Australia side for 3rd Test

With all this Bring Back Warne stuff flying around, I thought I should get in on the Ashes act, rather like Bell at 4/452. Here's what should be the Australia side for the 3rd Ashes test because this - according to the comments in the Sydney Morning Herald - is what the supporters want.

Gone are the days when you knew the Australian team (and result) six months before the toss. The selectors just used to copy and paste from the ICC World Ratings. Now, they pick people called Xavier who haven't even had the decency to dominate English county cricket for a decade prior to selection.

Anyway, this is part SMH comments, and part me. I want the series to stay alive, so here's a few ideas to help Hilditch and co:

1. Simon Katich. Keep the Kat. Even on one foot he's still the people's choice. Ticker and stubble, what more do you need? Never really moves his feet anyway, and still averages over 45, so an ankle injury won't bother him. The Kat stays.

2. Kim Hughes. All this talk of young, untried Phil Hughes smacks of panic. Why look forward when you can look back, say the CA and Aussie suppporters alike. You don't need young kids with questionable technique and lack of ticker when you can have all of those plus age like that of ex-captain Kim Hughes, 56. He'd fit in a treat to Pup's side as not only does he have a girlie name, but made history as the first Australian man to show emotions, crying in public back in 1984. Plus he's got the sort of form with the bat that would make even Ryan Harris feel like a hit in the nets: 2 runs in his last 4 Test innings.

Shocker.

3. Mike Hussey. Batting as well as anyone in world cricket at 6, why move him? Because with a tail longer than a cartoon cat, the Huss needs to be in 3. Bear with me while I type this final sentence, referring to him as Mr Cricket, as a contractual obligation. (Note that no one is mentioning his appalling shot against Finn on Day 5, Morning, in the hope that it'll all just go away. I haven't forgotten. Shocker!)

4. Michael Clarke. Captain. Lead the way to defeat with a dreadful 80 before succombing a brilliant piece of bowling from Kevin Pieterson, who bowled a ball towards him, Pup is the man to take over from Ponting. Hated by half the team, he's become a lot like Mike Brearley, just without the art of captaincy.

5. Marcus North. Total shit whose technical deficiencies when playing spin have apparently been exposed by the review system: the problem being that he doesn't really use his bat. Thank God for video technology to pick up that one, and well done umpires. Harris and has a similar problem, but at least he's honest enough to 'shoulder arms', like Strauss.) Smiles whimsically when he gets out, as such good to have him around in case one of the players' cats die; they might need a cuddle.

6. Ian Chappell. Had a fight with Botham in a car park only last week. That's what Australia needs: someone who hates these tourists with Pauline Hanson-like bile. Would kick the sh/t into Marcus North at the other end, which might even induce him to score a run when the score isn't already 440/3

7. Brad Haddin. Loved in Oz like the taste of a cold gold beer opened with your eye socket after walking out on the wife. If you combine his name whilst drunk, he's basically Bradman.   

8. Shane Warne. Bring back Warney! The walking tabloid headline is the answer Aussie prayers: truth be told, England would still be absolutely bricking it facing Warney, at Perth of anywhere else, and no amount of Graeme Swann's media spin bravado will stop that. Only available for every 7th over due to media commitments: still more dangerous than Doherty's best ever ball to a blind man.

9. Ryan Butta. A combative Australian currently honing his technique on the uncovered pitches of Argentina: frankly, the stats speal for themselves. Seaks confrontation like a Bush Administration Foreign Policy, is just the sort of player to ruffle some English feathers, in any of three languages. Like Warne, committment subject to media offers. Like Clarke, has experienced the highs and lows of captaincy. Full info here.  

10. Ryan Harris. Can only improve with the bat, and gutsy as you like with the ball. Good man to have in a fight, which half that middle-order might want, the other will need. 

Dougie's left arm spin didn't cause KP
 the problems Australia had hoped.

11. Doug Bollinger. Because a dark side of me wants to watch Pieterson bat against him again. That would have been illegal in some countries. (See image, right)

12th man. Tim Zoehrer. The ultimate twelfthers. Second best leg spinner in Australia. behind Warnie. Second best wicket keeper in Australia since 1967, behind Marsh, then Healy, then Gilchrist, now Bradman. Second best cricket writer too, behind Phil Lutton.

Dropped. Ricky Ponting. Hasn't made a hundred in nearly a week, so like Sachin is clearly past it, was never a number 3 anyway and can't play spin, and looks a lot like George W Bush. Who needs that at first drop?

Not picked: Phil Hughes. Got 86no last innings, averages over 50 in Tests and 1st Class, he's too good and too young for the current selectors. The man with an off side technique modelled on Alistair Cook's should get plenty of runs this series, but still no one's convinced. Back to back hundreds against the no1 team in the world count for nothing these days. Langer's gushing press conference backing him seems a little odd, particularly the line about Hughes being "special under pressue", months after dropping him questioning his ability to, you know, play under pressure.

Game on, next Thursday. Oh. one change to the England side: Flintoff in for the injured Broad.