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A black (cap) day for Australian cricket
By Scott last year, mid-February Leave a comment on this post
The scoreboard tells the story.
It must be twenty years since I’ve seen such a poor performance by an Australian side; they were second best for the entire game. This was a woeful display, lacking in any of the traditional Australian virtues of discipline, enterprise and initative.
There’s no doubt that New Zealand played very well, and they would have won against better sides then this. Shane Bond was an absolute menace, and the wicket was difficult for the batsmen. New Zealand’s openers had a lot of play and miss in the first half of their innings. But once they were settled, Fleming and Vincent had no trouble picking off the runs.
There was one particular standout moment of the day, which was Bond’s caught and bowled off Cameron White. One of the best catches I’ve ever seen.
The only thing that went wrong for New Zealand was Jacob Oram, who broke his finger while catching Mitchell Johnson in the deep.
Australia look gone to me. The injury list is bad, the confidence is shot, and there is not much time to turn things around.
Tags: australia, chappell-hadlee-series, jacob-oram, lou-vincent, new-zealand, shane-bond, stephen-fleming, woeful |
10 Responses to “A black (cap) day for Australian cricket”
February 16th, 2007 at 4.25 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 8.09 pm
Amazingly quick descent into mediocrity by the Aussies - don’t they do everything in style? 
Does the slide date purely and simply to the loss of Symonds?
The whole confidence/winning-mentality thing is certainly not something to be trifled with. Unfortunately for the best players, it seems to me that you need them to be always present and always imposing themselves. Because the gap between the teams is actually not that great.
Fascinating to see if Australia can drag themselves out of this mess somehow. There is the possibility of regaining some momentum in the World Cup but it looks like they’ll need to do it on the back of some youngsters - so it’s a less than likely prospect.
February 16th, 2007 at 11.44 pm
Aussie cricket has great depth?? These backup players were out of their depth. Did Aussie cricket drown in Wellington?
February 16th, 2007 at 11.53 pm
Watch them win the World Cup.
February 17th, 2007 at 12.20 am
That’s a real shame about Oram, even if you’re not a Kiwi.
So who is going to win the World Cup? It looks amazingly open right now. South Africa must fancy their chances, and India too if they get anything like an even break with the pitches. But I still wouldn’t bet against the Ozzies winning the remaining games in this mini-series, they must be steaming mad at two such inept displays in succession.
February 18th, 2007 at 1.15 am
Well, Hussey has just scored 105 in the 2nd Test. Amazing ascent out of mediocrity, SpryCorpse :-)! and everyone else is pulling their weight, except Jacques. Aussies don’t give in that easily, you know.
February 18th, 2007 at 1.30 am
I don’t think I mentioned anything about giving up, Fiona. You only had to witness the Aussies in 2005 to see how hard they played even when being generally outplayed. I was just amazed at how quickly they went from world-beating form to shite form this time.
But, yes, this is a great turnaround and a great effort so far. If they can keep it up, they still might be able to keep the South Africans away from outright world number one for a bit longer!
Good to see the Vics making a solid contribution as well.
February 18th, 2007 at 1.50 am
sorry, Sprycorpse, I wan’t making that comment in relation to yours but the ones I had just read in a few Bnglish papers, talking about mortal blows and Australia being in crisis, to which the NZ coach said in response “you’d need a sledgehammer and a nuclear bomb to knock the Aussies confidence”. I think Kiwis understand the Aussie psychology better that the English.
but it’s a strange thing the way the Australian team have these complete collapses every now and then, before coming back in a big fashion. It’s all or nothing for them, it seems.
February 18th, 2007 at 5.51 am
No worries, Fiona. Here’s to the Aussies charging undefeated through the whole World Cup!
But it looks like the Kiwis have chased down this total today. The batting has revived. Now the bowling needs to pick up another gear.
The S.Africans look like they’ll be number one in the world all on their lonesomes shortly.
As I’m typing the Kiwis lose McCullum. If they can get another couple quickly, you never know.
But I’d prefer to be in NZ’s position.
February 18th, 2007 at 6.07 am
Make that McMillan, not McCullum.
Anyway, it’s game over.
NZ certainly know how to chase.
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