Originally Posted by Amazulu

All teams have been through what Australia is going through at the moment. Look at England not so long ago - ranked lower than NZ, losing to everybody. West Indies - untouchable in the '70s and '80s.

Australia will bounce back. Saying that, their current predicament is fun to watch though!

Originally Posted by Broad Shoulders

reminds me of Aesop's fable about the ant and the grasshopper. The grasshopper being the Aussies arrogantly thinking the warmer months would last forever so didn't have to plan or work for the future.

Originally Posted by Broad Shoulders

I disagree. The bowling lineup the Indians put out was arguably weaker than the one they put out against England on the same pitches. England lost a total of 57 wickets from a possible 80 in their four test series. They also scored in excess of 400 three times and in excess of 300 five times in that series.

Ohja was the joint highest wicket taker in that series with 20 (same as Swann) and he isn't even playing here.

So far Aus have only made in excess of 300 runs in an innings once and lost a much larger number of wickets to seam bowling than against England. This bowling lineup that Ind have put out is nothing special. Ashwin is the only standout and even he is pretty poor on non-Indian pitches.

This is all Aus' doing.

Originally Posted by Beoz

Yep agreed ...... They say all you need is 20 wickets to win a test. I reckon Oz are more than capable of taking 20 Indian wickets and should have they had the luxury of their own runs they should have been capable of doing that.

The batting performance in that test was beyond description. Something malfunctioned in the batting stakes very badly. ..... very badly

That said I did hear that during the reign of Oz they only one a series in India once.

Originally Posted by IvanM

Merv says grow some facial hair. Spot on.

http://www.theage.com.au/sport/crick...306-2fkrz.html

Originally Posted by Grayling

Perhaps grow some balls while they are at it

Originally Posted by Amazulu

meanwhile in Dunedin

113/7

oh dear

Originally Posted by Amazulu

meanwhile in Dunedin

113/7

oh dear

Originally Posted by Broad Shoulders

yeah, but swinging conditions and the NZ batting lineup, I wouldn't put it past us to bowl them out for cheaper

Originally Posted by Amazulu

But it's NZ ffs

We're just about to find out......

Originally Posted by Broad Shoulders

SA were dismissed for 238 in the first innings of the first test in their last tour of NZ.

SA and Eng have a lot in common in that they are famous slow starters to test series. I can't recall the last time Eng even won the first test of an away series