Aussies new and old guard

As always, there's speculation about the retirement or a clamour for dropping of elder players when they're not performing. And Ricky Ponting's not performing - no doubt about it. There's been plenty of pieces like this one on All Out Cricket by Reverse Sweep's David Green that push the point that the current Test v South Africa needs to be Ponting's last. Another on Cricinfo suggests it's "Time for Ponting to Walk".

But equally, even the detractors recognise that the prolonged slumps of the likes of the great Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, along with Mike Hussey, have all ended with run gluts. Who is to say that Ponting won't help Australia to a glorious win batting in the 4th innings at the Wanderers v South Africa tomorrow? Personally I think Ponting has more Test cricket in him and without anyone obvious to come in to replace him, I'd expect him to be given at least another series (at home) to regain his form. Not only is he a class fielder, but opposition team's fear him in a way they don't fear David Warner or Usman Khawaja.

What about Gautam Ghambir - do you see him as at risk of being dropped and slipping into Test match obscurity? No, I doubt it. And yet Ponting and Ghambir's recent records are very similar as this piece points out. Ponting deserves an extended period playing under Clarke.

On the other side of the coin, Pat Cummins looks a fantastic prospect. Sky keep replaying the ball that hit Kallis' gloves shortly before he then fenced at one outside off stump and was caught at first slip...it was a good ball, but Cummins will probably admit that the ball lept from short of a length at Kallis' chest. Quite rightly, Kallis didn't expect the ball to bounce that much. But nonetheless, the 18 year-old Cummins took the wicket of a true great of the game and it will surely one of several hundreds by the time his career ends, if he can stay injury free.

If Australia have a batsman as good as Cummins is a bowler in the wings, then they should drop the weakest batsman. If that's Ponting, then that's Ponting. But for now they don't so it will be interesting to see if the chat about Ponting's form becomes a self-fulfilling proficy, or if he comes through and dominates again as Hussey did very recently.

The Australian's and journalists piling the pressure on their best batsman since Bradman seem to have very short memories.

Bradman's bat underpriced?

The suggestion in this article about the auctioning of Bradman's bats is that a bat he used in 1930 Ashes series signed by him on one side and the rest of the England and Australia players on the other, will only go for 30k Australian Dollars (less than £19k). That seems crazily low for me given the number of insanely rich followers of cricket there are out there.

Surely it will go for 6 figures?

Bradman top as always

Some detailed analysis has thrown up a few surprises about who the top 50 batsmen ever are, but no surprises that Bradman still comes out at number one. You can download the 20 page analysis here if you want to (after giving a few bits of information). The analysis looks at various criteria such as when the batsman scored their runs and makes a comparison to the total innings score, rather than simply looking at volume of runs. The main surprise - Vinod Kambli is right up there with the best of them...but then he was always amazingly talented even if he didn't have a very professional attitude to go with it.

A batsman with a better Test average than Bradman?

There is one apparently. I didn't realise that - this article on The Roar about unfortunate cricketers explains that Andy Gantaume of West Indies scored 112 in the 1st innings of his only Test and didn't bat in the 2nd.

Dravid is human...

Rahul Dravid was brought down to earth yesterday having drawn level with Don Bradman on 29 centuries, as the second new ball proved troublesome. A ball from Shahadat Hossain broke his cheekbone or jaw (depending on which report you read!)and Dravid is now in doubt for the February South Africa series. That's huge, as India will be wanting to prove that they are the number 1 Test side in the world.

And of course in the same game, Tendulkar reached 90 international hundreds - an even 45 in Tests and 45 in ODIs. Now that's pretty special and there's no doubt that India's first choice top 7 is one of the best ever, if not the best ever.

David Frith provides top quality holiday reading

Having taken the implicit advice of Cricket Burbler Mark Davis to have a read of Ed Smith's book What Sport Tells Us About Life, I also picked a rather weightier cricketing tome to entertain me while sitting by the pool in Lanzarote - David Frith's Bodyline Autopsy. It's a brilliant book.

If you're into your cricket books being light in detail you won't like this book. Frith has managed to talk to many of those involved in the "bodyline" series - even those on the periphery of the controversy. Some of the documents from the time have mysteriously vanished - some claim that the war required the use of old papers but that doesn't explain why many older documents have survived - but Frith has got his hands on all the documents it's possible to look at it seems.

There are so many interesting details in the book that it's not possible to list them, but it gives a full account of the lead up to the series, and what followed prior to the 2nd World War and even mentioning some post war Ashes series. It has certainly changed my view of Bradman - a man who averaged 56 in the series but who was considered to have failed given the drop compared to his career average. Interestingly Larwood claimed at the time that Bradman was afraid of him but then retracted this many years later. But several of his team mates seem to have suggested that Bradman was perhaps not quite up for the fight which was why he tended to score rapidly in the series and then get out, to the dismay of the guys at the other end who were getting into line for the sake of their team.

What is clear from the book is how "bodyline" or "fast leg theory" was around before and after the controversial series....long after in fact as Frith makes the point that far more batsman are hit these days than used to be the case (although it is now illegal to use the field that stirred up controversy in the 32-33 series). Having said that of course, injuries were far worse in the pre-helmets era and reading the book you get a feel for just how painful batting was at times in the days before proper protective equipment - many broken jaws and bruised hips seem to have taken place holding up play (not surprisingly), and forcing many a batsman to have to retire hurt or even causing the occassional death.

I noted as well that there were several instances of noted wrong umpiring decisions even back then - Les Ames was given run out when a photographer captured the moment to show he had in fact made his ground. England also showed the same inconsistency of selection as they showed in the 80s and 90s - the Nawab or Pataudi scored stacks of runs coming into the series and averaged 40 in the 1st two Tests only to be dropped (possibly because he wasn't keen on the short bowling towards the body). Seeing the number of times the batsmen were being struck, someone decided to keep track of the number of times batsmen were hit with a view to pressuring the authorities to change the laws of the game - perhaps a similarity can be drawn with the Cricket Burble wrong decisions list?!?

If you like detailed cricket history, I couldn't recommend this book more highly. You can buy it now for the price of a couple of pints by clicking on the link to the right hand side of this page. And I'll be checking out David Frith's other books.

Ponting. Best since Bradman?

Hello all cricketburble readers. I'm Aussie Dave and I'm the newest cricketburbler. I'm really looking forward bringing an Australian view to the site. I've been a burble reader since the site started up, and its coverage of the English cricket summer and its issues has been exceptional. For my first post, however, I thought I'd change direction and pose a question that I've been considering for quite some time.

Is Ricky Ponting Australia's second best ever batsman? To be fair, this question should really wait until Punter has retired, but its always fun to ponder these issues. My own thoughts are that once the dust has settled on Ricky's career, he will be regarded as second only to the Don in Australia's rich batting history.

As I said, I've spent some time considering this issue, and have come up with the following contenders for the honour of Australia's second best. Clicking on a name will bring up that players cricinfo profile:

Athur Morris - 46 tests, 3533 runs, avge 46.48, 12 centuries, 1 double century, 3.83 tests/century

Neil Harvey - 79 tests, 6149 runs, avge 48.41, 21 centuries, 2 double centuries, 3.76 tests/century

Greg Chappell- 87 tests, 7110 runs, avge 53.86, 24 centuries, 4 double centuries, 3.63 tests/century

Alan Border - 156 tsets, 11174 runs, avge 50.56, 27 centuries, 2 double centuries, 5.78 tests/century

Steve Waugh - 168 tests, 10927 runs, avge 51.06, 32 centuries, 1 double century, 5.25 tests/century

Ricky Ponting - 110 tests, 9368 runs, avge 59.29, 33 centuries, 4 double centuries, 3.33 tests/century

I hope I haven't overloaded you with stats. Well, on numbers alone, Ricky Ponting is the standout of this handful of candidates. One big question mark over Ponting though, is the quality of the bowling attacks that he has plundered. There is little doubt that he has had it much easier than some of the past players, especially Allan Border, who played 31 tests against the stellarWindies attacks between 1979/80 and 1992/93. While Ponting has scored runs against quality bowlers like Shaun Pollock, Murali, Shoaib Akhtar and Curtley Ambrose, he's never really been tested by a quality attack like those of the 80's Windies sides where there were no weak links to relieve the pressure, Ashes 2005 being the obvious exception. He averaged only 39.88 in this series, but did play one of the great match saving innings with his 156 at Old Trafford.

Despite these question marks, I think Ponting still shades it just above Greg Chappell and AB, especially if you also consider his one day deeds. His consistency, the rate at which he scores his runs and the way he can dominate an attack are the clinching factors.

Comments please. Why am I wrong, and who have I overlooked?