Tag Archives: injury

Victoria – cry me a river

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Man Cry

Man Cry

There’s much talk about poor Victoria who will be forced to field an under strength team in tomorrow’s Twenty20 final. They’ve even tried to recruit Adam Gilchrist, which would have been awesome for the spectacle, but they obviously didn’t front up with enough cash.

Here’s who they’ll be missing tomorrow night

  • Brad Hodge – avg 42, sr 136. Top Twenty20 run-scorer in Australia. Top Twenty20 run-scorer in the world. Injured in Elimination Final.
  • David Hussey – avg 32, sr 140. Second top Twenty20 run scorer in Australia. Restrictive bowler. Playing for Oz.
  • Cameron White – avg 35, sr 154. Destructive batsman and part time bowler.

Boo fúcking hoo. I realise it’s a new experience for Victoria to lose players to the national setup, but this is something that happens to us all the time. Here’s the first choice players on our books that we’ll be missing tomorrow night:

  • Nathan Bracken – avg 19, eco 7. Worlds top ranked ODI and T20 bowler. Man-hair model. Playing for Australia
  • David Warner – avg 29.5, sr 150. Destructive opening batsman, playing for Oz.
  • Michael Clarke – avg 23, sr 130. Quality middle order batsman, economical bowler. Injured playing for Australia
  • Brad Haddin – avg 20, sr 110. Quality keeper and agressive batsman in superb form.
  • Stuart Clark – avg 18, eco 6.6. Econimical and threatining bowler. Injured playing for Oz
  • Nathan Hauritz – avg 15, eco 6.3. Restrictive bowler. Playing for Oz.

    I can’t work out why these articles only mention the absent Victorians. On the balance I’d say NSW are in fact more weakened through injury/abscence than Victoria, but obviously both teams are missing a lot of quality. Regardless, it’s hard to agree with the sob story coming from south of the border.

    • Top 10 reasons Austrlaia lost the Border Gavaskar Trophy

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    Ricky losing Gillies trophy

    Ricky losing Gillies trophy

    10. Losing the toss
    I’d love to see some stats on how many teams have won in India with a first innings defecit. Batting first is key and each test was controlled by the opening innigns. Losing 3 tosses did put us at a dis-advantage, but we could have overcome this.

    9. Stupid and thoughtless Dismissals
    If you hit the ball directly to mid-on and run you deserve an uppercut. There really is no excuse for this in test cricket, and Hayden, Ponting and Hussey are all guilty as charged in the 4th test. Other memorable brain farts go to the collapse in Mohail that set up India for a win, some of Haddin’s half-hearted spoon’s directly to fielders, and Clarke’s last over lapses.

    8. Team Unity
    Ponting’s on field spat with Lee in Mohali was the lowest point of the tour. It sent out a message of dis-unity, bad communication, and a team in crisis. These disputes no doubt often happen when touring, but for fúcks sake keep them behind closed doors.

    8. Lacking the killer instinct in Bangaluru
    Our run rate was simply too slow in the first test, 2.86 in the first innings was below par but the real lack of intent was blocking out Kumble at the end of Day 4. The pre-declaration slog has been sorely missing from this current baggy green squad, oh how I miss thee. The lack of urgency in the first test led to us running out of time with bad light when we could well have been leading 1-0 going to Mohali.

    7. the SG Ball
    Despite having Troy Cooley who is widely regarded as the best bowling coach in the business, our bowlers didn’t get the SG Ball to talk until Watson and Krejza achieved enlightenment in the 4th Test. Brendan Julian in an interview with Watson about the Indians bowling the new ball cross-seam after Day 4 Test 1, yet at the end of Test 2 the word was we didn’t realise what they were doing.

    6. Ordinary fielding
    All the direct hits we are used to have gone fishing. Roy, while missed with bat and ball, it is his presence in the field who’se abscence is hurting us most.

    5. The spinner
    Cameron White is not a Test standard wicket taking bowler. If we were after a part timer, David Hussey or Shaun Marsh would have been worth a nod, but we already have Shane Watson and Michael Clarke as all rounders. The team was never in need of a number 8 batsman. We needed a spinner, or at least someone who had the potential to become a spinner. The selection of Krejza was dictated by no-one else being in the squad, and turned out brilliantly. However, when McGain went home injured we should have called up another spinner to give us more options. Why didn’t we take 5 spinners over if only to get them some experience? We could probably lend them out to Indian domestic teams then pick whoever is performing.

    4. Impotent bowling plans
    The Mohali pitch was a road when we bowled and a minefield when we batted, then reverted to a road, then back to a minefield. The Indian bowlers to their credit got movement in the air and off the deck while our boys broke their backs bowling uphill into the wind.

    3. Not bowling Simon Katich
    Why the hell did Rick only bowl Katich in the third test? In the 40 odd overs of spin on Day 5 of the 1st test Katto could well have made the breakthrough. In the second test our attack was impotent as we waited patiently for Anil to declare, still no Katto. In the third test he finally got a shot and looked dangerous from the first ball. He bought some much needed aggression to the bowling crease and had to be seperated from Gambhir by Billy, then dismissed Ganguly. Perhaps the biggest compliment of all was VVS failing to pick his pearler of an arm-ball. So having finally tried Katich, seen him bowl well in Indian conditions, Rick forgets all about it and gives him just 3 tidy overs in the 1st innings in Nagpur on a wicket on which the Off-Spinners were lethal, surely the left-arm chinaman was worth a bit more of a spell?

    2. Stars not firing
    An ordinary series from Lee who through a hand injury, food poisoning and generally bad form picked up 8 wickets at 61. Ponting started with 123 then went on to score 143 in his next 6 appearances. Hayden copped some ordinary Rauf’s early on but in truth didn’t wake up until the final innings of the series, by which time Ponting had already surrendered.

    1. Píss Poor Captaincy
    Ponting had a very poor series in many respects, none more so than after Tea on Day 4. There’s been suggestions of match fixing, and lets be honest, that makes more sense than any of his explanations for taking the foot off. Time for him to concentrate on his batting, give the captaincy to Clarke, Hussey, or…. Warne – he’d probably come back to be captain, especially with an Ashes Series coming up.

    Bloody Ponting

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    Ponting changing his field, again

    Ponting changing his field, again

    Our over rate is a national disgrace. Ricky threw a test match in order to play New Zealand, apparently out of his love of playing for Australia. I’ve already had my say on that, now I’m going to say some more!

    Ponting was fined 20% and the remainder of the team 10% of their match fees, which equates to roughly 0.05% of their annual IPL cashcow. But the really big loss was the Border-Gavaskar trophy which at tea yesterday we were a good chance to retain. I’ve read that a suspension for Ricky was not even on the table, a captain needs to be fined twice in a 12 month period for that to even be an option. Now he’s lost the test, the series, and still got the first fine.

    Is 90 overs a day an unreasonable ask? So many teams seem to have trouble with this limit. After taking out drinks, wicket and injury allowances and adding the 30 minutes overtime that has become a rule rather than the exception in modern tests, the target is to bowl, on average, 15 overs an hour or 1 over every 4 minutes.

    I’ve done the sums to get a better idea of just how slow we were on Day 4. By Tea we had bowled 50 overs, leaving us 10 short of the target. Of these, Krejza had 15, Johnson 13, Watson 12 and Lee 10. So with an off-spinner bowling 30% of the load, we’ve managed to drop 1 over in every 6! That is a seriously písspoor effort. The general consensus is that Ricky’s tri-overly field changes and general farking around between overs is killing the rate.

    There are many ways to increase the over rate while still looking to take wickets – how bout bowling Simon Katich? Or Lee and Johnson off their ODI run-ups rather than the full test run-up? Why not move a bit quicker between overs? These highly pampered stars are professional sportsmen right, surely a jog from fine leg to long off every 4 minutes is not too much to ask?

    Is bowling Hussey a good alternative? Sure he hides the ball when running it but who cares when it doesn’t swing? He still has a decent run-up, and I’m in no way convinced that Mike’s all that quick getting through his overs anyway, though I haven’t got out the stopwatch to be sure. Even when Ponting realised the lapse and bought on Hussey he still didn’t speed up his general farking around with the field. Is moving deep mid on 3 metres left then 4 metres right more likely to take a wicket than giving Shane Watson another over when he’s swinging both ways? One excuse I heard from Nielsen was that the quicks were tired, perhaps they could have rested in the 20 minute tea break?

    The entire team was fined for this, however with our díckless coach I choose to blame the captain. He’s the one leading out there. He’s the one constantly moving the field. He’s the one deciding the bowling changes, and the one who could be speeding things up.

    I was also under the impression that Ponting has been going through a lean patch with the bat, turns out he’s scored 997 runs in the last 12 months so I’ll let that slide, for now..

    Date Innings Runs Opponent Ground
    Date Innings Runs Opponent Ground
    08-Nov-07 1 56 v Sri Lanka Brisbane
    16-Nov-07 1 31 v Sri Lanka Hobart
    16-Nov-07 3 53 v Sri Lanka Hobart
    26-Dec-07 1 4 v India Melbourne
    26-Dec-07 3 3 v India Melbourne
    02-Jan-08 1 55 v India Sydney
    02-Jan-08 3 1 v India Sydney
    16-Jan-08 2 20 v India Perth
    16-Jan-08 4 45 v India Perth
    24-Jan-08 2 140 v India Adelaide
    22-May-08 1 158 v West Indies Kingston
    22-May-08 3 5 v West Indies Kingston
    30-May-08 1 65 v West Indies North Sound
    30-May-08 3 38 v West Indies North Sound
    12-Jun-08 1 18 v West Indies Bridgetown
    12-Jun-08 3 39 v West Indies Bridgetown
    09-Oct-08 1 123 v India Bangalore
    09-Oct-08 3 17 v India Bangalore
    17-Oct-08 2 5 v India Mohali
    17-Oct-08 4 2 v India Mohali
    29-Oct-08 2 87 v India Delhi
    06-Nov-08 2 24 v India Nagpur
    06-Nov-08 4 8 v India Nagpur

    Bástard!

    Smite Smit

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    When did the Springboks turn into the Softboks? I remember a time when they were feared for their mongrel, brutality and acceptance of what happens on the field stays on the field. Now they’re acting like a gaggle of netballers.

    I don’t like Peter DeVilliers. I don’t believe that he’s the best man for the job. Actually, I don’t believe he’s in the top 5 best men for the job, however he is likely the best black man for the job, no wonder he’s been branded Peter the Puppet. But he’s not the target of today’s blog.

    I used to think that John Smit was a pretty good player and captain who commanded respect. Now I Smite Smit. He’s accused Brad Thorn of “unsportsmanlike conduct” and claimed that the “spear tackle” caused the groin injury that ended his tour.

    Bullsh1t. He played on for 30 minutes after the Thorn hit, and from Watching the footage he was unimpaired until:

    IMO; it [the injury] happens at the 35:40 mark when he is caught up on one leg driving against Williams. He goes up high on his right leg and the inertia rotates him outward, ouch I can feel my own, there is a slightly audilble yell and after tumbling down on the right side of the breakdown, he is very slow to get up and when he does, he is limping. During the ruck, you can see him struggling to get his left leg back on the ground.

    Prior to that, I tracked him from the 29:50 mark and he is fine. From this point: he drove hard into 3 breakdowns, ran back 30 meters after AB grubber, no limp, and seconds later a strong, low driving tackle on Thompson at 30:26, Not the kind a person with a severe groin pull makes, all this while continuing to scrummage and generally get aroung the field. The same tackle that Nesbitt so strongly credited Burger with but it was Smit that drove him back. To me it is clear, and clearly unsportsmanlike to falsely accuse Thorn.

    (thanks to Will the thrill for the quote).

    Smit goes on to say “I’m really not happy about having to sit in South Africa and watch the Springboks beat the All Blacks in Dunedin.” I guess he’ll be f’ucking spewing when the Sprinboks lose in Dunedin.