Super Over 9

Who will win: Australia or India?

Ball 1
Predictions are eagerly made, rarely right and quickly forgotten.

In each of the last three home India series, pundits predicted Australian victories.

As is well known, India ended up winning the last two. What tends to be forgotten is they should have won the first as well.

Although Australia did win that 2014/15 series 2-0, India were in a winning position in each Test they lost.

In the first, Australia were 15-1 outsiders (those are betting odds, not a score!) late on day 5, only to storm home and win.

And in the second, India made 408 and had Australia 6/247, only to throw it away by allowing the Aussie tail to flourish alongside the brilliance of Steve Smith.

Ouch!

Even so, Australia only scraped home by 4 wickets.

This time round, it is the same: predictions range from a narrow Aussie victory up to an Aussie thrashing. Indeed, chastened by their home whitewashing by New Zealand, many Indian fans are talking 4-0, 4-1 or even 5-0 to Australia.

And of course, 5-0 to Australia is possible - just as any of the 21 theoretical series outcomes could happen (0-0 does seem unlikely though!).

I think potentially too much is being made of the absence of Mohammed Shami.

Shami himself might yet arrive, Siraj is a good bowler, Harshit Rana looks pacey and Nitish Kumar Reddy is a promising seam-up all rounder.

And, most tellingly, their other two quicks look more than capable:

As for batting, in addition to the likes of Kohli, Rahul and Pant, India has a group of batters with fine first class records who might not be familiar to Aussie fans:

I think it is a measure of India’s strength that Sarfaraz Khan, with his incredible first class record, is likely not to make the first Test team - despite two first-choice batters already missing, in Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill.

Will the newcomers be able to handle the pace and bounce of Aussie pitches? Time will tell, but I think it is a mistake to write India off. Indeed, with zero confidence, if forced, my prediction is 3-2 to India.

Ball 2
This has ended up as a Nathan Lyon appreciation point.

I have not always sung his praises - but I did some numbers ahead of the Test series and Lyon was a star.

It began with me wanting to answer the question: ‘Recently, what’s been more effective in Australia, pace or spin?’

There have been many changes in Australian pitches of late: new venues, more drop-ins, day/night Tests etc. I wanted only to include relevant data, so I came up with some rules (see the table ‘the boring details’ below if you are interested).

Anyway, here are the numbers: the average runs-per-wicket in recent Test history, depending on whether spinners or quickies were bowling.

Unsurprisingly, pace is more effective. The surprise was that the exception was Perth stadium.

But something made me do the numbers again, this time breaking spin into two sub categories: 1. Nathan Lyon and 2. All other spinners combined.

The results left me gobsmacked.

The message is, in modern Australian conditions you should just go with an all pace attack - unless you are lucky enough to have Nathan Lyon!

It truly is a difficult country for overseas spinners to have any success.

Finally, here were my criteria for which matches I used for the calculations: you will see that the sample size is quite small, but hopefully the ‘Reason’ column explains why.

The boring details

Ball 3
‘At least if Warner made a comeback he’d stay out of the commentary box!’

Variants of that flooded social media during the Australia-Pakistan series.

I don’t love Warner behind the mic, but I do think he is a little better than I had feared. I like how he says what he thinks even if it means criticising erstwhile teammates.

And it is true, he does bring some fresh insights. However, as with many recently retired players who I suspect have not watched a huge amount of cricket, there is a danger of him overestimating the value of the insights he has to offer.

In the first T20 he made a point about how Glenn Maxwell sets up differently depending on whether he is planning a reverse shot or not. Fair enough - it was interesting, if not exactly groundbreaking.

But Warner clearly thought it was so remarkable that he joked he was being traitorous to Australia by disclosing it. He then got a little agitated, demanding that the Pakistan coaches should have rushed this cheat-code out to their players.

Seriously.

I mean, I am happy to be corrected but if Maxwell’s huge change in backlift was news to any international cricketer I would be astounded.

Anyway, as I said, on the whole Warner isn’t so bad. But, to circle back to the opening sentence, I do want Steve Smith to keep playing for as long as possible!

Ball 4
Speaking of commentary, one of the more full-on guys out there is former New Zealand fast bowler Danny Morrison.

He is actually a household name in India because of his extravagant, excitable commentary. He’s not everyone’s cup of tea but at least he never lacks for energy.

And he pops up everywhere - whenever there is a T20 league on, Danny Morrison is not far away. If you have any interest in world cricket you can probably do your own Morrison impression.

I say all this to preface some commentary I heard the other night when David Warner and Mark Howard were describing Sam Billings’s impression of Morrison.

Mark Waugh, the third commentator, and one of my favourite players, was bemused.

Initially, he assumed Billings must have done an impression of Morrison’s bowling run up. When told it was a commentary impression, Waugh stunned me with words to the effect of, ‘I haven’t heard Danny Morrison commentate much.’

I’m trying to think of an analogy to highlight how madcap this is. Maybe it would be like a maker of nature documentaries not recognising David Attenborough’s voice; or maybe a food critic who is unaware that Gordon Ramsay likes to rant and swear.

In any case, it struck home what is already a bit of a standing joke - Mark Waugh doesn’t watch much cricket. I quite like his commentary - I know some do not - but it would be nice if he actually showed a bit more interest in the sport!

Ball 5
Last week, I talked up Fergus O’Neill.

I should have known what the reaction would be.

On TikTok, many agreed with me. But an alarming number said he is not fast enough.

I had thought we had left that era behind when Darren Lehmann stepped down as Aussie coach.

Speed is great, sure, but results are what matters. And O’Neill’s first class average - albeit early in his career - now sits at an astonishing 19.8.

Ahh, you say, but that’s just against state players. To succeed against the elite you need speed.

By this logic, Australia’s big quicks must surely have much better records in Shield cricket than Test cricket - given it is so much easier.

Well, here is the combined bowling average of Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood and Boland for their states and for Australia:

They’re virtually identical!

Ahh, you say, but that’s because many of their Test wickets have come in places like England where bowling is easier. Let’s see how they have gone in Tests just in Australia, on our flat decks. Compare that to the Shield and you will see how much easier the Shield is.

Here you go:

Test bowling is easier! Almost the same number of wickets yet the combined Test average in Australia is significantly better.

Applying the ratio, O’Neill can be expected to average about 18.1 in Tests in Australia (sarcasm/humour alert!)

Clearly, that is not going to happen, and as I said, it’s still early days.

But I do think O’Neill is an exciting prospect and I don’t really care how quick he is.

Ball 6
The second T20 game against Pakistan was a sellout at the SCG. A high percentage were Pakistan fans and the atmosphere sounded great.

Yet the members areas were rather empty and the total crowd - about 31,000 - was 5,000 lower than I can ever remember for a game in which all tickets were sold.

What is to be done about white ball international cricket in this country?

I think two facts are clear:

1. ODIs are not the answer
2. Bilateral series are not the answer

We need an annual T20 tournament. It is absolutely essential.

Rugby union’s Six Nations is a great example: an annual tournament that matters to people and excites them.

Cricket used to have it with the annual ODI tri-series. It is time to return to something like that, but with T20s instead.

I’d like to see more than just three nations involved. India is obviously the prime drawcard but even if they are reluctant to come it should still be economically viable.

I’ve often said there is a need to foster the Pakistan-Australia rivalry and this could be a way of doing so. Invite Pakistan each year, along with New Zealand and South Africa. Surely all three would want to come. And invite all the other South Asian teams too: Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal etc. (Afghanistan too - but only once they are allowed a women’s team again).

And why not have an identical women’s comp on at the same time, just like they do in England with the Hundred?

Get the Aussie games and the finals on free-to-air television and let Foxtel have exclusive coverage of the non-Aussie games to keep them happy.

And make cricket relevant in October and November again!