Ponting doesn't learn from his mistakes

[The Outsider]

I had said on a "flattish Oval surface" - this one was anything but the traditional, flat Oval surface. I got it horribly wrong for Headingly, though it did not help that Strauss chose to bat in those conditions. On any surface where the bowlers are going to find good purchase, I will back the opposition against Australia - their batsmen are too prone to collapses(almost Pakistan like) and their bowlers leak too many runs even when they are picking up wickets.

[Dhondy]

And you genuinely believe this?

In fact, I won't be surprised if WI(full strength) or Pakistan win a test here and there down under during the coming season.

[Dhondy]

BTW, sorry to be a pest, but why is it that you discount their win in a dead rubber against SA, and yet support your argument for their frailty in "bowling friendly conditions" with another dead rubber at Capetown? (in a match where 650 begot 420)

[The Outsider]

And you genuinely believe this?

I wouldn't put my money on it, but won't be completely surprised if under bowling friendly conditions the above 2 teams are able to sneak in a test. Remember, WI did beat South Africa in South Africa when Bravo and Taylor got going. I doubt we are going to see any such conditions in Australia though - they are going to be flat tracks for all money.

[The Outsider]

BTW' date=' sorry to be a pest, but why is it that you discount their win in a dead rubber against SA, and yet support your argument for their frailty in "bowling friendly conditions" with another dead rubber at Capetown? (in a match where 650 begot 420)[/quote'] I am not discounting it - I still have it in the numbers 4 wins 8 losses. But do you really think Australia would have won that match if Smith had not broken his finger? The result stands, but if you want to assess the strength of the side it's a factor to look into. Cape Town? Didn't they get flattened out for 250 odd in the first innings?

[Dhondy]

I am not discounting it - I still have it in the numbers 4 wins 8 losses. But do you really think Australia would have won that match if Smith had not broken his finger? The result stands, but if you want to assess the strength of the side it's a factor to look into. Cape Town? Didn't they get flattened out for 250 odd in the first innings?

Would they have been bowled out for 250 if the series was alive? After all, they had done pretty well in the first two Tests.

[The Outsider]

Would they have been bowled out for 250 if the series was alive? After all' date=' they had done pretty well in the first two Tests.[/quote'] It wouldn't have been the first or last time - there are enough matches before and after that one where they have been blown away in their first innings. Once that happens all their second innings Badshahs are left redundant because they have lost pretty much every match in which they have collapsed and it has happened in around half the tests they have played over the last year and a half. A pretty damning story.

[Dhondy]

You are reading too much into a couple of series defeats. No team can turn around and walk unscathed after losing McGrath, Warne, Gilchrist, Langer, & Hayden and australia are no exception. however, they remain virtually invincible at home, where it took a superhuman effort from SA to win, a favour they returned straightaway. They are however, fair game away from home. Their predecessors would never have lost 2-0 in India. Coming to the ashes, don't forget the identical margin of defeat in 2005, even with the tyros still breathing. We all know what happened in the return series. I'm pretty sure the same fate will befall England in 18 months time. If there is one thing this series has done, it has swept England's quite alarming shortcomings under the carpet. There will be genuine concerns about Cook, Bopara, Bell & Collingwood. Flintoff's gone, which is jolly well because he looked absolutely shot, and Anderson delivered in one solitary innings. Trott, Onions and Broad are big plusses though, but I can see England still get an absolute hammering in SA.

[DomainK]

The question is: Will Ponting survive this? Will he stay captain to lose in India once again?

[sm332]

It seems likely ... he is young and in Oz you dont stop being cappo and return as a batsman like other countries. It seems you go out ... hence dont think we will see a change. Although it may not be a bad idea to allow him to focus on batting ...

[DomainK]

And someone more intelligent take over the captaincy, right? Especially given that Ponting has not really shown any great qualities as a captain and since the big players are now gone, Australia needs someone who can Marshall the lesser resources (who are still capable of winning any day anywhere) better. If Ponting remains the same as a captain, the Australian selectors will have to make the change someday. How long can a captain keep repeating his mistakes? Twice is already too many.

[The Outsider]

You are reading too much into a couple of series defeats. No team can turn around and walk unscathed after losing McGrath, Warne, Gilchrist, Langer, & Hayden and australia are no exception. however, they remain virtually invincible at home, where it took a superhuman effort from SA to win, a favour they returned straightaway. They are however, fair game away from home. Their predecessors would never have lost 2-0 in India.

They've lost 3 out of their last 4 competitive series. However, I agree with you that they will be virtually unbeatable at home. They were a tough side to beat at home even before the early 90s, specially for teams from the subcontinent. I can't see any team from the subcontinent going and beating Australia in Australia in the near future - India might in '11, but a lot will depend on the kind of batting we have at that point.

Coming to the ashes, don't forget the identical margin of defeat in 2005, even with the tyros still breathing. We all know what happened in the return series. I'm pretty sure the same fate will befall England in 18 months time.

That was a distinctly superior English side to this one as well. They had beaten virtually everyone over the 2 years prior to the 2005 series, not the least South Africa in South Africa. Flintoff, Harmison, and Jones were in tremendous touch and Pietersen rolled into a middle order position with amazing smoothness. I also expect England to lose in 18 months. The key to winning in Australia is to post massive totals and none of the English batsmen barring Strauss and Pietersen are capable of scoring big hundreds while virtually everyone in the Aussie line up can barring Watson, who probably won't survive that long anyway.

If there is one thing this series has done, it has swept England's quite alarming shortcomings under the carpet. There will be genuine concerns about Cook, Bopara, Bell & Collingwood. Flintoff's gone, which is jolly well because he looked absolutely shot, and Anderson delivered in one solitary innings. Trott, Onions and Broad are big plusses though, but I can see England still get an absolute hammering in SA.

Flintoff will be a huge blow even with his current fitness levels - it gave them the option to play five bowlers and rarely to team playing five bowlers run out of options as a bowling unit in most conditions. None of the English bowlers threatened consistently throughout the series, but as a unit the variety won it for them. Under swinging conditions Anderson and Onions delivered, Flintoff did his bit with bursts of pace, Broad relished on an up and down track, Swann chipped in when it was turning. The variety and balance of their attack made up for their shoddy batting. Can they get away with it without Flintoff? I don't think so. They either opt to have Broad playing at 7 in the 5 bowler theory and with a top order of Strauss, Cook, Bell/Collingwood, Pietersen, and Trott or go in with 4 bowlers with one spinner, Swann. The former makes their batting extremely vulnerable and collapse prone and the latter takes away the USP they have as a cricket team - 5 varied bowlers. Either way it's going to be a struggle for them.

[Chandan]

Thal, you watch a lot of cricket, you are a student of the game. You answer this for me. A side outscores the opposition in terms of centuries 7-1, boasts the three highest wicket takers in the series, while the opposition is saddled with non-performing batsmen from numbers 2-5, having lost their best bat early in the series. Their best bowler averaged 40+ with the ball in Test cricket until a couple of Tests ago and was on the verge of being dropped. And yet, England are about to win the series. You give me a rational explanation of how this is possible.

Andrew Wu, an Australia journalist givs you a reply which might satisfy you: LINK

Australia struck more centuries, scored more runs and took more wickets than England. So how in God's name did it lose the Ashes? During its years of dominance Australia prided itself on winning the key moments but it failed to do so in this series. At its best, Australia was head and shoulders above England. But when it flopped, it did so in spectacular fashion, as shown at Lord's and The Oval. Over the course of the five Tests, Australia dominated two as did England and the honours were shared at Edgbaston. But unlike England, which won the two games it controlled, Australia let its rival off the hook in Cardiff. On that occasion it had 38 overs to capture the final two wickets and 69 balls to get out James Anderson or batting parody Monty Panesar but failed. The statistics were equally baffling. Australia boasted the three leading wicket-takers and six of the top seven leading run-scorers. They scored 2886 runs to England's 2869 and snared 74 wickets to 71. But, as the saying goes, statistics are like bikinis; what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. For example, raw numbers suggest James Anderson (99 runs at 16.5, 12 wickets at 42.83) was comprehensively outplayed by Mitchell Johnson (105 at 21, 20 at 32.55). Anderson, however, helped save one Test, set up England's victory at Lord's and turned the game on its head at Edgbaston. Johnson failed to seize the moment in the opener, bowled horrendously at Lord's and his only positive contribution was applying the finishing touches to Australia's rout at Headingley. One could also mount a case that Paul Collingwood (250 at 27.77), despite just 42 runs in the past three Tests, made a greater contribution than Michael Hussey (276 at 34.5). Hussey's century did not save Australia from defeat at The Oval, whereas Collingwood's 74 at Cardiff did. The hunt for scapegoats is also difficult due to the raft of statistical anomalies. Certainly, Johnson and Phillip Hughes - Australia's heroes from South Africa - failed to meet lofty expectations but none could be blamed for the meek surrenders by the batsmen in London. But all of Australia's top seven - apart from Hughes and Hussey - averaged above 40. So whose fault is it then? In the tradition of coaches and managers being made whipping boys, perhaps it's Andrew Hilditch and his team of selectors. But their only blunder was not picking Stuart Clark at Lord's and sticking with him in the decider. On both occasions they simply showed faith in an attack which had been dominant in the previous Test. Their England counterparts fared better. The decision to pick Jonathan Trott was a masterstroke and their faith in Stuart Broad repaid with the decisive spell of the series. With two such evenly-matched teams, slices of luck made a huge difference. Had it not rained in Cardiff, Australia would have drawn first blood. Ponting won just one coin toss - in the match most affected by rain - when the law of averages say he should have called correctly either two or three times. And who could have foreseen Australia's only two run outs - and to its best two batsmen - of the five Tests to occur in the space of six minutes in the most important innings of the series? The stats say Australia was the better team, but luck was on England's side though that conclusion is horribly inadequate and ungracious. Perhaps it's as simple as this. Australia's best was not enough to win the Ashes but its worst was enough to lose them.

So it is as simple: Australia's best was not enough to win the Ashes but its worst was enough to lose them. Are you satisfied by the answer?

[The Outsider]

BTW,I just recalled that even NZ had them jittery and on the ropes on a green top in Brisbane- yet another collapse where a loss was averted simply because the opposition was so poor.

[Block hole]

'Sacking Ponting would be completely unfair' - Sutherland

James Sutherland, Cricket Australia's chief executive, has said sacking Ricky Ponting from the captaincy would be "completely unfair" and has praised his leadership through the Ashes. Australia lost The Oval Test by 197 runs and conceded their second Ashes defeat to England this decade. "Ricky's had a very, very good series," Sutherland told reporters. "He's been under incredible pressure. I thought the dignity and poise that he showed in defeat was something that all Australians should be very proud of." He also absolved the National Selection Panel (NSP) of responsibility for the defeat in England. One of the talking points in the post-mortem was the omission of the offspinner Nathan Hauritz, which captain Ricky Ponting and coach Tim Nielsen admitted was a blunder. Hauritz's counterpart Graeme Swann proved why a spinner was so essential on that pitch as he picked up eight wickets. Sutherland defended the team management for the final line-up, implying that not all gambles are likely to pay-off. "I think everyone will be looking for people to blame. I don't think that in any way we can hold the selectors accountable for us losing the Ashes," Sutherland said. "At the end of the day, the players go out and do the business on the field. "Only six or seven months ago we had a fantastic series in South Africa where we beat the No. 1 team in the world (2-1 in the Tests) with a pretty similar line-up. The selectors were hailed for their selection, I guess in some ways the perceived risks they took in backing young talent. I think it would be jumping to conclusions to be blaming the selectors for this." Sutherland said it would be unfair to criticise the decision to play a four-pronged pace attack at the expense of Hauritz, while it was clear that Australia effectively lost the game when they conceded a huge first-innings lead of 172. "That's something that the selectors can explain for themselves," Sutherland said. "Whether that had any bearing on the result of the game, who will know? We've lost the game by 200 runs, it's a pretty significant defeat, and having a spinner in the side wouldn't have helped us in the first innings, where we were bowled out for 160 and effectively lost the game." With Australia free-falling to No. 4 in the latest ICC Test rankings, Sutherland admitted that plenty of work had to be done to reinstate their position at the top. "I don't think Cricket Australia is under any illusions as to where this team is at. We're definitely in a re-building phase after losing some of the best players to ever play cricket for Australia, and right now, what you get with a young and relatively inexperienced team is some ebbs and flows in performance. "We saw a little bit of that in the Ashes series. Our best cricket was very, very good, and our not-so-good cricket, in a couple of critical moments, were really the reasons why we let the Ashes slip." Commenting on likely changes to the selection panel, Sutherland said at least one position in the three-man panel, led by Andrew Hilditch, will be converted to a full-time role. "The selection panel is to some extent, professional already. We have in recent times had a review, where we are now moving to a phase of becoming more professional in our approach to selection. It's not just selection, it's a matter of identifying talent and being partners in the development of talent and I think that's part of the review and going forward we'll be moving towards having at least one of the selection panel full time." However, he ruled out the possibility of appointing the captain and coach to the panel, on the lines of what New Zealand Cricket adopted on Sunday. "The captain and the coach are always heavily consulted before matches but the structure that we prefer is for the selectors to be independent and making their own decisions and to be accountable for selection on that basis.

[anbuchelvan]

Yes he is right.Ponting is needed to lose more.

[Block hole]

He is the only Australian captain to win the Champions Trophy.

[Anakin]

For example, raw numbers suggest James Anderson (99 runs at 16.5, 12 wickets at 42.83) was comprehensively outplayed by Mitchell Johnson (105 at 21, 20 at 32.55). Anderson, however, helped save one Test, set up England's victory at Lord's and turned the game on its head at Edgbaston. Johnson failed to seize the moment in the opener, bowled horrendously at Lord's and his only positive contribution was applying the finishing touches to Australia's rout at Headingley.

There you go, yet another example of how futile stats really are and any sort of attempt to make sense of cricket through stats.

[Lord]

Sacking Ponting would be an extreme step,not an unfair one.Ponting has been making stupid mistakes when put under pressure n that cant be tolerated anymore coz he'll be put under pressure more n more

[Block hole]

I still believe that he is the best man available to captain Australia .He got young side, which will get better.