ODI form is irrelevant beyond the old adage that success breeds success. The Ashes is stand alone stuff for me. Still this was an amusing result.
The SA - Pak series has been great, shame SA snuck home by 2 runs yesterday.

I couldnt beleive how ordinary Watson, siddle and Johnson bowled to the tail, lame, purposeless short shit. It was just easy hitting balls not even bowled to their field placings, it was so ineffective it was a joke, you had a no10 looking like a no 3.
Yes mint same thing was in my head why the hell aren't they bowling yorkers, or at least pitched up on off stump or vary pace. Good stuff to sri lanka but come on it was not up to standard by Australia.

From what ive seen from Australia in all forms of the game the last couple of months, id have England favourites. I don't rate our bowling attack at the moment, it can be good but Johnson has to lift his act, he must be close to being dropped. I assume our attack will be Siddle, Johnson Hilfenhaus with either Hauritz or maybe smith as spinners.
I think England can handle that attack and if we have any chance its our batting, which is inconsistent, Brad Haddin may be relied upon to save our ass.

Anybody remember this classic Steve Harmison ball?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Y6T44tzIc

Awesome kiwis!!

Great stuff by the black caps! I think I put the mocker on India

That said, it wouldn't surprise me to see NZ get rolled for around 100-120 in the 4th innings and lose. Hopefully not. Would have to be one of their greatest test victories if they can get up.

haha, vvs and bhaji again. tendulkar goes missing in the 4th innings...i won't start that argument. is it just me or is dhoni vastly overrated as well (at least as a test cricketer)? off the top of my head I can't recall him scoring any significant runs.

johnson won't get dropped. there's way too much nepotism in the australian squad at the moment. if hussey and north have survived this long he'll be safe. england are looking fairly sound, swann did reasonably well to bag 4 at the waca. everyone who says he'll be ineffective on our decks might need to reconsider. alastair cook is going to be a walking wicket this series (tipping him to be hilf's bunny). failures in both innings against the most impotent attack in shield cricket.

Great avatar there borracho

I'm expecting one big innings from Cook and North in between their many failures.

I don't rate Cook at all - he's technically poor for me.

Cook has height though, which could be an asset in places like Brisbane and Perth.

And borracho, tendulkar didn't do too badly in the 2nd innings against Australia a few weeks ago. But one failure after unluckily playing on and all of a sudden he goes missing. Can't have been just good bowling. Seriously, this is the worst argument in cricket.

Unlucky for NZ. Would have liked to see them win and make the series really interesting. I always thought Ryder looked very promising so good to see him make a century.

nice avatar, borracho. I welcome you, but not unreservedly - you are australian after all.

oh yeah? You're expecting old Disraeli to start the tests then?

yeah, i think hilfenhaus will be one of the first names written down. he's far more dynamic than everyone makes him out to be and he has been our best bowler for some time, plus ricky obviously likes him a lot. it'd be ridiculous to leave him out. katich's thumb is a bit of a concern, he's primed for a big series after a couple of starts in india.

mint, just stirring the pot mate. the bagging tendulkar cops for 4th innings performances is perhaps a bit harsh but in all honesty he hasn't quite replicated ponting and lara's match winning feats imo. don't really wanna go there though.

btw nick, not really new. been posting since 05. i was jughead on the old one but i didn't post often so you mightn't recall.

bad, bad news about zulqarnain haider as well. surely there's just cause to give pakistan an indefinite break from international cricket.

Whenever Pakistan play now you just can't put it out of your mind. I mean, Australia lost that one day game to Sri Lanka recently after that huge 9th wicket partnership and no one would have suspected anything dodgy...whereas if Pakistan had been in Australia's position no one would give Sri Lanka any credit and just assume it was a fix. Once the public have this perception it takes a lot to change it.

And borracho, again...it's a rubbish argument IMO. It'd be interesting to compare how many times players have been given man of the match...that will tell you about match winning performances a lot more than say 4th innings average. I mean, you compare Ponting and Tendulkar and their 2nd innings average is about the same. Tendulkar's 3rd innings average is higher and Pontings 4th innings average is higher...but there are so many factors involved in this (not outs in easy chases etc) that it's impossible to make conclusions based on these sort of stats. Kallis has a much better 4th innings average than Lara, Tendulkar or Ponting and almost everyone rates him below those guys - and IMO, rightly so...those 3 are far more dynamic players. A match is also more likely to be 'won' (or at least, the set up of the win) in the 1st innings than the 2nd. So to measure 'match winning' ability is extremely difficult and I would argue that overall records are by far the most significant measure. I think though that once someone gets a reputation in certain circles it sticks and from then on anything that happens to support it is blown out of proportion and everything that happens which contradicts it is ignored.

Btw, did you have a username before jughead??