Time to kick Deans and his cronies to the curb
I have the sense that the ARU board needs the broom put through it as well, but I don’t have anything to base that on. The 2011 Rugby World Cup is over. Sure the last weekend still has to play out, but...
View ArticleAustralia’s most unlucky Test cricketer
I was compiling a list of batsmen who were possible Test candidates as a means of proving that keeping Ponting and Hussey in the team was costing Australian cricket. While I was doing so, I tried to...
View ArticleAustralian cricket needs to bloody the axe
In the aftermath of the absolutely atrocious loss by Australia to New Zealand (the eighth ranked Test playing nation), the new national selection panel has the perfect excuse to bloody the axe before...
View ArticleGive Usman Khawaja more time to shine
One thing I have noticed already this summer is the vitriol being directed at batsmen trying to break into the Australian Test team. Whether it is not having a good enough average at Shield level, or...
View ArticleThe rise and fall of Shaun Marsh
Shaun Marsh must be wondering if he has recently killed a black cat with a broken mirror while walking under a ladder, so poor has his form been since returning to Test cricket team. After being named...
View ArticleWhy Australia should change a winning team
Conventional wisdom says you don’t change a winning team. As Kim Hughes put it in his interview during the lunch break on day three of the WACA Test, “Winning hides all sins.” Australia’s new National...
View ArticleLet’s talk about selection, Test fans
It is obvious that Australia’s batting line-up is not settled. We have had five different openers since the start of the Ashes series. The ageing veterans Ponting and Hussey have managed post big...
View ArticleRicky Ponting, you are the weakest link: Goodbye!
Australia has now played five ODIs this summer, and Ricky Ponting has contributed 18 runs (2, 1, 6, 2, and 7) at a strike rate of 27. That is the worst record of any batsman used in the series (and...
View ArticleThe “Australia doesn’t have the cattle” myth – Part 1 (Piggies)
There is a self-perpetuating myth among some Australian rugby supporters, quite noticeable here on The Roar, that Australia just doesn’t have good enough players to be number one in the rugby union...
View ArticleThe ‘Australia doesn’t have the cattle’ myth – Part 2 (Princesses)
I don’t buy the argument that the Wallabies “don’t have the cattle” to compete with the All Blacks. Nor do I accept the premise that the NRL ‘steals’ all the good footy players and that the Wallabies...
View ArticleFive years of Wallabies going nowhere
Plenty of people are talking up the Wallabies on the back of a messy win over Argentina and an even messier draw with New Zealand to close out the domestic season in 2012. Such reactions are misguided...
View ArticleAn open letter to Quade Cooper
Another Roar poster asked me what advice I would have for Quade Cooper in his current situation. I revealed that I had already written to him. Here is what I said … Dear Quade Cooper, Although I doubt...
View ArticleAustralian cricket must start building for the future
The ongoing selection instability in Australian cricket is crazy, and the new era that beckoned in the wake of the Ashes humiliation and subsequent Argus report has failed to materialise. Unfortunately...
View ArticleThere’s too many playmakers in the Wallaby backline
I’ve always fancied myself as a selector. Certainly the last couple of years I’ve felt I could have done a lot better than Robbie Deans. Right now though, you couldn’t pay me enough to take the job....
View ArticleAll-rounder question in Australian cricket
With the selection of Moises Henriques for the first Test against India as an all-rounder, I thought I would try to clarify my thinking on the issue of the jack-of-all-trades cricketer in Test matches....
View ArticleAustralia needs subcontinent specialists
In the wake of the embarrassing demolition of Australia by a rampant India in Chennai and Hyderabad, it is time Australians and the National Selection Panel embrace a truth long known by fat people the...
View ArticleShane Watson: the great white hype
Let’s get one thing clear. Shane Watson is the best and most valuable limited-overs cricketer in the country and perhaps on the planet. That’s a personal opinion, but in anyone’s list of the top ten in...
View ArticleTime to call Cricket Australia to account over team selection
Cricket Australia has once again denied Usman Khawaja any chance to play for his country or even press for selection. After facing only 293 deliveries in two months of nothing but limited overs...
View ArticleHuge changes needed before the Ashes
In the wake of the capitulation of the Australian Test team in India over the last two months, the national selection panel will have no choice but to drop several players from the squad for the Ashes....
View ArticleWho’s not getting near the Wallabies?
I was reading The Insider’s most recent article and realised that everyone likes a selection piece. I wanted to do one too but thought the standard team list format was kind of boring so I decided to...
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