TOPIC:

Hogg averagged 35 in fc, just 5 runs behind a batsman such as Marcus North.
In comparison Martin Love averagged nearly 50 for QLD.

As someone who has followed the WA team for years I am mystified as to the lack of specialist batsmen in State cricket. The batsman who, once they are in, can put together a long innings and bat for a number of sessions to set up scores of 400 - 450 consistently. Every team needs these types of batsmen and other states seem to still develop these types of players. In Tasmania they have Doolan who can dig in as well as George Bailey and Wade, NSW have Daniel Hughes and young Solway, Queensland have Street who has just recently been introduced as well as their more established players in Khawaja, Burns and Labausange. Victoria have Harris, Pucovski and Travis Dean, SA have Weatherald, Calum Ferguson and Cooper. Specialist batsmen capable of going big. WA have Shaun Marsh and that's about it as far as I can see.
WA has a rich history of class batsmen going back to Barry Sheppard, John Inverarity, Ross Edwards, Kim Hughes Adam Voges etc etc but the production line seems to have stopped somewhat.

I'm sure that we have a couple that are capable of digging in mike, but they need a bit of cement in their Weeties. Seems like the pressure comes on then it's el foldo!! 7 for 41...……..FFS?????

mikeh wrote: As someone who has followed the WA team for years I am mystified as to the lack of specialist batsmen in State cricket. The batsman who, once they are in, can put together a long innings and bat for a number of sessions to set up scores of 400 - 450 consistently. Every team needs these types of batsmen and other states seem to still develop these types of players. In Tasmania they have Doolan who can dig in as well as George Bailey and Wade, NSW have Daniel Hughes and young Solway, Queensland have Street who has just recently been introduced as well as their more established players in Khawaja, Burns and Labausange. Victoria have Harris, Pucovski and Travis Dean, SA have Weatherald, Calum Ferguson and Cooper. Specialist batsmen capable of going big. WA have Shaun Marsh and that's about it as far as I can see.
WA has a rich history of class batsmen going back to Barry Sheppard, John Inverarity, Ross Edwards, Kim Hughes Adam Voges etc etc but the production line seems to have stopped somewhat.

Mike what has got me riled is we have let batsmen go who could dig in the quality of Katich, Rogers, Dighton etc to other states whilst keeping flashy inferior batsmen.
Surely we should only look back to our grand era of the 70s, 80s & 90s to see you need those batsmen that can dig in at the top of the innings and the team build a total around the likes of Charlesworth, Laird, Shipperd, Veletta, G.Marsh, Langer etc

bease: correct

the first player whom I saw debut for WA with talent was Valetta (19 or so at the time)

Moody
Katich
Langer
Martyn
Hussey, whom may have been a bit older when he first played

Probably the other thing we are missing AR which always plays out in Sydney is a quality spin bowler.
Was hoping Agar would have a breakout game on the turning deck but 0/133 really is a poor return there.
I dont think O'Connor is the answer was hoping Hinchcliffe might get a go but he seems to be on the outer as well.
Outside Bruce Yardley and to a lesser extent Brad Hogg, Tom Hogan who was our last Test quality spin bowler?

Probably a bit before your time BH but WA had a few useful performers back in the 60s by the names of Ashley Mallett and Terry Jenner, whose path into the WA team was blocked by a combination of the pace friendly WACA wicket and the presence of Tony Lock as the established spinner. So they both moved to SA where they managed to forge out reasonable careers you could say. In fact Mallett was regarded as Australias best ever off spinner until Nathan Lyon came along.

mikeh wrote: Probably a bit before your time BH but WA had a few useful performers back in the 60s by the names of Ashley Mallett and Terry Jenner, whose path into the WA team was blocked by a combination of the pace friendly WACA wicket and the presence of Tony Lock as the established spinner. So they both moved to SA where they managed to forge out reasonable careers you could say. In fact Mallett was regarded as Australias best ever off spinner until Nathan Lyon came along.

Good pick up Mike with Mallet & Jenner a couple of Ian Chappell's favourites in the 1970s side.
Another quality leg spinner we produced was Stuart MacGill but we let him go too to bloody NSW!

bease: looking back, we were lucky to have hogan and Yardley play for us one after the other given the nature of cricket in this state. I have read that Mallet was a WA boy as well, and in the past, as you know they have imported, players, such as Marks, to get around our 'eastern problem' so to speak.

The WACA has been destroyed by three things:

1 in fighting, hence we see all the players buggerring off
2 commercialism -- which has seen money put before matters, such as, whom should be captain of the state
3 20/20 -- how I curse the poms for inventing that version of the game

a way to break the 20/20 syndrome at the WACA may be to bring in a second team; mikeh, was quite right when he suggested that 20/20ism does not seem to have the same hold over the other states in terms of how they play cricket.