Cricket thoughts…

It’s hard for complaints not to look like sour grapes when, after the summer the Australian cricket team has had, it goes through a form slump and you point out problems. It looks like you can handle success, but not failure. Still, a few thoughts. How essential was a three game series that may have cost the World Cup appearances of Michael Clarke, Brett Lee, and Matthew Hayden? It’s hard to see how it was worth it. Even if we’d won three nil, as opposed to losing three nil, it would have been of marginal value. The most disturbing thought, though, is this one: since December 2005 Australia has failed to defend the four highest one day scores in this history of the game; 436 against South Afrtica, and 346, 336,  and 331 against New Zealand. It must say something that essentially the same bowling attack and fielding side has had this problem, and it’s only made worse by the fact that two of these failures were in the past week.  While there’s still every chance Australia will regroup and head into the World Cup with a competitive team (though frankly, sans Symonds, Lee, and possibly Hayden and Clarke), and it still well may win the competition, it’s going to be a much tougher tournament that we expected, especially if the bowlers and fielders can’t get their acts together.