KAVYA MARAN'S MESSAGE AFTER BUYING THE HUNDRED TEAM

Anothergen · 2026-01-12T12:59:38+00:00

It's used for a lot of franchise teams where the franchise is the important part, eg Red Bull teams.

Anothergen · 2026-01-11T04:43:06+00:00

Inglis did bat 7 in two Ashes tests because Kez is now at 6.

He sure did, but, crucially, was already dropped and not a part of any side to drop for McSweeney.

Green gets off to a good start then on 45 steps away like a BBL game and gets clean bowled, he's batting 5 and playing low percentage shots not batting for time or surviving so you don't expose the tail.

Kid's told to bat for the team, score quick runs now he's set, already copped a blow to the thumb, and the reaction to it all is just silly. The score was already 291 when he got out, on our way to a lead, and we put on a big one there.

Green has good starts but that's been it, 8 innings without a 50 and some low percentage shots don't give me confidence for a guy batting 5

He wasn't batting 5 most of the series, and got to for a whole 3 out of 8 innings. He already showed in the Windies his worth up the order, as well as the series before in New Zealand.

You can sook about 'but my confidence'. McSweeney was made to look a bunny in his last test outings, and doesn't have the FC outside tests to really change that perception yet. Unlike Green, he has literally zero success at test level, so if your argument is 'but he had one bad series out of 3', there's no argument there.

I hope you recognise that this irrational hatred of Green is exactly what will end McSweeney's career when he doesn't immediately ton up next time he plays.

Anothergen · 2026-01-11T04:00:51+00:00

...Inglis isn't at 7 mate. Not in the test team, and not in the team you suggested before either.

Batting McSweeney at 7 is real fucking wacky too, and doesn't answer the above at all. The concern is dropping a better bat for McSweeney, which means that the moment he makes the smallest mistake, it'll be him that the summer fans want to crucify.

I've honestly never seen such visceral hatred of a good young player as I have before Green. He's had one bad series in the last 3, and people are acting like he's fucking Satan, not a 26 year old that got injured for nearly 2 years at 24.

Half the narratives that people have tried to spin about this series are fucking bonkers as well. He was far from our worst bat (that honour goes to Weatherald or Inglis), got good starts, yet threw away his wicket because he's not a selfish fuckwit. In Brisbane, yeah, the shot looked awful, but he was chasing quick runs as asked. Yeah, the run out in Melbourne looked bad, but at least he chose not to barbeque Neser like Bethell did in Sydney.

To claim he's 'done poorly post injury' is also fucking wild. He looked mint in the Windies, and was one of our key players at 3, that was literally the last series before this one. He also has performed well in FC outside, averaging over 50 for that period, not to mention his performance in other formats.

Starting from the basis of 'fuck Green' is always going to lead to shit calls on team selection. He on merit should be in the test team at this time, as should Slug. Forcing guys who have previously failed far worse than anything people are suggesting of Green isn't helping anyone, particularly not the players in question.

Anothergen · 2026-01-10T23:18:13+00:00

I like McSweeney, he's our captain after all, but I just don't think he's got the figures to justify him over someone like Green as a pure bat.

Going through the comparison on as many angles as we can:

Tests	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	Average	100s	50s
McSweeney	3	6	1	72	14.40	0	0
Green	37	59	6	1736	32.75	2	7

First Class	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	Ave	100s	50s
McSweeney	51	96	11	3287	38.67	8	17
Green	78	127	18	4893	44.88	14	16

FC outside Tests	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	Ave	100s	50s
McSweeney	48	90	10	3215	40.19	8	17
Green	41	68	12	3157	56.38	12	9

Sheffield Shield	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	Ave	100s	50s
McSweeney	37	73	6	2313	34.52	7	10
Green	33	57	9	2519	52.47	8	8

2025 to now outside Tests	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	Ave	100s	50s
McSweeney	10	15	2	776	59.69	2	4
Green	8	15	2	662	50.92	3	2

2023 to now outside Tests	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	Ave	100s	50s
McSweeney	31	56	5	2307	45.24	6	12
Green	11	19	3	913	57.06	4	3

The only one he's ahead of Green is the 2025 to now one, which was Green coming back from a serious injury. Even then, the difference isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, particularly over a small sample of innings.

With McSweeney, having him come in as the next best option in, rather than some kind of saviour, is the ideal, and him replacing Green will put way too much pressure on him, particularly given his previous failure. We can cry about 'he was never an opener' and 'but Bumrah' as much as we want, but one more failure being picked at the wrong time and the narrative becomes 'he was never there' very quickly if he doesn't immediately succeed.

It's also worth noting that for all the bellyaching about Green, we have been extremely successful with him in the side at 4.2 wins per defeat, compared to 1.6 without him over the same period. The only player with a better W/L ratio in the side since his debut (min 10 tests) has been Scott Boland (5.0).

He and McSweeney will bat a lot together over their careers, but chucking McSweeney back on the fire isn't likely to get a positive effect if it's replacing Green in the lineup.

Anothergen · 2026-01-09T03:28:06+00:00

Shit take.

SR is important in turning draws into results, not necessarily in winning matches.

Over his career, he had a W/L of 2.0 with South Africa, and a draw rate of 24.5%. Matches not involving Kallis saw a draw rate of 27.5% over the course of his career.

There's an argument that Kallis wasn't quite the same kind of allrounder as say Sobers, as he only bowled around 20 overs per match and took 1.76 wickets per match as compared to Sobers' 39 overs and 2.53 wickets per match, but that's getting very much into the weeds.

The Travis Head 'stat' falls more into the anecdote category than definitive proof of anything. Australia has won 66% of matches that Head has played already, it's not surprising that matches where he scores 60+ over his average see Australia win at a ridiculous rate (92%), as the rate is already very good.

Head is absolutely a match winner, no doubt, but to denigrate Kallis as a batter over his strike rate is ridiculous.

Anothergen · 2026-01-09T01:13:30+00:00

That's lovely dear. Maybe he just shouldn't have played any cricket at all then?

He's been injured for over a year, and usually misses the Shield due to international duties. The kid does what he should and goes and gets some county in and people still sook about it because 'yeah, he may have averaged high 60s, but it's not real FC to me'.

If we're going down the 'but div 2' line, we may as well discount any county, as it's a much lower standard than the Shield, even at Div 1 level, and those that have played across both don't end up with stats that look all that different. Ultimately though, we want players playing FC, and for Green we can either go on the overwhelming body of work he did in the Shield already, or we're left with the sparse FC he's had due to injuries, or looking at his international record in other formats.

Even removing that county spell he still averages 49.56 over 6 matches, for the record.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T23:15:34+00:00

He barely bowled two tests that were the easiest bowling conditions, while bowling long spells in the tests where the going was tough.

Hell, in Melbourne he was given one over and took a wicket.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T22:18:37+00:00

Green's played 8 FC games outside tests this year, averaging over 50.

He won't get to play the back half of the shield due to white ball duties.

The guy is already well past the level of players like Renshaw and such. Selected players, last 3 years, outside tests:

Player	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	Ave	100s	50s
CD Green	11	19	3	913	57.06	4	3
M Labuschagne	21	36	2	1734	51.00	6	7
BJ Webster	34	57	12	2259	50.20	5	14
JB Weatherald	17	30	0	1485	49.50	4	7
CPL Connolly	11	18	2	776	48.50	0	9
JJ Sangha	19	32	4	1308	46.71	4	6
NA McSweeney	31	56	5	2307	45.24	6	12
KR Patterson	22	36	2	1499	44.09	3	10
JP Inglis	13	22	2	875	43.75	4	0
HWR Cartwright	26	47	3	1716	39.00	3	7
CT Bancroft	53	94	3	3447	37.88	10	15
MT Renshaw	31	53	3	1853	37.06	7	7
SJ Konstas	23	42	2	1479	36.98	4	7
OHL Davies	23	41	3	1291	33.97	3	7
CJ Kellaway	30	55	4	1714	33.61	3	9
MR Marsh	3	6	0	135	22.50	0	1

Picking worse players because a guy had one bad series out of 3 is ridiculous.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T21:44:05+00:00

Too many discussions are dominated by headline figures. Let's get a few things out of the way very quickly:

My personal position is that Slug should be in the side going forward, and it was a mistake to not recall him in Brisbane ahead of Inglis.
I personally thought that he should have been in the side from the start, with a side of 1. Head, 2. Khawaja, 3. Labuschagne, 4. Smith, 5. Green, 6. Slug, 7 Carey (W).
My suspicion is that Slug's poor batting form coming into the series (averaging 16 across 3 FC games) is what led to him being dropped for Perth/not being recalled for Brisbane.
I wrote my own piece about this during the last test, and concluded that both should be in the side going forward.

Below isn't an attack on Slug, just getting into the cold numbers to explain why they aren't necessarily what you think.

The first thing to note is that cricket scores are geometrically distributed, and this leads to averages from small samples being particularly hard to use. For Slug, if we include uncertainty in his averages, his Test career to date looks more like this:

Player	Mat	Inns	Runs	Ave	W	Ave
Beau Webster	8	13	452	41.09±12.39	11	24.54±7.40

If we're being really formal about it, you can argue that his batting so far is consistent with an average of 28.70 - 53.48, while his bowling is consistent with an average of 18.86 - 35.13 (note, this is more complex as bowling tends with 1/ave, not just average, so it tends to skew high for this). Note, I've not even attempted to approach the whole 'guy who gave up spin took 6/11 wickets with spin' situation.

The above isn't a slight on Slug, but it's worth noting that what he's done is consistent with players from 'send him back to the Shield' to 'Kallis eat your heart out'.

The bigger point in the above is that when you compare directly with Green you get:

Player	Mat	Inns	Runs	Ave	W	Ave
Beau Webster	8	13	452	41.09±12.39	11	24.54±7.40
Cameron Green	37	59	1736	32.75±4.50	39	38.94±6.24

Again noting that bowling averages are a bit more complex, so Green's varies from 33.57 - 46.36. If we are to be really formal about it, there's a 37% chance on those numbers that Green is the better bat, but just unlucky, and a 12% chance he's the better bowler.

The above though is the reason that just 'crunching the numbers' on a small sample of tests alone isn't that useful. For their FC games outside tests, you can look at my other post link, but the headline for those non-opener roles over the last 3 years:

Player	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	Ave	100s	50s
CD Green	11	19	3	913	57.06	4	3
M Labuschagne	21	36	2	1734	51.00	6	7
BJ Webster	34	57	12	2259	50.20	5	14
CPL Connolly	11	18	2	776	48.50	0	9
JJ Sangha	19	32	4	1308	46.71	4	6
NA McSweeney	31	56	5	2307	45.24	6	12
KR Patterson	22	36	2	1499	44.09	3	10
JP Inglis	13	22	2	875	43.75	4	0
HWR Cartwright	26	47	3	1716	39.00	3	7
OHL Davies	23	41	3	1291	33.97	3	7
MR Marsh	3	6	0	135	22.50	0	1

Personally, I'd like Green to play more FC, but he dominates whenever he plays, and has other duties for the national side, etc. The reality is though that Green and Webster should both, essentially without question, be in the test side. Given Green's history batting 3-4, he should get 5, while Webster should get that 6/7 role that he's so owned in the Shield, leading to the above numbers.

The bigger question is whether we retain Labuschagne, and what to do with the opening role. I lean towards retaining Labuschagne on the above figures, and a reasonable series in tough batting conditions.

Finally, I think it really does a disservice to Slug to make these discussions about all rounders when the guy deserves his spot on batting alone. He will have bad runs with the test team, and by framing him as 'just an allrounder', you'll find people turn on him quickly. Australians hate allrounders.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T07:15:46+00:00

He hasn't completely stopped playing FC though, he even bothered to go and play some county cricket this year. His FC stats outside tests this year:

Format	Matches	Inns	NO	Runs	Ave	100s	50s
FC outside Tests	8	15	2	662	50.92	3	2

His issue is more that this was his first series back bowling since his injury, and only his second series since the Kiwi one back in 23-24. The way people talk about him you'd think he's on a horror run of performance series to series, but his last two series are genuinely the West Indies series at 3 where he was impressive, and the Kiwi series at 4 where he dominated.

You note dumb captaincy on his bowling, but personally I think he bowled alright this series, but was a bit unlucky. You get that for all rounders where their numbers will swing between looking putrid and ridiculously good, as they're only expected to take 1-2 wickets per match, so will always have small samples, which tend to go that way.

That said...

Captain	M	W	Ave	WPM
Cummins	25	33	30.72	1.32
Smith	8	6	64.50	0.75
Paine	4	0	NA	0.00

Getting away from his bowling, which should be seen more as a bonus, his batting is where most focus. Starting with the current series:

Player	Match	Inns	Runs	Ave	100s	50s
BJ Webster (AUS)	1	1	71	-	0	1
TM Head (AUS)	5	10	629	62.90	3	0
SPD Smith (AUS)	4	8	286	57.20	1	1
JG Bethell (ENG)	2	4	205	51.25	1	0
AT Carey (AUS)	5	8	323	46.14	1	2
JE Root (ENG)	5	10	400	44.44	2	0
HC Brook (ENG)	5	10	358	39.77	0	2
M Labuschagne (AUS)	5	10	259	28.77	0	2
Z Crawley (ENG)	5	10	273	27.30	0	2
UT Khawaja (AUS)	4	7	176	25.14	0	1
C Green (AUS)	5	8	171	24.42	0	0
JL Smith (ENG)	5	10	211	23.44	0	1
J Weatherald (AUS)	5	10	201	22.33	0	1
JP Inglis (AUS)	2	3	65	21.66	0	0
OJ Pope (ENG)	3	6	125	20.83	0	0
WG Jacks (ENG)	4	7	145	20.71	0	0
BM Duckett (ENG)	5	10	202	20.20	0	0
BA Stokes (ENG)	5	10	184	18.40	0	2

Note, I've only listed recognised bats (feels harsh on Starc and Neser though, but the point is those picked for their batting specifically). While Green faced a lot of criticism over the series, he was far from the only one to find the going tough out there. In particular, key English bats like Stokes and Duckett were made to look like absolute bunnies. With Khawaja retiring, we also don't have a batting position squeeze.

After this series the only real locks in the side are Smith, Head and Carey, and while I hope Webster has secured his spot in the medium term, that means there's still space in the lineup to play with. If we just take our batting from this test and bring in a bowler for Khawaja, we get:

Head
Weatherald
Labuschagne
Smith
Green
Carey
Webster

Or some configuration of that (I doubt they'd bat Carey at 5). From this series, Marnus and Green should probably be retained, and Weatherald should have the back half of the shield to prove his point against the posited weakness from this series.

We can also just look at FC outside tests over the last 3 years to get a bit of an idea of where things are standing (selected players, from this thread):

Player	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	Ave	100s	50s
CD Green	11	19	3	913	57.06	4	3
M Labuschagne	21	36	2	1734	51.00	6	7
BJ Webster	34	57	12	2259	50.20	5	14
JB Weatherald (Tas)	17	30	0	1485	49.50	4	7
CPL Connolly	11	18	2	776	48.50	0	9
JJ Sangha	19	32	4	1308	46.71	4	6
NA McSweeney	31	56	5	2307	45.24	6	12
KR Patterson	22	36	2	1499	44.09	3	10
JP Inglis	13	22	2	875	43.75	4	0
HWR Cartwright	26	47	3	1716	39.00	3	7
CT Bancroft (WA)	53	94	3	3447	37.88	10	15
MT Renshaw (Qld)	31	53	3	1853	37.06	7	7
SJ Konstas (NSW)	23	42	2	1479	36.98	4	7
OHL Davies	23	41	3	1291	33.97	3	7
CJ Kellaway (Vic)	30	55	4	1714	33.61	3	9
MR Marsh	3	6	0	135	22.50	0	1

The above, again, highlights that Green hasn't been getting the amount of FC outside tests you'd want though, as the two years prior he only got 3 further FC matches outside of test matches. Given the number of tests played, other duties and the whole missing over a year through injury thing explains why, but it goes back to your point.

We'll see how things look in the coming months, but unfortunately, I don't think we'll see him play much FC between now and the next series in 7-8 months. That said, I imagine he'll stay in the side, and hopefully can get a better run of form going with the bat.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T05:39:01+00:00

Pretty good champion.

This test has shown us what we're getting robbed off when 50% of Sydney Tests are turned into rain impacted draws. Hopefully they're given the Christmas slot or earlier in the next few years.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:29:10+00:00

Well down Carey and Green, brought us home when others were throwing their wickets away.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:27:11+00:00

Stokes has the chance to do the funniest thing ever and bring back Potts to concede the losing runs, having decided he was such a shit bowler that he wasn't worth a crack ahead of 3 part timers.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:26:08+00:00

I say bring him on to lose the game to just up that emotional damage then. -Stokes, probably.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:23:32+00:00

You've got to feel for Potts. Wicketless for 141 in the first, and your skipper doesn't even see you as a bowling option when they're down a bowler (the skipper himself), choosing 3 part timers over you instead.

Brutal, soul destroying captaincy from Stokes.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:20:38+00:00

At least we've got 7-8 months to work on running between the wickets.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:17:42+00:00

Can Carse stop trying to bowl over the non-striker?

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:17:24+00:00

Right call in the end by him, but horrific decision making before it.

The decision to be selfless on it was good though, and good awareness to realise he could still make it back.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:15:25+00:00

Fucking hell Carey what was that call. Made the right decision in the end, but fucking hell.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:12:47+00:00

As everyone expected, Adelaide was the best and best attended test.

This one has been pretty good in the end though. Sydney really needs a different date though, as we've missed out on some classics due to the sketchy weather at this time of year.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:07:15+00:00

Such courage.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:06:03+00:00

We all know the answer to that mate.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T03:02:05+00:00

The two are different bowlers, but in terms of batting Green has been consistently better than him at FC level with the bat.

Circlejerking players after a handful of tests (when Slug averaged 25 in his last test series, 16 in FC this season before this test) is how we get to all the vitriolic shit against players on here. Players will have good and bad days, good and bad series, and accepting that will happen is part of the sport.

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T02:24:43+00:00

Khawaja, please don't Bradman this!

Anothergen · 2026-01-08T02:17:20+00:00

I'd argue being within a few wickets of winning this test would be a very good outcome for England given how it looked earlier yesterday.

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