Australia’s batting is remarkably poor

Again fell to another world class attack the minute they came under pressure. Shamar Joseph put them under pressure and they folded and so did bumrah and again they fell. Their soft underbelly never went away. Overrated Steve Smith again fell to the full ball coming in, a delivery I knew would get him and have expressed on this site numerous times. He could never average 30 in the era of wambrose, waqar and waz and McGrath.

In reply to Jumpstart

If these are the two top teams what it proves is how wide the gap is with this generation of test players versus the batters of the golden era up to the end of the 1990's.

For context, when the greatest legends of WI played in these same pitches during the many series of the 80's decade, the Aussies batters did come out second but they fought on every occasion, when WI batters face the Aussie fast bowlers- who were much more vastly superior to these modern day bowlers of the Indian and Australian modern day teams, in these same pitches, they consistently scored over 300 runs.

We have been living in an era where test cricket is at it lowest ebb in terms of the skill set of the modern day players, yet we still have exciting matches.

But there have been no greats cricketers- both batters and bowlers since the beginning of this century.

In reply to Emir



I beg to differ, same venue different pitches.




I beg to differ, Kane Williamson is a great in any era by any definition.
I beg to differ, Lara and Tendulkar among other greats played in this century.


Two things we must be careful of when we compare eras:

1. Recency bias
2. Romanticizing the elders.

In reply to Emir


can you imagine these dudes on a 1984 perth wicket? murder

In reply to JoeGrine


lara and tendulkar's foundation is the 1980s. both made their debut's against attacks that were great in the 80s(imran, wasim, waqar). they and steve waugh were the last generation of 80s player who made it into the 2000s.


i'm not saying that is not a possibility, but the standards in most sports has diminished significantly. those are facts. cricket is no exception. as i said, the technique of steve smith would not last in the early 2000s, 90s or 80s not because the bowlers back then would have been looking to knock his head off, but because he has a huge gap between bat and pad and, ambrose for example would have hammered on fourth stump until either he got bowled between bat and pad, lbw or caught in the slips defending unbalanced, he always looks unbalanced playing the foward defensive.

On another note, when phillip hughes was killed, Ian Chappell asked the then CEO of CA, James Sutherland whether technique when facing short pitched bowling would be included as part of their inquest into the unfortunate incident and was incredulous when he found out it was not. Chappell has been preaching about the poor technique batsmen had to short bowling since the late 2000s. And we know now because batsmen have protection, they think their invincible until a really aggressive bowler comes up against them. only three batsmen, for example were able to pass mitchell johnson's examinations of fire between 2013 and 2015:stokes, ab and kohli. and johnson's average speed that entire tour was between 143-146 kph

Over the last two decades international cricket bowling has improved, the commentators said that since the beginning of this century there has been a decline in the batting averages of Test batters.

In reply to dayne

i disagree. only four batsmen in the 80s finished with averages over 50: chappell, miandad, viv, border and gavaskar. I think we can all agree that these guys would succeed in any era

wheraas of the players that debuted in 89/90 or just after and finished in the 2000s, the following averaged over 50: tendulkar, lara, dravid, sangakara, hayden, ponting, kallis, mohammad yousuf, ab de villears, chandepaul, mike hussey, andy flower. i could tell you from the start that hayden, kallis(overrated who only has two hundreds against mcgrath and warne, ten years apart) and hussey wouldn't average 40. yosuf would not average 45 because while he was beautiful to watch, i've seen him get out lbw early in innings and the umpires never gave it. at one point it became ridiculous in pakistan in 2006 when he was chasing viv's record for the most runs in a calendar year. attacks have become worse because bowlers do not think.

In reply to Jumpstart

I never advocated for Steven Smith as a great. The only batsman, playing now, that I pointed out as an all-time great is Kane Williamson. I speak not just of his average but also his batsmanship. His technique is peerless and that augurs well for him in any era.

The Perth wicket has been traditionally a fast bowler's paradise
It was there that Ambrose got 7/1 in 1993...

In reply to trev114

it was also there that whispering death blasted australia out for 91 in 1984.the west indies made 400+ in the 84 game and 300+ in the 92 test. so runs are possible if you're good enough. two teams here struggling to eclipse 150 is not just a difficult pitch....its poor technique and inept batting

In reply to JoeGrine

.


I think he meant who debuted this century .

In my opinion the quality of bowling is better than the 70s 80s and 90s

In reply to Baje


'70's nid to late
Robert's, Holding, Garner, Croft, Thompson , Lillee,Imran,Gilmour, Walker, Sarfraz...
80's Hadlee, Kapil, Hogg Lawson Rackerman, McDermott, cuddy, Ambrose, Wasim, W, let me stop and doan even bodder dun 80's and go to 90's hahahaha

In reply to Brerzerk

Rackerman/Hogg/Lawson - were a touch better than ordinary. Gilmour and Nawaz were decent. Just the same your point is well taken.

In reply to bravos


Thanks Bravs, I tell you man I feel like starting an how to read read thread here.!!!

In reply to Baje

I disagree the batting is worse. Shane Warne was in a convo with Holding, Graeme Smith and Shaun Pollock during the 2017 SA/AUS series in SA and he was talking about Aussie batting. His words were that lots of the techniques that the aussies had were weird and odd and were dutifully exposed by rabada, philander and Morkel.