Brad Haddin - He is good...will he leap from good to great?

[fineleg]

He is a reasonably good player. Will he be able to make the transition from Good to Great? Batting and fielding averages Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave BF SR 100 50 4s 6s Ct St ODIs 26 24 2 693 87* 31.50 845 82.01 0 3 58 20 31 4 T20Is 4 3 2 16 6 16.00 24 66.66 0 0 0 0 2 0 First-class 87 144 16 5242 154 40.95 9 30 253 22 List A 122 117 10 3606 138* 33.70 3880 92.93 6 19 166 39 Twenty20 15 14 2 235 54 19.58 212 110.84 0 2 16 6 11 7

[fineleg]

Brad Haddin holds the most nerve-fraying position in Australian cricket. Having seen off Darren Berry, Wade Seccombe and Ryan Campbell, he is the wicketkeeper-in-waiting and entrusted with warming the seat whenever Adam Gilchrist needs a rest. Slip up and be forgotten; perform well, as he has over the past few seasons, and suffer a speedy demotion when the incumbent returns. Haddin is also the next generation's target and must ward off the challenges of like-minded-but-younger aggressive batsmen and glovemen. At 29 he has time - and talent - on his side for a lengthy international career, but the scheduling of Gilchrist's eventual departure will be crucial as he eyes the same position as Chris Hartley, Luke Ronchi and Adam Crosthwaite. The pressure of being No. 2 has not hindered Haddin's batting over the past three seasons and his keeping to a New South Wales attack swinging from Brett Lee to Stuart MacGill has remained sharp. In 2004-05 he scored 916 first-class runs at 57.25 while leading the Blues to a one-wicket Pura Cup victory over Queensland and he also posted an impressive limited-overs century for Australia A against Pakistan. A regular leader of Australia's 2nd XI, Haddin backed up in 2005-06 with 617 Pura Cup runs at 51.41 and added another 669 at 55.75 last summer. The World Cup understudy, he did not play a game in the Caribbean, but he has appeared in 21 ODIs with a top score of 70, which he posted during the short trip to Malaysia before the Champions Trophy. He was also a tourist on the 2005 Ashes tour but was used only once as a one-day Supersub and finished the game without batting. A former Australia Under-19 captain who grew up in Gundagai, Haddin began his domestic career in 1997-98 with the Australian Capital Territory in their debut Mercantile Mutual Cup season, and two years later was playing for New South Wales. Promoted to the one-day outfit in 2000-01 as a replacement for Gilchrist, he has been on the national contract list for the past four years and is ready for the first chance at a full-time promotion.

[coverpoint]

Aussies bench strength is amazing. Where they have haddin we have karthik ...

[Online]

who cares there will only be 1 gilly

[diegovegaz]

Aussies bench strength is amazing. Where they have haddin we have karthik ...

what u probably mean is gilchrist n micheal hussey then there is dhoni n kaarthick ideally hussey is replaced by haddin, kaarrthick should b replaced with parthiv patel

[fineleg]

Aussies bench strength is amazing. Where they have haddin we have karthik ...

Absolutely. While they cannot "replace" greats like McG or Warney or Gilly, they do have reasonably strong bench strength. Excellent cricket academy and system. Its the system which we desperately lack.

[Guest Hiten.]

All I can say is, time will tell.

[Ram]

Dont be too carried away by terms "system" and "bench strength" etc. Great teams are always made by great players, not by systems. Australia was lucky enough to have the BEST opening pair of this decade,the Best no.3 of this decade, The most prolific no.4 EVER, the BEST EVER wicket-keeper batsman, one of all time best paceman and arguably, the best ever spinner in the history of the game, playing in the same team, at the same time. Now, one half of the opening pair is gone, so are the two bowlers and the game-changing wicket keeper. Lets see how they do from here on. And to be honest, the effects are already showing. India really did stretch them in the test series. Even though the score reads 2-1 Aus, even the most rabid Australian fan will accept that 1-1 would have been a fair result, considering what happened in Sydney. However, Australia's saving grace has been the sudden spurt in the performances of Lee, who has been nothing short of brilliant this summer, and a major chunk of their fortress like batting is still there. In my opinion, Aus will still be no.1 for quite a while, but the record breaking runs will soon be a thing of the past. They will be challenged more and more, will lose more tests. They will be no.1 yea, but not like now. Currently, Aus are no.1 and even though the ranking puts India at no.2, they are more like ranked no.4. Australia are no.1, 2 and 3.

[fineleg]

You are underestimating the importance of a system that is necessary to continually produce good players.

[Ram]

You are underestimating the importance of a system that is necessary to continually produce good players.

I cant stress enough, outstanding teams are ALWAYS produced by outstanding players. What "system" did the Windies have in the 70s and 80s when they won everything ? What system did Sri Lanka have in 96, when they won the world cup and played very well for another couple of years ? And worse, does New Zealand have enough professional cricketers in that country to even have a "system" in the first place ? India probably has more cricketers playing this game from the under-15 level onwards, than the entire population of New Zealand combined. Dont they compete with us ? Didnt they win test matches against us at home ? All this talk of system is VERY VERY overrated, IMO.

[yoda]

We also have a system - it is based on Chaos theory.

[Lurker]

I cant stress enough' date=' outstanding teams are ALWAYS produced by outstanding players. [b']What "system" did the Windies have in the 70s and 80s when they won everything ? What system did Sri Lanka have in 96, when they won the world cup and played very well for another couple of years ? And worse, does New Zealand have enough professional cricketers in that country to even have a "system" in the first place ? India probably has more cricketers playing this game from the under-15 level onwards, than the entire population of New Zealand combined. Dont they compete with us ? Didnt they win test matches against us at home ? All this talk of system is VERY VERY overrated, IMO.

West Indies strength of 70s and 80s was atleast in part built over a very strong contigent in late 50s and 60s. I would say that at this time West Indian team was perhaps second only to Australian team in the world. Many of the players from this era - Wolcott, Weekes, Worrell, Wes Hall, Sobers, Kanhai, Gibbs etc- would make it to All time West Indies XI and some even to All Time World XI. So even though West Indies may not have had a good system they had a very strong cricketing history to inspire budding cricketers.

[Donny]

Good point, Lurks. mm, I find your opening paragraph quite naive. It reminds me of the reply by Gary Player, the great Sth. African golfer, to a reporter who asked him why he seemed to be so lucky. "Funny about that. The harder I work, the luckier I get." Michael Clarke, Viv Richards, Jonty Rhodes, AB etc. aren't 'lucky' with their direct hit run outs. They practice doing it - dozens of times every training session. Other famous quotes pertinent to this subject: "If people knew how hard I worked to achieve my mastery, it wouldn't seem so" - Michelangelo "Nothing can substitute for just plain hard work. I had to put in the time to get back. And it was a grind. It meant training and sweating every day." - Andre Agassi "There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure." - Colin Powell "The only way the magic works is by hard work. But the hard work can be fun." - Jim Henson "My success just evolved from working hard at the business at hand each day." - Johnny Carson "I worked hard, and if you work hard you get the goodies." - Steve Mcqueen --------------------------- Those Aussie players you mentioned all came through the system but there was no luck involved. Read any of their thoughts about the sentiments mentioned in the above quotes. You'll find they totally agree.

[Ram]

That was very kind of you to have posted those inspirational quotes, Donny. I am sure in times of flagging motivation, I can read them and get inspired. But will all due respects, I still maintain what I said. Outstanding teams, not good teams mind you, are always made by outstanding players. And, do you mean to suggest players like Ian Healy, Damien Fleming, Greg Blewett, Paul Rieffel etc did NOT come through the Australian system. Of course they did, but Australia wasnt so world beating then coz, even though they were products of the "system", their limited talents meant they only achieved so much amount of success. And the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that Australia will miss Gilchrist maybe even more than Warne or McGrath. He changed the face of test cricket with his attacking batting at no.7. To see a no.7 batsman come and blitz the bowling like he did was something the world has never seen before. He will be incredibly hard to replace. Australia will miss him dearly, Haddin or otherwise.

[Ram]

West Indies strength of 70s and 80s was atleast in part built over a very strong contigent in late 50s and 60s. I would say that at this time West Indian team was perhaps second only to Australian team in the world. Many of the players from this era - Wolcott' date=' Weekes, Worrell, Wes Hall, Sobers, Kanhai, Gibbs etc- would make it to All time West Indies XI and some even to All Time World XI. So even though West Indies may not have had a good system they had a very strong cricketing history to inspire budding cricketers.[/quote'] There is one significant difference Lurks. From what you are suggesting, it seems as though the Windies team of the 70s and 80s inherited a very successful team and they just continued with the culture of success. That still begs the question, was there any "system" that produced these players ? I think not.

[Mr. Wicket]

I'd definitely agree that a system has always been in play with 'superpower' teams, especially true with the Windies. And when you ask "What "system" did the Windies have in the 70s and 80s when they won everything?", I can only suggest you did not study/follow the game in England carefully through the 70s and 80s. Since Learie Constantine's success in the Lancashire League in the 30s (and maybe early 40s), more and more West Indians began to use the English circuit - first the leagues, then the counties - to hone their game (which is when they began to improve - the 60/61 series in Aus was what saw them break to the 'next level' in cricket - bar a few freak talented players like Ramadhin and Valentine, most like the 3 Ws and Wes Hall did at least go to England to keep playing in the seasonal leagues (which were very strong competitions at the time) even if they couldn't play in counties. The system and domestic setup in the Windies allowed for raw talent to be exposed but not for it to be honed further - something that remains the same today. So more and more players began heading across to England and using the more professional, regimented system there in the leagues and counties to build some consistency into their game as well as gain exposure on different pitches/against different types of players/etc. By the 70s this became a major trend and with a lot of other international players coming into the county system as well, the Windies' players got tremendous exposure to the world's best - the likes of Hadlee, Abbas, Bedi, etc. Just about every top and second rank WI player went through the county circuit - you had guys like Sylvester Clarke who played only a handful of tests in his life playing most of his career in the counties, and others like the excellent Franklyn Stephenson who never played a test in his life but was a tremendous all rounder (f/c average 28 w/ bat and 24 with ball). Here's a list of some of the top WI players from that era and the counties they played for - and in many cases, these were for several years (like Garner and IVAR at Somerset) rather than just one season or a half-season: Kallicharran: Warwickshire (also played for Orange Free State and Transvaal in SAF and Queensland) Deryck Murray: Notts, Warwicks Clive Lloyd: Lancashire Vanburn Holder: Worcestershire Roy Fredericks: Glamorgan Ron Headley: Worcestershire and Derby Lawrence Rowe: Derbyshire Keith Boyce: Essex Andy Roberts: Hampshire and Leics Larry Gomes: Middlesex Wayne Daniel: Middlesex Michael Holding: Derbyshire and Lancashire Viv Richards: Glamorgan and Somerset Gordon Greenidge: Hampshire Joel Garner: Somerset Colin Croft: Lancashire Collis King: Glamorgan and Worcs Winston Davis: Glamorgan and Northants Richie Richardson: Yorkshire Sylvester Clarke: Surrey Courtney Walsh: Gloucs Malcolm Marshall: Hampshire Patrick Patterson: Lancashire and so on. So most of them not only had constant exposure to each other, but they took on the likes of Bedi, Martin Crowe, Glenn Turner, Boycott, Dilip Doshi and Richard Hadlee in all conditions - which definitely prepared them superbly for the international game... plus they got to play alongside some of them and learn from them. Most other countries didn't have so many players coming into the county scene in those couple of decades, so the Windies had a clear advantage there with a vast depth of players with that degree of exposure and experience. THAT was basically the system that the Windies used to dominate those two decades - very little domestic, but the pure professionalism from county cricket to hone the incredible talents they kept producing. The big difference since is that very few players after that have ever really played county cricket on any kind of regular basis - maybe half a season as stand-ins here, but little else... and now the WI are seeing a lot more players who show tons of talent, but no professionalism or discipline. [and btw, if you still need further proof, go read the autobiographies of most players who were overseas professionals in county cricket at some point in the 70s/late 80s until the system began to break with the restrictions they began imposing and the way the int'l schedules picked up. Dennis Lillee, Viv Richards, Glenn Turner and plenty more all have attributed a good deal of their success at test level to the county programme and the experience they got - Richards had a lot to say about the benefits of playing under Brian Close and alongside the likes of Ian Botham and Peter Roebuck for a while.] With Aus it's been a combination of both their very strong domestic system and the county circuit as well to some extent... the county system is no longer anywhere NEAR as strong as it was back in the 70s/80s, but some of the players who've played a while in it like Symonds, Hussey, Jaques, Steve Waugh, Dean Jones etc have all been better for it. And the board has now taken a lot of the right steps - set up a domestic system that's incredibly high quality, demands the sort of serious discipline and professionalism for the most part that the old county system required as well as academies to help players develop specific skills for the top level. So no - not to say an outstanding system alone will produce an outstanding team - but with this in place, Australia will for the most part be assured of having a very good/top echelon team even if it isn't the sort of world-beating machine that it's been in the last decade. But saying an outstanding team doesn't need a great system to work is rubbish. Take the talent in India right now and focus the domestic system better - better umpiring, more coaching for the players and import players to also boost the quality levels and provide better exposure - and you'd have cricketers coming to the national team far better equipped to make the step up to test level. THAT is what India is really missing if it's to really be a great team - because the likes of Parthiv, Gambhir and Chopra can do nicely at domestic level - but it won't mean all that much against some teams like Orissa, Hyderabad and Bengal. Raise the standards, and you start seeing better players picked who'll be more likely to do well at test level - rather than finding people like VRV and Bharadwaj who've been exposed as completely out of their depth at the top.

[Ram]

To address a couple of points you have raised, -- Lets say that we do agree that many of the Windies players country cricket in England is what helped them to get professional and hone their skills as you put it, the question that automatically comes to my mind is - "Why didnt the English team, that has had the advantage of having ALL of its FC cricketers, play against such top talents, never dominate world cricket as such ?" And I never did say that the retirement of a certain set of players spells doom for Australia. If you read one of my earlier posts, I have clearly said they will still be no.1 one for a while, but the defeats and draws will be more frequent. --And to quote further examples to prove a point, Zimbabwe, at one time in the early 2000s, had an really competitive team, with players of the calibre of Andy Flower, Grant Flower, Alistair Campbell, Neil Johnson, Paul Strang, Heath Streak, Eddo Brandes, Travis Friend, Andy Blignaut. At that time, there were more than a match for any one-day team. But, after the Mugabe's govt persecution of white farmers and the following sidelining of white players by board officials like Peter Chingonka, look at the state of their team now. Could anyone of us say, with any amount of conviction, that even one member of today's Zim team was equal, either in talent of pedigree to that team ? No. And technically, shouldnt the system of Zim cricket kept producing equally capable black players even today ? It hasnt, coz there was no proper system then, there isnt one today. Zim was just lucky that a generation of outstandingly talented cricketers all played their cricket at the same time. --To quote another recent example, recently NZ cricket has been engulfed in a crisis, to the extent one of the NZ board official/ former player has openly come out and said the system isnt producing quality batsman and thats where the problem lies. But, wasnt this very same "system" that produced quality batsman like Nathan Astle, Roger Twose, Chris Cairns, Stephen Fleming etc ? Didnt that team even win a test series in Eng, something not many teams have been able to do ? But now, when there is a shortage of quality batsman in NZ, does that mean the system has actually degraded there ? And just to clarify what i was saying, A good system of FC cricket will ensure a high standard of performance, but to be really good team, it needs a lot of luck to have talented players to be contemporaries of each other.

[Mr. Wicket]

-- Lets say that we do agree that many of the Windies players country cricket in England is what helped them to get professional and hone their skills as you put it' date=' the question that automatically comes to my mind is - "Why didnt the English team, that has had the advantage of having ALL of its FC cricketers, play against such top talents, never dominate world cricket as such ?"[/quote'] Because I have pointed out that the Australians and West Indies used the system to HONE talents that existed, not to produce talents. Their own systems produced raw talented players, who then used the county circuit to instill discipline and professionalism in themselves England were not capable of producing that, not with a grassroots system obsessed with the MCC coaching manual that discouraged free, enterprising strokeplay and variety, or with a county schedule that allowed no room for further expansion in that sense. BTW, if you are not convinced by the argument that the Windies players benefited from English cricket to the point they became a top team, I would suggest you read some Beyond a Boundary by CLR James and 'Viv' - the autobiography of Viv Richards in particular. As far as England's own system, look up Don Mosey's biography of Boycott, Botham's autobiography, Keith Fletcher's autobiography and the book recently published by Simon Hughes on the county circuit - all very insightful as to what the systems were like there and how it failed to develop truly skilled and enterprising players.

--And to quote further examples to prove a point, Zimbabwe, at one time in the early 2000s, had an really competitive team, with players of the calibre of Andy Flower, Grant Flower, Alistair Campbell, Neil Johnson, Paul Strang, Heath Streak, Eddo Brandes, Travis Friend, Andy Blignaut. At that time, there were more than a match for any one-day team. But, after the Mugabe's govt persecution of white farmers and the following sidelining of white players by board officials like Peter Chingonka, look at the state of their team now. Could anyone of us say, with any amount of conviction, that even one member of today's Zim team was equal, either in talent of pedigree to that team ? No. And technically, shouldnt the system of Zim cricket kept producing equally capable black players even today ? It hasnt, coz there was no proper system then, there isnt one today. Zim was just lucky that a generation of outstandingly talented cricketers all played their cricket at the same time.

Your examples about NZ and Zimbabwe are misleading and red herrings in this instance. We are not discussing a team with a small handful of talented players you could count on one hand. That can be put down to the odd fluke. We are discussing a full generation of players who kept coming with frightening regularity, all at top class. Look at the assembly line of great batsmen and great bowlers in the list I named (and others like Curtly Ambrose and Ian Bishop that I failed to). That sort of thing does not happen as a 'fluke'. Again, read James' Beyond a Boundary - probably the definitive book to UNDERSTAND the culture behind West Indian cricket and what caused its evolution and success later on - this isn't merely a cricket book, it's a social history that explains the people and causes behind the real evolution. The Windies' strength at the time was not about a fluke - it was about a combination of factors far more than the oversimplified excuse of 'very lucky with a lot of talented players together'. James' Beyond a Boundary makes the role of black sporting idols very clear - as they began to stand out and succeed, more and more in the Windies began to take to cricket to follow said idols. That and the culture of black West Indians 'standing up for themselves' through the 50s, 60s and 70s inspired by others in England and the USA both were major factors that contributed to people wanting to take up cricket, considered before then a 'white man's game' in the Windies (until Worrell, all the WI captains had been white). With the sort of grassroots cricket played - beaches and fairly poor grounds - cricketers learned how to innovate and be far more enterprising. The better ones began to use the county system to discipline themselves and learned how to perform in a unit and with consistency rather than just swinging the bats as they would at home casually - and that combination of factors led to a team that became world class, and then world dominating with time. With Australia the other social/economic factors haven't been as big (if anything, they were present more in the late 30s and then the 40s with Bradman), but the young players there have had the combinations of idols and role models in the game to look up to, an excellent system domestically and another one overseas that helped them greatly. With the NZ/Zimbabwe examples you bring up it's a completely different situation. Zimbabwe happened to have some talented cricketers - no more or less than a lot of other decent teams, but never produced them with the frequency that Australia or WI had in their dominant eras. And in NZ, the fact that they produced so many top cricketers together was a surprise in the first place - given that most young sportsmen there had rugby as their first passion (which still attracts the majority of the top athletes and gets most of the national focus and coverage). Again a very different culture that you can't make any parallel to. As far as debating the issue with systems being part of great teams rather than just a whole lot of luck and flukes - I'd seriously recommend buying some of those books I suggested above on WI and English cricket - and hunting down reprinted copies of Charles Williams' 'Bradman' and Jack Fingleton's 'Cricket Crisis' - which I think would offer you a lot of insight towards some of the game's past and the real factors that helped make some of the great teams - rather than just the luck and flukes you suggest.

[Donny]

but to be really good team' date=' it needs a lot of luck to have talented players to be contemporaries of each other.[/quote'] And with that last sentence, you just indicated by how much you miss the point. No 'luck' involved. The Warnes, McGraths, etc. didn't just happen along. Both were fairly ordinary at first class level but worked their arses off to become greats. Do I need to remind you of Warney's first Test figures ? Check out Pigeon's first 50 Test wickets against Clark's. Is Australia 'lucky' to have someone like Clark to step into McGrath's shoes ? No. He also got where he is through years of practice and hard work.

[Donny]

Re. Braddin. Far too much is made of this 'will he be as good as?' business. Let's face it. Gilly was dropping catches and sure, he produced an incredible innings in the WC final and another when he hit the second fastest Test ton ever but he has steadily declined in both forms of the game over the last 3 seasons or so with the bat. I'm not interested in 'finding another Gilly' as such. Braddin is a good player in his own right. Competent keeper and a very capable batsman - as recent ODI innings indicated. We may see a few less sixes but, already, Johnson and Clark have emerged as better batsmen than Dizzy (when he doesn't bat at first drop :wink_smile:) and Pigeon so what's it matter, really ? The Aussies will be happy if Braddin is good to very good. He doesn't have to be 'great' to hold his spot and contribute.