The Curtly Ambrose Cricket Thread

[Aguaman]

We lost so many great players

- Kumar Sangakkara
- Chris Rogers
- Michael Clarke
- Shane Watson and his glorious pads
- Bradley Haddin who Colin Cowherd apparently loved.

[HawkAussie]

In some way, Australia was lucky to scrape with a win against Ireland.

[Aguaman]

First lol Stokes. Spirit of Cricket my arse.

Secondly Watto has retired from Tests. My life is like shattered.

[Aguaman]

Can't wait to see how England deal with Yasir Shah.

[RonDenisDeletraz]

Will be at Adelaide Oval watching the Australia v Pakistan game.

[dinizintheoven]

I am reviving this thread to give my opinions on the horrors that have just unfolded at Trent Bridge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3bl4xaFZMM

None of them received a standing ovation. None of them. None of them.

[Barbazza]

None of them received a standing ovation. None of them. None of them.

Good niche reference there. "Sidebottom, Sidebottom, SSSSSSSidebottom"

[dinizintheoven]

Weirdly, every time I heard a commentator or news reporter saying "England's bowling attack was toothless!" after a limp performance in the field, the image I always had in my head was Ryan Sidebottom bowling an unthreatening 70-something mph delivery that was inevitably clumped for four past a despairing dive in the covers. There were plenty of other bowlers to choose from, at least three other seamers in the same game, but Sidebottom was always the one I'd subconsciously singled out.

Now it's the batting that's the problem; England, in finally learning how to play limited-overs cricket after the 2015 World Cup debacle, have now forgotten how to play Test cricket and seemingly think it's a longer white ball game that has to be done and dusted as soon as possible. There's a time to bat like Boycott, and there's a time to bat like Chris Gayle. This match was the former, and everyone knew that except those who had to do the job.

[RonDenisDeletraz]

Crisis averted.

[dinizintheoven]

According to the TMS commentary, there is a man in the crowd at Edgbaston today who stood to collect winnings of £2,200 "from a very small stake" if 100 runs or more were scored in all three sessions.

The drinks are on him tonight. Croft, Roberts, Garner, Marshall, Walsh, Ambrose these bowlers are most definitely not.

[RonDenisDeletraz]

To be fair, Kemar Roach was a damn good bowler before his shoulder injury. I find the current state of West Indies cricket somewhat depressing.

[dinizintheoven]

On today's evidence they may as well call up Yohan Blake and Fazeer Mohamed for the second Test...

[FortiWinks]

Thought this thread deserves a bump seeing as it is an World Cup & Ashes year.

Despite all the doom and gloom surrounding the Aussie cricket team I think overall it was a decent series against India, I never thought I’d say this when the scoreline of the series reads T20: 1-1, Test: 1-2 & ODI: 1-2 but honestly I expected to be following on often in the Test series.

Also Jhye Richardson has proven even further that he is an absolute gem (not that he needed to frankly because his Shield results speak for themselves).

World Cup wise I’d be thinking of a team something along the lines of this
David Warner
Aaron Finch (c)
Steve Smith
Shaun Marsh
Alex Carey (wk)
Glenn Maxwell
Marcus Stoinis
Pat Cummins
Mitchell Starc
Adam Zampa
Josh Hazlewood

Bench
Nathan Coulter-Nile
Peter Handscomb
Jhye Richardson
D’Arcy Short

Nathan Lyon just didn’t impress me enough during the ODI series to justify a selection in the squad and Short’s pretty good for a part-timer plus we need a little extra aggression in the squad if we’re going to even make the semis.

Despite England going in as favourites for the WC I’m going with a dark horse here and I’ll say that New Zealand are going to win the tournament. Just thinking about the teams: England & South Africa are prone to choking, India don’t have a tail if things go bad, Australia’s only won what, a couple of ODIs in the last three years? Don’t think anyone else is strong enough to even be considered to be honest.

[mario]

Thought this thread deserves a bump seeing as it is an World Cup & Ashes year.

Despite all the doom and gloom surrounding the Aussie cricket team I think overall it was a decent series against India, I never thought I’d say this when the scoreline of the series reads T20: 1-1, Test: 1-2 & ODI: 1-2 but honestly I expected to be following on often in the Test series.

Also Jhye Richardson has proven even further that he is an absolute gem (not that he needed to frankly because his Shield results speak for themselves).

World Cup wise I’d be thinking of a team something along the lines of this
David Warner
Aaron Finch (c)
Steve Smith
Shaun Marsh
Alex Carey (wk)
Glenn Maxwell
Marcus Stoinis
Pat Cummins
Mitchell Starc
Adam Zampa
Josh Hazlewood

Bench
Nathan Coulter-Nile
Peter Handscomb
Jhye Richardson
D’Arcy Short

Nathan Lyon just didn’t impress me enough during the ODI series to justify a selection in the squad and Short’s pretty good for a part-timer plus we need a little extra aggression in the squad if we’re going to even make the semis.

Despite England going in as favourites for the WC I’m going with a dark horse here and I’ll say that New Zealand are going to win the tournament. Just thinking about the teams: England & South Africa are prone to choking, India don’t have a tail if things go bad, Australia’s only won what, a couple of ODIs in the last three years? Don’t think anyone else is strong enough to even be considered to be honest.

Aren't both Warner and Smith having a few elbow problems at the moment though?

[FortiWinks]

Thought this thread deserves a bump seeing as it is an World Cup & Ashes year.

Despite all the doom and gloom surrounding the Aussie cricket team I think overall it was a decent series against India, I never thought I’d say this when the scoreline of the series reads T20: 1-1, Test: 1-2 & ODI: 1-2 but honestly I expected to be following on often in the Test series.

Also Jhye Richardson has proven even further that he is an absolute gem (not that he needed to frankly because his Shield results speak for themselves).

World Cup wise I’d be thinking of a team something along the lines of this
David Warner
Aaron Finch (c)
Steve Smith
Shaun Marsh
Alex Carey (wk)
Glenn Maxwell
Marcus Stoinis
Pat Cummins
Mitchell Starc
Adam Zampa
Josh Hazlewood

Bench
Nathan Coulter-Nile
Peter Handscomb
Jhye Richardson
D’Arcy Short

Nathan Lyon just didn’t impress me enough during the ODI series to justify a selection in the squad and Short’s pretty good for a part-timer plus we need a little extra aggression in the squad if we’re going to even make the semis.

Despite England going in as favourites for the WC I’m going with a dark horse here and I’ll say that New Zealand are going to win the tournament. Just thinking about the teams: England & South Africa are prone to choking, India don’t have a tail if things go bad, Australia’s only won what, a couple of ODIs in the last three years? Don’t think anyone else is strong enough to even be considered to be honest.

Aren't both Warner and Smith having a few elbow problems at the moment though?

Yeah they are currently, so you’ll probably rest them for the first game against Afghanistan but I think they’re meant to be right for the WC

[Aislabie]

Yeah, I reckon there's a real misconception about how one-day batting line-ups should be structured. Too often, there's a lot of thinking that revolves around being a "number five" or a "number eight" which is a bit silly given that a number five could come in as 12 for three with 44 overs left, or 312 for three with 44 overs gone.

More important I think is to look at roles.

In a one-day batting line-up, I think you need five hitters, two accumulators and one firefighter. One of those should be your keeper, and the remaining three players should be specialist bowlers.

Let's look at England as an example:

1. Jonny Bairstow [Hitter]
2. Jason Roy [Hitter]
3. Joe Root [Accumulator]
4. Eoin Morgan [Accumulator]
5. Ben Stokes [Hitter]
6. Jos Buttler [Hitter/Keeper]
7. Moeen Ali [Hitter]
8. Chris Woakes [Firefighter]
9. Adil Rashid
10. David Willey
11. Jofra Archer

The fact that so many of their batsmen can bowl so well, and that so many of their bowlers can bat so well, is a huge advantage. It's also one that distracts people from the fundamental structure of the team. Also, just because I've listed them in that order doesn't mean that they'll always bat in that order. Sometimes they may need to promote one of their hitters, for instance, and that's when Jos Buttler bats at four.

Let's use the same approach for the Australian team:

1. David Warner [Hitter] (D'Arcy Short until he's unbanned)
2. Aaron Finch [Hitter]
3. Shaun Marsh [Accumulator]
4. Steven Smith [Accumulator] (Usman Khawaja until he's unbanned)
5. Mitchell Marsh [Hitter]
6. Marcus Stoinis [Hitter]
7. Glenn Maxwell [Hitter]
8. Alex Carey [Firefighter/Keeper]
9. Jhye Richardson
10. Mitchell Starc
11. Adam Zampa

It looks stronger, does it not?

Just for shits and giggles, let's do the same with the Irish side.

1. Paul Stirling [Hitter]
2. James Shannon [Hitter]
3. Will Porterfield [Accumulator]
4. Andy Balbirnie [Accumulator]
5. Kevin O'Brien [Hitter]
6. Simi Singh [Hitter]
7. Lorcan Tucker [Hitter/Keeper]
8. George Dockrell [Firefighter]
9. Barry McCarthy
10. Jacob Mulder
11. Boyd Rankin

Actually yes, that does look like a much better Ireland side.

[FortiWinks]

Very interesting idea there Aislabie and I like it a lot but the strength of the Aussie cricket team over the past few years has been their quicks and I just wonder whether Jhye and both Mitches could do the job alone to be honest.

Hazlewood is underrated as a ODI bowler (currently the best ranked Aussie bowler in the ICC rankings) so I don’t really want to lose him from the setup.