wasn’t exactly the wisest of captains in the first Test<\/a> but he has escaped scrutiny.<\/p>\nBut what of Marcus North? The left-hander has been having a dreadful time with the bat – but nobody is talking about the possibility of bringing in someone to take his place.<\/p>\n
Let’s have a look at the two players, going back all the way to the middle of the year. In two Tests against Pakistan (played in England because of the security threat in Pakistan), North made 0, 20, 16 and 0. He got 6\/55 in the second innings of the first Test and did not bowl in the other three innings. Johnson returned figures of 1\/31, 0\/74, 1\/71 and 1\/41. His best effort with the bat was 30. North was marginally ahead.<\/p>\n
Australia then played a two-Test series in India. North made 0, 10, 128 and 3. He bowled in the first Test, getting 1\/39 and 0\/8. Johnson got 5\/64, 0\/50, 3\/105 and 0\/42 and scored 47 in one of the Tests. I would say that Johnson was clearly ahead in this series if one matches the two players’ performances.<\/p>\n
Johnson’s performance in the first Ashes Test has been detailed above. North got 1, did not bat in the second innings, and took one wicket in England’s second innings, the only wicket to fall. Hence, that wicket was of no relevance; the only difference would have been that England would have finished with 0-517 instead of 1-517 and the England openers, Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook, would have become the holders of the record for the first wicket partnership in Tests, displacing Nick McKenzie and Graeme Smith of South Africa who hold the current record of 415, set against Bangladesh in 2008.<\/p>\n
Remember one thing: North is primarily playing as a batsman and Johnson, despite having made runs on occasion, is considered the main strike bowler.<\/p>\n
Has Johnson fulfilled his primary role? No. Should he be dropped? Well, yes, one can make a case for that. But then the same logic should apply to North. He has done as much as Johnson over the last five Tests, in fact, less. <\/p>\n
The argument used to justify North’s inclusion is that there are not many options to fill his spot. Rubbish, there are plenty of batsmen – David Hussey and George Bailey, to name just two – who can fill the role of a number six. Hussey is 33 and Bailey is 28 – but remember, Australia once played a 38-year-old, Bob Holland, to try and defeat the West Indies in 1984-85. And who can forget Colin “Funky” Miller who made his debut for the country at the ripe age of 34?<\/p>\n
Age is not a problem. Neither is the lack of batsmen. No, the problem is that cricket has been and will always be a batsmen’s game. The bowlers always bear the brunt when punishment is doled out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PREDICTABLY, Australian left-arm paceman Mitchell Johnson has been dropped from the team to take on England in the second Test in Adelaide. Johnson returned figures of 0-66 and 0-104 in the first Test, was dismissed for a duck when he batted, and also dropped a catch. When a team fares well below its best, someone … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Bowlers pay the price, batsmen get off scot-free”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,3,5,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ashes","category-australia","category-cricket","category-england"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":36,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=36","url_meta":{"origin":74,"position":0},"title":"How did Nathan Hauritz ever get into the Australian team?","date":"December 31, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"YESTERDAY, for the first time in his first-class cricket career, Nathan Hauritz, an alleged off-spinner from New South Wales who is in the Australian team, took five wickets in an innings. I use the word alleged because I was used to be able to turn the ball more when I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Australia"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2926,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=2926","url_meta":{"origin":74,"position":1},"title":"Johnson doesn't need to behave like a thug","date":"December 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"CONTRARY to all expectations, Australia has won the first two Tests of the ongoing Ashes cricket series against England. But it has done so in a way that leaves much to be desired. The teams played a series in England during the northern summer too and England prevailed 3-0 with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ashes"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":75,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=75","url_meta":{"origin":74,"position":2},"title":"What Australia needs is a new cricket captain","date":"December 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A MOUNTAIN of sorts has been scaled by the England cricket team by defeating Australia by an innings and 71 runs in the second cricket Test in Adelaide. The last time Australia suffered an innings defeat at home was in 1993 when the West Indies were the victors. The loss\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ashes"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3440,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=3440","url_meta":{"origin":74,"position":3},"title":"One-sided cricket matches are here to stay. Why would you attend?","date":"November 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"World cricket is in a parlous state, not in terms of the money it makes, but in terms of the contests it provides. The games are one-sided to the extent that patrons at the grounds are few and far-between. There is no better illustration of this than in the ongoing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ashes"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2984,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=2984","url_meta":{"origin":74,"position":4},"title":"South Africa will be the real test for Australia","date":"January 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"HAVING just come off a 5-0 win over England in the Ashes series Down Under, Australia must be on a high. But, no matter the margin of victory, there are several serious issues to be considered in the run-up to the tour of South Africa that begins in February. There\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ashes"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":64,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=64","url_meta":{"origin":74,"position":5},"title":"Why Ricky Ponting should be sacked","date":"July 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"RICKY Ponting is one of the best cricketers in the world to watch when he is on song. The man has played 145 Tests, captained Australia since 2004 and is a pugnacious fighter all the way. Despite all this experience and these attributes, Ponting does not deserve to captain the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Australia"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}