Nobody’s happy about that fact, but we might as well get used to it because when he shuts that toolish mouth and plays cricket, he can score some runs.
Diversity
One thing we really like about this Australian team is that it’s a lesson to everyone on the importance of having diversity within your team. Australian wickets tend to herald change, whereas an incoming England batsman is typically ‘much like the last guy, only more so’.
You need to mix things up. If blocking and leaving isn’t a valid strategy, England tend to gradually move towards ‘really, really blocking and leaving’. In contrast, Australia have one opener trying to split the leather every chance he gets and another who basically just likes standing at the non-striker’s end.
Sometimes obduracy is the better approach. Sometimes giddy pummelling is the way to go. Australia’s opening partnership is almost like a fact-finding mission, allowing the rest of the team to gather information on how they should approach things. Whichever opener’s out first, do the opposite.
The perfect team
Good sides are rarely one-dimensional. That goes for batting and bowling. The perfect cricket team would be a sickly mélange of top chaps and bell ends of all shapes and sizes, boasting a troubling array of mental health problems and physical abnormalities. It would be like a cross between the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons and my local pub on days when a herd of idiots decide to stop in after the football.
He’s a Test Match pinch-hitter. It’s amazing it has taken this long for that to become a thing.
Well, Sehwag started the way. Long live the Warners and Sehwags of this world.
For so long I’ve been expecting Dave to be found out in Tests as the T20 biffer he is. Turns out he’s reinvented Tests to suit him. Or at least things seem to be heading that way. If he can do it in the 1st innings again, well then…
His approach isn’t really so different from Virender Sehwag’s. It’s nothing new.
spot on KP/KC!
Warner’s game plan is a clone of Sehwahs style of play; see ball, hit ball.
V-Slog & Warnedawg were team mates in the IPL, Sehwag was very optimistic that Warner’s slam-bang-thank-you-m’am game could work in test matches as well as the shorter forms of the game.
p.s. I’m an Aussie supporter, but still think Warner is a dick off the field.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia-v-new-zealand-2011/content/story/542902.html
He’s good, but still a bell end. It’s given me some empathy for English fans that complain about KC – as an outsider I couldn’t see what the fuss is about but as someone who loves my cricket team it makes me feel… unclean by association.
Oh dear, I meant KP. Apologies your majesty, I have a few things on my mind at the moment.
I am an English fan and I complain about KC constantly. Come on KC. Sort. It. Out.
No.
yeah, he’s good. it’s a pain, but like you say, we may as well get used to it. (until such time as he gets dropped again for conduct issues: common sense would suggest that’s a matter of “when” rather than “if”)
speaking of getting used to things we can’t change, those new cricinfo scorecards really offend my eyes. i’m not big on change either, especially when it arrives with no bastard warning 🙁
What’s a bastard warning?
when a one-night stand phones you up a few months later to say… oh never mind
Almost as weird is that Steve Smith seems to have turned into a really good batsman. It really isnt easy to admit this sort of thing.