shane warne! one of the greatest victorians to ever be a victorian! you don't know what its like to be a victorian tony greig, the pressure, he's a hero shane warne, sorry big merv but he is, show some respect! HE JUST WON YOU THE FUCKING GAME!! YOU SHOULD BE PUTTING HIM ON YOUR SHOULDERS!!! WARNEY!!! WARNEY!!!

wow i never thought id find so much non-ashes shite as i did when i opened this thread lol....

i feel that if pietersen and flintoff fire up for this then england are a good chance to steal this again.

i said last time before the ashes that pietersen will get his deserved place in the test team and that england will win. i was right despite the people who thought i was joking.

although this time round im not sure, it could be close....

yeah, should be good.

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**Man I'm Pretty**

here you guys are quibbling about sport.

Melbourne is all about sport. Who cares what it is? If the Aussies are involved whop gives a shit lets ride that bandwagon!!!



(oh btw MCC memeber so there everyday!!!!)

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Man who paint toilet not necessarily shithouse painter.

quote:

Originally posted by Dr P (oh btw MCC memeber so there everyday!!!!)

yeah, kinda pissed that i chucked in my Adelaide Oval membership 2 years back

Seemed like a good way of freeing up money at the time

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**Man I'm Pretty**

yeah its lots of $$$$ but when you get to see a GF like the other week for "free" it becomes worth it

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Man who paint toilet not necessarily shithouse painter.

areet matt I'm still about, just found this thread.

News from our end (me & TN Have been discussing from time to time


Flintoff fit enough to bat, not sure on bowling yet. ICC Trophy will give us an indication. If he's gonna bowl in the ashes he will in that, we await news on it.

Pietersen is great but keeps getting stupid injuries like penis cramps or diahroea or something, never seen anyone need so much physio, he must be out of shape.

Key new players

Bell: Has matured significantly since last ashes. good tours of pakistan & india began his education & he's carried it on this last summer too with lots of big scores & confidence.

Panesar: What's not to love, he's ashley giles with bowling ability. can't really field & will get stick for that (and hopefully not the fact he's a sikh) but as a bowler he's very good, has troubled great players such as tendulkar, sehwag, younis khan & mohammed youssuf. Batting is erratic but he may develop into a useful hitter eventually. Cult hero already.

Cook: With Vaughan injured indefinitely, cook came in last winter & played some pivotal knocks. Still a bit dodgy fielding-wise, he's learning all the time & is a handy top order batsman

Mahmood: Donkey, cant do much but he's fast & usually beams you at least twice an innings. Has pace but lacks control. Imagine brett lee with tourettes during his run-up.

Plunkett: More of a choice than Mahmood but got injured late in the summer. Has a fair amount of pace, but more control. Bowls bad spells, then has sublime ones. Needs time to learn, he's only 20/21 & definitely the future of our bowling with hoggard, harmison both getting nearly 30.

Read: Rod Marsh' favourite english player. Tiny guy with huge heart. Battles hard & never got a good go last time, finally got called into the team. Best keeper in england, natural. good with bat, esp explosive innings and maturing lots more now.

the rest will be ODI players barring injuries. Not sure on freddie as captain though, i think it's too much for him, esp as he's just had his ankle operation & a followup minor surgery.

We're gonna miss Jones, he did his ankle in the 4th test last year & hasn't played since He's hoping to make the world cup but it's touch & go

Anyway. tickets went shit quick didn't they, weird cricket australia tactics, my dad missed out on adelaide ones, so he's going to the world cup in barbados instead, but he won't pay for me, bastard

yeah, i don't think Freddie should have been made captain.

I've said somewhere else that his load is just too great being an allrounder and now captain, and from what people (English) have said he's not a good bowler manager, he'd be likely to try to bowl 40 overs a day himself and underutilise the spinners.

I find it funny that Mitchell Johnson is absolutely carted all over the place by the New Zealanders not even a year ago, but then he plays one good match in the DLF Cup and all of a sudden he's the next big thing. I am not convinced by him at all, he's gonna have to put in more consistently good performances in ODI's before I even suggest he earns half the praise he's gotten recently, and thats before he gets tried in a test. For the third bowler for us, I really think Clark is it at the moment, but then again I don't think he's 'there' either.

I reckon they need a rethink on Dizzy Gillespie, he has had a haircut and has returned better than he left. I said at the time that it was the dropping he had to have, he didn't look at all good for about 6 months before England, not as quick nor as much movement as we had seen earlier. Since he's come back though he has been moving the ball a lot more, which is great to see. He also seems to be more passionate about his cricket, he was back to his fearsome best last year in the state competition here and has also done very well in the Englsh county comps. Lets not forget a very good bowling effort and a 200 in his last test, true it was against the Bangers but it was still better than anyone else in the team.

Although, I don't think he'll come back in. And it'd be a big risk to do it. The third bowler is a problem for us I think. Tait would be interesting to look at, would love to see him in and scaring some batsmen but he's still injured from last year, still can't throw properly. Bracken maybe? He seems to be developing into the potential he's always shown.

Warney will go around again obviously, but who will be his partner in Sydney? MacGill is still the number 2 spinner in Aus, but will the selectors go for a risk and bring in Dan Cullen or Cullen Bailey? Dan (left arm off) and Cullen (left arm leg) are two promising young spinners, Dan has been touted as the next big thing post-Warne, but in the 'A' series a few months back in my opinion Bailey out bowled him. Having said that, MacGill needs to play for sure - depending on the pitch maybe in Adelaide too.

I also wish the selectors would get off the allrounder bandwagon. 7 batsmen and 4 bowlers with a couple of part timers is all we need. An allrounder should be selected on one of their trades alone, and you gotta say Watson is not a test batsman nor a test bowler. And Symonds is not a test player either. I don't know what it is about him, but I just don't lik ehim in the test team. That and I reckon his bowling is only a bit better than a part timer. Between Warne and Lee I think they can account for the batting of an allrounder, they're no muppets with the bat.

My Aussie test team:
Langer
Hayden
Ponting
Questionable (Martyn or maybe Jacques? Wouldn't mind seeing him get given a shot in the middle order)
Questionable (Give Clarke a few more years to mature, dunno who else though)
Hussey
Gilchrist
Warne
Lee
Clark
McGrath

If they have to play an allrounder, move Hussey to 5 and slide Watson or Symonds in at 6





That spinner Monty looks like he might be a bit of alright, probably wouldn't give our boys too much grief but you never know, he should do better than the King of Spain.

And maybe your selectors do have a clue, finally cutting Calamity Jones for Chris Read. For all the talk about Jones' batting he wasn't that flash, and you gotta have your best gloveman as a first priority.

Its a real shame that Vaughan won't be back in time, hopefully he does make it back at some time though, it would be a sorry tale if this ends his career. He's a class player and captain, doesn't deserve to go out with injury.

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**Man I'm Pretty**

Last edited by Trance Nutter on Oct-14-2006 at 06:08

mcgill is shit.

warnie told me so

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Man who paint toilet not necessarily shithouse painter.

Ben, there's a big chance Vaughan will never play again, which is sad, his approach as captain took us from the workman-like days of Hussain (which was an improvement on stewart & atherton) to a flamboyant & scientific approach. Freddie as you said tends to overbowl himself, and I hope that we don't let him do so. Trescothick has been ill a fair bit in the last year, he's been totally out of sorts for him, he caught a nasty bug in india which he flew home with & took him months to rid properly.

I'm interested in your words on Panesar, I think he may just surprise you a bit, it depends if you get stuck into him from the off to knock his confidence, i've been impressed with him.

We do have a secret weapon however... "Englishman" Stuart Law he's been giving us some information on the conditions, players etc

Before that however, we have the ICC trophy. Just watching WI vs Sri Lanka, where Maharoof has just taken 6-14


And in other aus-eng news, my county have signed James Hopes as our 2nd overseas player for next season, alongside Travis Birt. Any info on him ?

hehe, a bit of that post was copy/pasted from the thread in UKTA, so some of it (Panesar) is a little out of date. Having seen a bit more of him I think he will be competitive here, but I still don't think he will break a game open. I like the look of him but theres few spinners who really trouble the Australians in Australia.

Hopes was tried in several ODI's in the last year. I think he has potential but he didn't really show it. More of a bowling allrounder, still has a bit to learn. He could thrive in counties though.

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**Man I'm Pretty**

quote:

Originally posted by Trance Nutter I said at the time that it was the dropping he had to have....

Dude, you sound like Paul Keating