CA forced me to play T20: Hussey

[vvvslaxman]

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,27842722-23212,00.html Loss to India puts pressure on Australia selectors to make changes By Will Swanton October 06, 2010 Fresh and serious question marks have arisen over Australia's Ashes campaign after the devastating one-wicket loss to India in the first Test in Mohali. Nathan Hauritz's standing as the No. 1 spinner and the meagre contributions of middle order batsmen Mike Hussey and Marcus North are the screaming headaches. "There's no doubt we're all bitterly disappointed with the result," Australia captain Ricky Ponting said. "The dressing room is obviously very quiet at the moment but we have to bounce back from this. "It's a game we should have won. They were eight down with 80 runs to get. It's no good hiding from it, this hurts all of us." Ponting declined to bowl Hauritz, trying to fend off leg-spinner Steve Smith's push for a permanent place in the Test XI, in the dying stages. Ponting instead threw the ball to part-timer Marcus North, without success. "I was trying something different," Ponting said of preferring North. "He is in really good control of his game as far as his spinning is concerned. "Nathan today probably just leaked a few too many runs and at a stage where we needed to go back to some spin, we couldn't really afford to leak any more runs." Hussey, the veteran whose preparations were just as rushed as Bollinger, made 17 and 28. North contributed 0 and 10. Ponting has immense faith in both but they need to make major contributions at Bangalore to cement their Ashes berths. Hauritz finished the match with 2-161. Australia's batting disaster in the second innings, losing 10 wickets for just 105 runs to be skittled for 192, was glossed over by the tight finish in one of the great Tests. Paceman Doug Bollinger, entering the Test on a shoddy preparation because of Twenty20 commitments in South Africa, has broken down with an abdominal injury and is in doubt for the second Test, starting at Bangalore on Saturday. "It hurt us," Ponting said of the speedster's absence after lunch yesterday. "Bowling at the tail, you need those strike options. I wanted him to bowl. "I went to grab his hat off him and he felt he had some pain in one of his abdominals. "Being a fast bowler, and having that sort of injury, I told him to get off the ground and have it looked at. "His preparation probably didn't help. He probably hasn't had the overs under his belt coming over here that some of the other blokes had." With India needing six runs to win late in the day and one wicket left, Mitchell Johnson had India's No. 11 Pradyan Ojha plum lbw but umpire Billy Bowden turned down the appeal. Smith, on the field as 12th man to replace Bollinger, attempted a run-out amid the chaos. The ball narrowly missed the stumps and went for four overthrows. "You feel sorry for Smithy, a young bloke always looking for positive ways to win a game," Ponting said. "The boys are saying if he'd hit the stumps with that throw it would have been game over. "That's what we expect from our guys, that when there's half a chance, they want to take it. There's no blame at all on Smithy.

[Desi Cartman]

No, he is blaming him for not bowling enough.

[Manny_Pacquiao]

i am surprised plonking didn't try michael clarke. he is a tricky bowler with his flat, in-coming deliveries from wide of the crease. plonking probably had a brain fart and confused india with that talented bowling sh1thouse Fail-istan across the border, who gave 6 wickets to Marcus north and made him look like the new shane warne... oh, and its great to see them mentioning ojha's lbw but ignoring ishant's lbw

[fineleg]

Lets face it. There needs to some decent rest period between championships and Test series. MS Dhoni is jaded, and not at his best. The focus, sharpness, physical agility is lower. You do need to rest for body, and rest for mind to refocus for an important Test series. Champions leauge CSK fellas (Ind and Aus) no doubt have some effect of CL hangover for Test-1.

[Sachinism]

Surprised bout Clarke as well. Left arm spinner on a turning track would be difficult

[saneindian]

Lets face it. There needs to some decent rest period between championships and Test series. MS Dhoni is jaded, and not at his best. The focus, sharpness, physical agility is lower. You do need to rest for body, and rest for mind to refocus for an important Test series. Champions leauge CSK fellas (Ind and Aus) no doubt have some effect of CL hangover for Test-1.

Beat this. We will have exactly a 5 day gap between the 5th ODI vs NZ and start of the 1st test in SA. Include travel and other formalities and the team will not have more than 2 days of acclamatisation in SA!!

[fineleg]

Beat this. We will have exactly a 5 day gap between the 5th ODI vs NZ and start of the 1st test in SA. Include travel and other formalities and the team will not have more than 2 days of acclamatisation in SA!!

I'd say play a mostly second string against NZ for ODIs. Give all our domestic frontrunners (batting, bowling) a chance. We need to see players for picking squad for WC2011 anyway. Certainly rest MSD, SRT (will opt out), ZK, HS, IS, Sreesanth, Sehwag (and perhaps play Raina for only 2 ODIs out of 5). Play our virtual second string team - the Chawlas, Rahanes, Pujaras, Mukunds, Ashwin, Unadkat, Dhawal Kulkarni etc. But then BCCI? Who knows what they'll do?

[saneindian]

I'd say play a mostly second string against NZ for ODIs. Give all our domestic frontrunners (batting, bowling) a chance. We need to see players for picking squad for WC2011 anyway. Certainly rest MSD, SRT (will opt out), ZK, HS, IS, Sreesanth, Sehwag (and perhaps play Raina for only 2 ODIs out of 5). Play our virtual second string team - the Chawlas, Rahanes, Pujaras, Mukunds, Ashwin, Unadkat, Dhawal Kulkarni etc. But then BCCI? Who knows what they'll do?

Neo will cry foul and BCCI will oblige by having Sachin, Sehwag, Gambhir, Raina, Dhoni, Bhajji, Ishant, Zak and Sree for all 5 ODIs. On a serious note, best would be to pick the best team for 1st 3 ODIs, win all 3 and the series and then pick a second string side for the remaining 2 matches. The test team , this way will have additional 4-5 days in SA and can even have a 3 day practice match.

[thevortex]

Ponting just never has been a very good captain. Michael Clarke was an option begging to be used. Even Katich with some chinamans would have been the thing to try against somebody like Ishant. Plus I think he tried North and Watson at the wrong time. If at all he wanted to try them, it should have been earlier. Not as late as when India needed just 30 odd runs.

[ravishingravi]

I'd say play a mostly second string against NZ for ODIs. Give all our domestic frontrunners (batting, bowling) a chance. We need to see players for picking squad for WC2011 anyway. Certainly rest MSD, SRT (will opt out), ZK, HS, IS, Sreesanth, Sehwag (and perhaps play Raina for only 2 ODIs out of 5). Play our virtual second string team - the Chawlas, Rahanes, Pujaras, Mukunds, Ashwin, Unadkat, Dhawal Kulkarni etc. But then BCCI? Who knows what they'll do?

Second this.

[vamos_rafa]

CA forced me to play T20: Hussey

MICHAEL Hussey has hit out at Cricket Australia for demanding he play for Chennai in the Champions League Twenty20 ahead of the first Test against India. Hussey pleaded with CA to be excused from last month's tournament in South Africa in order to prepare for the first Test in Mohali, but was ordered to play. Hussey and teammate Doug Bollinger both played for the Indian franchise, helping it to win the title, but arrived in India late and had just two days to prepare for the first Test, which Australia lost by one wicket on Tuesday. Advertisement: Story continues below The top-order batsman struggled in his first innings, while paceman Bollinger received an abdominal injury that kept him sidelined for the final session of the Test and is in doubt for the second Test, which starts in Bangalore tomorrow. CA holds a 25 per cent stake in the Champions League Twenty20 and therefore has vested interests in making available its players for the $6 million tournament. But questions must now be asked as to whether players required for clashing Test matches should be spared. ''I spoke a lot to Cricket Australia about it but the decision was that their players were going to be available for the Twenty20 campaign, so there was nothing I could really do about it,'' Hussey said. ''I just had to grin and bear it really, get here as quick as I possibly could after the final and just prepare as well as I can. ''I put my case forward, but they'd made their decision and I just had to go along with it, really. I'm contracted to CA, so it's their call … I made my mind up I've just got to get on with it.'' ''I basically got over it as quick as I could and tried to concentrate on playing as well as I could for Chennai and then try to prepare and play well for Australia.'' Hussey, a player representative for the Australian Cricketers Association, said he would address the matter with CA chief executive James Sutherland and operations manager Michael Brown upon his return from India. ''Scheduling is something, from an ACA perspective, we've been talking about a lot to CA, and it's getting harder and harder with more and more cricket being played all the time,'' he said. ''And there are players who want to be involved in all three formats of the game, of which I am one. You just know it's going to be tough, and you've got to try to do the best you can. ''But certainly when the time is right I will sit down with James Sutherland and Michael Brown and go through how I felt and maybe things we could do better next time.'' Hussey struggled to find rhythm in the first innings of the Mohali Test, making 17 from 76 balls. He made 28 in the second dig. ''I must admit I found it tough, particularly on that first day I definitely battled, but once you make yourself available for a Test there are no excuses,'' he said. ''I worked really hard on getting used to the Indian conditions again and [tried] to get as much rehab and recovery, but certainly I was disappointed with the first innings and the way I played. It was tough work.'' Hussey stopped short of saying Bollinger's injury was related to the Champions League tournament. ''It was a real shame, because he'd bowled beautifully throughout the Test match. There was always going to be questions marks over how he was going to go, coming from Twenty20 into playing a Test match, and he bowled beautifully. ''He charged in really well on a pretty unresponsive pitch … he got us key wickets at key times and he's a class act. Just to lose him at that critical time was really disappointing. I don't know whether you can argue that just because he played in a Twenty20 he got injured in this game, but certainly it was a big loss for us.''

[coffee_rules]

Au(Si)ssies are out with excuses. Even we had some of the team arrive late.

[kabira]

^half of team arrive late Dravid, Dhoni, Raina must have came late Plus Sachin, Zaheer, Bhajji also coming in late. thats 6 out of 11

[EnterTheVoid]

Hussey pleaded with CA to be excused from last month's tournament in South Africa in order to prepare for the first Test in Mohali, but was ordered to play.

This is the real issue, being forced to play this useless tournament out of fear of upsetting the franchise owners and all.

[vamos_rafa]

This is the real issue' date=' being forced to play this useless tournament out of fear of upsetting the franchise owners and all.[/quote'] But don't you think that a board should not be too bothered about upsetting a franchise owner??

[EnterTheVoid]

But don't you think that a board should not be too bothered about upsetting a franchise owner??

Except that he's LEGALLY contracted to play. I'd rather have players like him say no to these stupid leagues so that such competitions get devalued and would stop copycat tournaments from popping up. CLT20, IPL, who gives a ****. Is winning the CLT20 going to cement his position for the Ashes ?

[Chandan]

India really needs a Players Associations so that at least proper scheduling can be forced upon BCCI.

[vamos_rafa]

Except that he's LEGALLY contracted to play. I'd rather have players like him say no to these stupid leagues so that such competitions get devalued and would stop copycat tournaments from popping up. CLT20, IPL, who gives a ****. Is winning the CLT20 going to cement his position for the Ashes ?

But again its the player in concern who is legally bound . I don't understand the board pressurizing the player to participate in such a tourney. I think last year it was the SL players who refused to go to England so that they could participate in IPL and listening to that news made sense as they could earn a few bucks. But personally,what Hussey has said seems to be a bit baffling to me.

[EnterTheVoid]

But again its the player in concern who is legally bound . I don't understand the board pressurizing the player to participate in such a tourney. I think last year it was the SL players who refused to go to England so that they could participate in IPL and listening to that news made sense as they could earn a few bucks. But personally,what Hussey has said seems to be a bit baffling to me.

End of the day, the board pressurizing him to play this hit/giggle excuse of a tournament just before an important series is just sad. More interesting would be to note how many cricketers raised the same concern as Hussey but were told to just shut and play.

[yoda]

Well as an Indian and :csk: fan, the best thing happened. He helped us win the CL T20 and choked against us in the test. Way to go Hussey. :two_thumbs_up: Now is it just me or is he trying to justify his piss poor performance by blaming the CL? Didn't seem to bother Raina and it is not like he was injured playing CL.