Yikes!! Can this be the end!!

I'm with you. It don't look good.

Doubtless the anti-Waugh crowd will use today for all kinds of nauseous gloating.

I don't think Waugh can be held responsible for a batting collapse.

I rushed down to the cricket after tea yesterday in the hope that Gilchrest would do something special. All I saw was five Australian wickets fall. I think this innings shows how dependent the Australian batting is on Hayden and Ponting. When both fail, Australia do rather poorly. I think some of the other players have really hung off thier coat tails for three years now. It must definitely be easier to score when either Ponting or Hayden are flaying the attack -putting them opff line and length- at the other end.
I think that Waugh himslef has been in decline for the last three years because his game is based mainly on pushing for ones and twos off the pads and with age he has slowed down. I think that massively inflated batting averages off poor attacks do not change this a great deal. Other than the cover drive -off front and back foot- he has not got that many four options.

No fair-minded person would blame Waugh, but there are no shortage of folk who are orgasmically happy to have Waugh carry the can for any negative event that happens to Australian cricket when Waugh is within a thousand kilometres.

Even if he is outside the 1000 k range, it's still his fault because he should have been there.

If nothing disastrous happens, he is blamed for some calamity which might have happened but didn't.

Gilchrist should be exempt from criticism simply because he played as he always does, and you don't knock a guy who averages 60, no matter how helter-skelter his methods. But as a team, Australia seem to have forgotten the art of grinding out a result. In their effort to shine like the sun, day in and day out, they will have to face the occasional total eclipse.

Gung-ho batting cost them the Kolkata Test in 2001, and from what transpired today, no lessons have been learnt. Sometimes, it pays to lie back on the ropes and absorb a few blows like Muhammad Ali did in his prime, rather than try to bring down tall buildings with every punch like Joe Frazier did. Hollywood or bust has been Australia's mantra in recent seasons, but instead of bright city lights, all they'll be staring at tonight will be desert darkness.

Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden Cricinfo.

No need to panic, but the pop gun attack should wear more of the blame than the batting. 4/80 something and they make 500. Not good enough.

I don't have the answers, but I didn't see the answer in the attack selected for this match...

Both the batting and the bowling have fallen short for long periods in this match. Katich played a good first innings knock but in the second he showed he hasn't a clue about batting with the tail. Hayden seems a bit full of himself at the mo, although he's snapped out of that in pretty quick order before, Martyn won't ever be better than handy, and these days Waugh is batting like Jackson Browne (running on empty) and although his innings yesterday showed he still has heart for the battle, these days he ain't got a lot besides.

The bowling is probably worse but less of a worry medium-term because presumably McGrath and Warne will come back and stay round for a couple more years. Lee has to come back, but rushing him back so soon with such dodgy form isn't a good look. MacGill has to go but probably won't, and if this series is gone (ie we lose both here and Melbourne) I'd almost rather see a potentially resurgent Tendulkar, VVS and Dravid carve up the thoroughly expendable MacDill than a longer-term prospect like White or Hauritz (although the last spin bowler Australia threw to the wolves that way seemed to survive the experience OK).

I think people need a bit of patience with the bowling. McGrath was not a match winner from his second test onwards - nor Warne.

And long term there are still plenty of possibilities. Nofke, Rofe, Inness to name a few.

I agree with your assessment of Martyn and Waugh, Fred. I was wondering the other day, has Martyn actually scored a century @ 4.

no he hasn't powwow - according to the abc yesterday...that said he has still done well

we need to acknowledge that we have been outplayed in all facets of the game in this test

I don't think we were out-played when we scored 556 in the first innings, nor when India were 4-80.

Martyn has been at four for awhile. I realise he has a few 90s to his name.

Do you think Punter will insist on having Lehmann at four in Sri Lanka and India?

No but from 4-80 onwards the Indians have kicked our ass up one side of the street and back down the other. We have been very, very ordinary.

Has Martyn ever performed when needed or merely scored centuries when he comes in at 4/350?

I think you can cope with two great batsmen batting well, but letting Aquacker take 6-50 is really depressing.

Martyn played an excellent innings in NZ in 2000 going in at 4-25 (soon to be 5-not many more) and starting a partnership with Gilly which brought Aust back in the match. He also played very well in tough conditions in the first innings of his last Test before he was dropped in 94.

But neither of those were all that recent.

what about Adelaide (? last year) when he and Langer steered us to victory when everyone else failed?

shame Gilly dropped Dravid on 9

57.6 MacGill to Laxman, FOUR, short, long hop, cuts away 3 fours in 4
balls
57.5 MacGill to Laxman, no run, drives to mid on
57.4 MacGill to Laxman, FOUR, forced off the pads, less than fifty
needed now
57.3 MacGill to Laxman, FOUR, short, cuts away, India needs 53

says it all really

pieman

you, big dog and I cut and pasted the same sequence (bd and i on C4)..not so much great minds thinking alike but sorrowful hearts weeping alike

I can't wait to see the last of the great galoot

We cannot blame Waugh for this - the entire team culture is at fault, and although that has partly been built by Waugh, it is also a result of the enormous success we have had.

"Bullies" is a harsh term, but not entirely inappropriate. It is easy to be hard when everyone is weaker than you. Now they have to learn how to be hard on themselves, and develop strength for the real fight - when things are equal.

beaten by a better team who were captained well...our loss (in adelaide and the last semblances of team morale and koala authority) started with the marto run out sacrifice in brisbane...our team played as a side and not as a team...in short like a pack of collective koalas

Bit harsh horrie.

No-one really hung around with Ponting in the first innings and the batting in the second innings seemed to be self-centered - certainly the tail -inc. Katich- were going for glory rather than knocking it around trying to eek out a few extra runs.

Macgill didn't move when a catch was on, and didn't seem to dissappointed afterwards.

All this however, could just be a one off or a bad day rather than an innate problem - MacGill aside.

'No fair-minded person would blame Waugh, but there are no shortage of folk who are orgasmically happy to have Waugh carry the can for any negative event that happens to Australian cricket when Waugh is within a thousand kilometres.

-- Fred Nerk (bjhaus200...), December 16th, 2003.'

.....then along came Horrie!

teehee@freddie....could not let your post of yesterday pass without a proverbial response...

'...the batting in the second innings seemed to be self-centered - certainly the tail -inc. Katich- were going for glory rather than knocking it around trying to eek out a few extra runs.'

Yeah...if only it had been that selfish scumbag Waugh batting with the tail, eh?

<>

not good enough to hang on that long now...waugh used to farm the strike to the tail...

― horace, Wednesday, 17 December 2003 00:58 (twenty-two years ago)

...who'd then produce a hell of a lot more than 13 runs for the last five wickets, PER PARTNERSHIP, and in the process learn how to bat so we didn't really have a tail at all.

:o) @ "Berger" horace