The fourth Test

Now we are at the SCG.

I am loathe to believe it will be a spinning paradise. The Sheffield Shield says this is nonsense. Experience tells us this is nonsense.
We no longer have the hot temperatures to open up the holes either

Australia's selectors who appear to be taking money for no work have appeared to pick another 'Marsh allrounder'. That is a player whose batting average should be his bowling average and vica versa.
I am staggered.
It appears good form in the Sheffield Shield is disregarded.
In terms of India I at this stage do not know what their team is. Are bowling Sharma and Ashwin playing?
For Australia it simply gets worse. The victorian selectors never believed Finch was an opening batsmen in Australia ( it the UAR the ball rarely swings) yet the national selectors told him he was an opening batsman despite an OBVIOUS loose technique.


Read aftergrogblog.blogs.com/cricket for comments once Tonee eventually puts up his fourth test column.

The Pause that never was

Two weeks ago in  Around the Traps I had two papers examining the pause that never was.
They were :

• and Then There's Physics
• Open Mind

One of the more interesting discussion topics of this was the definition of a pause. what is it?

If you really are a person who is interested in this topic then read ( whoopsy) THIS .  308 papers on the subject!!

The Asian Cup

We start our defence of the Asian Cup on Sunday night.
Thus far we have had four friendlies. The first and last were useless.The  two in Australia against South Korea and Lebanon were  the opposite.

We go into the cup without Mooy our most creative player and also Leckie.

On balance the squad is competent with plenty of attacking options however there are still questions.

Why pick Milligan as a holding mid-fielder when he is likely to announce his retirement in international football after the tournament is over.
Kruse is a luxury we cannot afford. since his ACL he simply does not have the acceleration needed, he is tentative in front of goal and  has never been a great crosser of the ball.
Nabbout whilst fast does not have acceleration which is the quality needed in football. The defenders treated him with contempt in the World Cup. No defender gets tired ,physically or otherwise against him.

On the other hand Boyle and Mabil have shown themselves to be attacking players. Degenek has proved to be solid as a rock. If Sainsbury is back in form as it seems then the defence looks quite solid.

I doubt if we can win the cup again but the semi-finals does look beyond us. Watching Arnie in action when the pressure is on will be interesting

I am looking forward to Sunday

Know Your Subject

The terribly consistent Sinclair Davidson shows again he knows little what he writes about.

He makes a huge claim about John Howard. He claims Howard had a plan to become PM and a plan to be PM.
Really.
Oh dear I do remember the years after 1996 when Howard was PM. Most people thought was in over his head. He was now in a position way beyond his competency.
His government was continually criticised as a do nothing government. This eventually go to Howard after the BCA said this and he announced Australia would have a GST.

This lead to his government getting the lowest vote ever for a re-elected Government!

What a plan.
Did  he have a plan for becoming PM? Not in his last run as Opposition Leader. He was going nowhere and then Hewson lost the unlosable election and downer made a complete hash of being Opposition Leader.

you are right it is almost the New Year and there is little to write about!

Around the Traps 28/12/18 Christmas Edition

It is time for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Croaking Cassandra on gcsb-china-and-a-craven-government, christmas-near-and-far
• Peter Gregory on when-a-fair-trial-could-be-at-risk-suppression-is-the-order-of-the-day
• Mark the Ballot on our-aggregation-remains-at-462-per-cent
• Kevin Bowman on new-south-wales-2019-battle-of-unknowns
• Ross Gittins on does-gift-giving-make-sense-silly-question
• Greg Jericho on come-election-2019-wage-growth-will-matter-more-to-voters-than-a-surplus
• Nick Gruen on deck-the-halls-of-academe-managerialism-product-placement-and-the-conversation-featuring-troppos-annual-christmas-competition

Northern America

• Calculated Risk on review-ten-economic-questions-for-2018, real-house-prices-and-price-to-rent-in-october
• Brad De Long on a-year-after-the-corporate-tax-cut
• Macro mania on does-fed-have-symmetric-inflation-target
• Barkley Rosser on the-last-adult-in-room-walks-out-over-ISIS
• New Deal Democrat on the-fed-scrapes-scylla-after-careening-into-charybdis
• long and variable on whatever-powell-says-the-fed-cant-avoid-taking-political-considerations-into-account
• popehat on alan-dershowitz-is-lying-to-you Thanks Brad
• Ernie Tedeschi on upshot/mystery-slow-wage-growth-econony Thanks Brad
• Tim Duy on markets-in-crisis-trump-has-damaged-the-fed Thanks Brad
• Eliza Griswold on evangelicals-of-color-fight-back-against-the-religious-right

Europe

• on christmas holiday

Asia

• Tyler Cowen on china-fact-day-9

Wonk

• Tim Harford on why-good-forecasters-become-better-people
• the conversable economist on real-vs-artificial-christmas-trees, charles-dickens-on-management-vs-labor, to-be-happy-at-home-is-ultimate-result
• Tyler Cowen on islam-compatible-free-market-capitalism-empirical-analysis-1970-2010
• Nick Gruen on peter-shergolds-foreword-to-my-submission-to-the-thodey-review
• Nendrik Bessembinder on do stocks outperform treasury bills Thanks Brad
• Yosha Mount and Jordan Kyle on what populists do to democracies

General

• Ari Mattes on the-year-in-film-from-witchy-hits-to-a-superhero-miss
• Alice Gorman on curious-kids-why-does-the-world-store-nuclear-waste-and-not-just-shoot-it-into-the-sun-or-deep-space
• Brian Resnick on jupiter-photos-juno-high-res-clouds-great-red-spot
• Julian Mathews on why-two-people-see-the-same-thing-but-have-different-memories
• the conversable economist on is-loneliness-rising

Climate

• David Appell on arctic-warming-1958-vs-2018
• Skeptical Science on 2018-hottest-la-nina-year-ever
• Open Mind on freezy-hot-climate-change
• science of doom on opinions-and-perspectives-1-the-consensus

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

• carol-nickerson-explains-mysterious-diagrams-saying
• men-women-drop-labor-force-economists-ask-men
• thats-what-happens-when-you-elect
• june-is-applied-regression-exam-month
• thus-loss-aversion-principle-rendered-superfluous-account-phenomena-introduced-explain
• what-is-probability
• back-to-the-wall
• Mayo on tour-guide-mementos-from-excursion-3-tour-iii-capability-and-severity-deeper-concepts, excerpt-from-excursion-4-tour-i-the-myth-of-the-myth-of-objectivity-mayo-2018-cup

Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)

• econometric sense on thinking-about-confidence-intervals

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• the-matter-of-england
• Ross Gittins on how-to-get-more-bang-from-your-bucks
• Tyler Cowen on what-ive-been-reading
• Liz Ellison on ten-great-australian-beach-reads-set-at-the-beach

vox wonk

• job-seeker-responses-wages-job-adverts
• why-children-teen-mothers-do-worse-life
• long-run-effects-same-race-teachers
• invisible-geniuses-advancement-knowledge-frontier
• how-future-work-may-unfold-demand-side-perspective
• decline-african-american-and-hispanic-wealth-great-recession
• equity-capital-inflows-corporate-financing-and-growth
• newcomer-ceos-performing-times-crisis

The last word on South Africa and Sandpapergate

We had interviews with both Bancroft and Smith last night on Foxsports.

The first thing I would ask is why would anyone believe them now when the lied previously.
however the main beef I have is does anyone really believe the bowlers knew sweet bugger all about what occurred.

The most inexperienced person is attempting to do something to the cricket ball. If he does not do it correctly then ball instead of reversing ( and remember reverse swing is very sharp and late) then ball goes gunbarrel straight.

The bowlers get no swing nor swerve thus it affects both fast and slow bowlers.

Not one journalist has asked about this!!!

The Third Test

The Boxing day test is almost iconic now here in OZ.
Unfortunately last year we got a terrible pitch. Indeed it was so bad I stopped watching.
We need pitched where bowlers are on top and gear innings are few and far between so they are great innings.
Thus far in Adelaide we had a test Australia should have won easily nut lost easily because of their batting. The Indian bowling was as good as the Aussies.
India lost the 2nd test comprehensive for two reasons.
1) For some inexplicable reason they picked Yadav who was a fast medium inaccurate outswing bowler.
2) Their openers failed badly again putting too much pressure on the middle order, Kholi in particular.
Australia has brought in Mitchell Marsh who is an allrounder. As Shame Warne would say he cannot bat ( except of roads) , he can't bowl and he cannot field. The Slips fieldsmen have a vulnerable look about them Not good if you have the attack we have. Just on that Starc to my mind was unimpressive in Perth. Only two decent inswingers all match.

India looks much better. The two openers are gawn.The batting looks much better or at worse as strong as in Perth but the bowling is a lot better.
If the only learn to bowl over the wicket and  and so create problems for the Aussie right handers  instead of bowling around the wicket and inviting Lyons to take more wickets they might do well.

Let us hope for a decent pitch and another enthralling match.

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