At the start of the summer, I was all for dropping Watson. Since then, everyone but the selectors seems to have dropped him, but I have to admit that he has been better than I expected, with the bat, even the ball, although not in other respects.
The most recent dropped chance allowed Watson to bring up the Australians' first Test century of the season. Much too much has been made of this. Centuries, or the lack thereof, shouldn't take on this much weight. Australia shouldn't be bothered by scores of two decimal digits except to the extent that the underlying problems are the same ones that lead to scores like 150 all out.
It may not always hurt to play for a personal or even team milestone, but there was nothing good about the situation as Watson was restrained in the 90s. The team needed relatively quick runs, not landmarks, and cricket is a team sport.
Showing posts with label century. Show all posts
Showing posts with label century. Show all posts
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Tuesday, 30 December 2008
New sights and centuries
It looks like the South Africans won't have any trouble wrapping up the series today. This result is a great tribute to some fine performances. It's been great to see Duminy at the start of a very promising career. Steyn has been around a while longer, but with the strange nature of international cricketing scheduling, hasn't been seen playing tests against Australia before.
But there was something else we hadn't seen for a while - from Ricky Ponting. First the batting performance we'd been missing for a while, and then some captaincy of the level I'd never associated with him. It was a good move to give Siddle the new ball. Unfortunately, Lee didn't benefit from sharing it, and Ponting did no better than any other captains employing a depleted attack the next day. Whatever form Johnson and Siddle are in, Hauritz and the part timers are not serious support at the MCG.
However, captaincy worries didn't seem to bother Ponting too much, and he came out with another big innings, only almost upstaged by Mitchell Johnson. He fell just the other side of the century mark this time, and that's a strangely fitting place to end this, my 100th post on this blog.
But there was something else we hadn't seen for a while - from Ricky Ponting. First the batting performance we'd been missing for a while, and then some captaincy of the level I'd never associated with him. It was a good move to give Siddle the new ball. Unfortunately, Lee didn't benefit from sharing it, and Ponting did no better than any other captains employing a depleted attack the next day. Whatever form Johnson and Siddle are in, Hauritz and the part timers are not serious support at the MCG.
However, captaincy worries didn't seem to bother Ponting too much, and he came out with another big innings, only almost upstaged by Mitchell Johnson. He fell just the other side of the century mark this time, and that's a strangely fitting place to end this, my 100th post on this blog.
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