowed under current rules and then the striker waits until the non-striker arrives before setting off on the run. There’s no way to get an out at the striker’s end.

Your team needs to practice this for about 15 minutes once and then they’ll know what to do.

With my recent thoughts and endeavours not leading to interesting blog posts (even by the low standards of this site) I will merely give you a youtube video of Shane Warne.

Later in his career Warney was ‘just’ an accurate bowler of legbreaks that turned enough to be dangerous who also had a psychological hold over batsmen and umpires. But circa 1994 he was an absolute bamboozler – the flipper especially was unplayable for people that grew up in South Africa, England, West Indies…

This video from 1994 against South Africa is worth watching:

After my last two cricket posts have shown my complete lack of predictive power (I thought Australia would chase 500 last time they had that target and that Stuart Clark should play over Hauritz) I should probably keep my mouth shut.

But I really think Australia has a chance of chasing a world record total this time. Somebody is going to do it some time and this Australian team is probably most likely to do it. They can score dominant test match centuries from 1-8 in the order and the pitch isn’t that bad…

So I’ll be waking up at 3 am tomorrow morning. Hopefully I won’t be going back to sleep at 4:30.

This talk of not picking Clark for the fifth test better be just talk or I’m going to be very upset. Clark has a test bowling average of 22, is the only bowler we have who can both create pressure and take wickets, and was absolutely devastating last game.

If you asked me at the start of the series how many bad tests mitchell johnson would have to play to get dropped I would have said four or five.

Johnson trying to figure out the Duke ball (actually it's not, but you get the idea)

But now I am officially calling for his head after two. It’s not just ordinary bad bowling – he looks terrible out there. Tell him that he’s still the future but he just needs a rest. Play Siddle, Hilfenhaus, Hauritz and Clark.

I think Hughes and North deserve more time. Hughes has looked bad against the short ball but so do a lot of people. He’s figured out grade cricket, shield cricket and playing SA so let him try his way for a while.

I very much enjoyed the Sri Lankan bowling lineup this morning. They opened with a medium pacer and a left arm spinner. Then it got weird:

- Isuru Udana. A left arm medium fast bowler who at one point bowled 6 back of the hand slower balls in a 7 ball over.
- Ajantha Mendis. A mystery spinner. Like most mystery spinners most of his deliveries go straight.
- Lasith Malinga. A sidearm slinger.
- Murali. The original freak, he seems quite normal these days.

So with Australia out, I’ll be following the Lankan’s. Some of these bowlers have already been figured out by various teams but in one off games they are pretty threatening.