Info- Cricket Players/Teams--NO COMMENTS - Page 2

Career statistics

Statsguru Tests filter | Statsguru One-Day Internationals filter
Test debut Sri Lanka v Australia at Galle - Mar 8-12, 2004 scorecard
Last Test Australia v England at Sydney - Jan 2-5, 2007 scorecard
ODI debut Pakistan v Australia at Lahore - Nov 10, 1998 scorecard
Last ODI Australia v England at Sydney - Feb 2, 2007 scorecard
Twenty20 Int. debut New Zealand v Australia at Auckland - Feb 17, 2005 scorecard
Last Twenty20 Int. Australia v England at Sydney - Jan 9, 2007 scorecard
First-class span 1994/95 - 2006/07
List A span 1993/94 - 2006/07
Twenty20 span 2003 - 2006/07

Notes
One-Day International Player of the Year - 2005

Profile

Andrew Symonds brings gusto to whatever he does, whether firing down offbreaks or mediums, hurling his ungainly bulk round the field or vigorously ruffling the bowler's hair at the celebration of a wicket. He saves his loudest grunt for his batting, where he is that rarest of modern-day creatures - an unabashed six-hitter in the mould of a George Bonnor or a Colin Milburn or a David Hookes. Batting for Gloucestershire at 20, he scythed 16 sixes in the first dig [a world record] against Glamorgan at Abergavenny, 20 for the match [another first], and then announced he couldn't care less about the milestone; he wanted only to help his team. He has been matter-of-factly demolishing attacks ever since. His flaw has been to attempt one six too many - invariably off the wrong ball.

"I used to hate watching him bat," his old coach Toot Byron once lamented. "He wasn't in control of his shot-selection ... he'd get 24 off an over and then go out on the last ball of that over." Legend has it that Symonds, a dreadlocked Queensland larrikin, once turned up barefoot and wearing a cowboy hat for a contract meeting with Cricket Australia's then-chief executive Malcolm Speed. He also graciously ruled himself ineligible for any award at the 2006 Allan Border Medal - he would have been the One-Day Player of the Year - after being suspended for turning up drunk before Australia's embarrassing loss to Bangladesh on the Ashes tour.

During almost five years in and out of the one-day side he frittered away golden opportunities galore. One day changed everything. Striding out with his team in turmoil against Pakistan in the 2003 World Cup, a game and tournament he never expected to play in, Symonds sculpted a masterly 143 not out in 125 balls. Until that day, he had mustered just 762 one-day runs at only 23; ever since he has averaged more than 45 and become a hero to the masses. "In the past," he admits, "I was a man without a map when I went out to bat." Now he understands his one-day role perfectly - he could claim to be the side's most valuable player after pounding three hundreds and taking 21 wickets in 2005-06. His impact to the limited-overs outfit was shown this summer after he ripped the tendon from his arm playing a fierce drive and the team struggled to its worst losing streak in a decade. Symonds is not the only one hoping he'll make it to the World Cup.

Born in Birmingham, Symonds could have played for England but dreamed only of wearing the baggy green. In 2004 his fantasy was fulfilled in decidedly unGabbalike surroundings: the crackling minefields of Sri Lanka. He batted gamely without looking altogether comfortable, and was dumped after two Tests. Almost two years later he received an extended run as Australia's selectors searched for an answer to Andrew Flintoff, but he couldn't consistently mirror his one-day performances. Faced with the axe, he cracked a huge six at the MCG to open his scoring in a pressure-relieving 72 from 54 balls, which included a ground record five maximums, but was dropped on the Bangladesh tour after struggling for reliable impact in the previous series against South Africa. Given another opportunity when Shane Watson was injured and Damien Martyn retired, he appeared in his first Ashes series and reached a career high in his second game with 156 at the MCG. Batting with his fishing friend Matthew Hayden, he showed he had the mindset to make it at Test level.

Career statistics

Statsguru Tests filter | Statsguru One-Day Internationals filter
Test debut Australia v Pakistan at Sydney - Jan 2-5, 2005 scorecard
Last Test Australia v West Indies at Brisbane - Nov 3-7, 2005 scorecard
ODI debut South Africa v Australia at Centurion - Mar 24, 2002 scorecard
Last ODI New Zealand v Australia at Hamilton - Feb 20, 2007 scorecard
Only Twenty20 Int. South Africa v Australia at Johannesburg - Feb 24, 2006 scorecard
First-class span 2000/01 - 2006/07
List A span 2000/01 - 2006/07
Twenty20 span 2004 - 2006

Notes
Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year - 2002

Profile

Hulklike, blond and spiky-haired, Shane Watson should be the shiny embodiment of modern-day Australian cricket - if only that body didn't keep cracking up. Vivacious in all departments, he is the quintessential young man in a hurry. As a boy he played for Queensland Under-17s at 15, then went to the Academy. As a youth he upped and fled to Tasmania, desperate to gatecrash first-class cricket. Within five games he had clubbed his maiden hundred; within a year he was picked for Australia. Talent-spotted with the 2003 World Cup in mind, he ultimately missed out with stress fractures of the back - the same injury that riddled his teenage years. Until then his batting had lacked nothing in swagger and only a little in gap-finding artifice, while his bowling looked willing if docile. Apart from a nude photoshoot in an arty men's mag he faded swiftly from view, bouncing back in 2003-04 with four hundreds from No. 4 for Tasmania. He smashed an unbeaten 300, too, in a club game for Lindisfarne; then, irked by opposition attempts to thwart him reaching his triple, immediately ripped out 7 for 29.

Watson remains the cleanest of hitters and, several remodelled actions later, decidedly sharp with the ball. Back at home in Queensland (he hated the cold), he is the hot tip to become Australia's next champion allrounder - not least in the opinion of Australia's last one. "He has all the attributes," noted Alan Davidson in 2002. "A fine physical specimen, good athlete; just give him time." Picked for his first Test in 2004-05, he landed face-down after his opening delivery before finding his feet with Younis Khan's wicket and 31 runs. He didn't play in Australia's Ashes defeat, but his stock rose in the aftermath, as Andrew Flintoff highlighted the benefits of a genuine allrounder. The following season was ruined by a partial dislocation of his shoulder while fielding just minutes after his second Test wicket against West Indies, and he watched his good mate Andrew Symonds fill in during his rehabilitation.

Picked for the one-day tour of South Africa, he missed a return to the Test squad, but a fine 201 in the Pura Cup final demolition of Victoria eased the pain. Locked into Australia's one-day team as an opener - he survived food poisoning, which he feared was a heart attack, during a strong Champions Trophy campaign - and lined up as the Test allrounder, he was again floored when his body faltered. A persistent hamstring injury destroyed his Ashes dreams and he heads to the World Cup with nagging doubts over his wonky fitness.

Career statistics

Statsguru One-Day Internationals filter
ODI debut Australia v Zimbabwe at Hobart - Jan 30, 2001 scorecard
Last ODI New Zealand v Australia at Hamilton - Feb 20, 2007 scorecard
Only Twenty20 Int. Australia v South Africa at Brisbane - Jan 9, 2006 scorecard
First-class span 1999/00 - 2006/07
List A span 1997/98 - 2006/07
Twenty20 span 2004/05 - 2006/07

Profile

Brad Haddin holds the most nerve-fraying position in Australian cricket. Having seen off Darren Berry, Wade Seccombe and Ryan Campbell, he is the wicketkeeper-in-waiting and entrusted with warming the seat whenever Adam Gilchrist needs a rest. Slip up and be forgotten; perform well, as he has over the past few seasons, and suffer a speedy demotion when the incumbent returns. Haddin is also the next generation's target and must ward off the challenges of like-minded-but-younger aggressive batsmen and glovemen. At 29 he has time - and talent - on his side for a lengthy international career, but the scheduling of Gilchrist's eventual departure will be crucial as he eyes the same position as the up-and-comers Chris Hartley, Luke Ronchi and Adam Crosthwaite.

The pressure of being No. 2 has not hindered Haddin's batting over the past three seasons and his keeping to a New South Wales attack swinging from Brett Lee to Stuart MacGill has remained sharp. In 2004-05 he scored 916 first-class runs at 57.25 in leading the Blues to a one-wicket Pura Cup victory over Queensland and he also posted an impressive limited-overs century for Australia A against Pakistan. A regular leader of Australia's 2nd XI, Haddin backed up in 2005-06 with another 617 Pura Cup runs at 51.41 and capably filled in for Gilchrist in two VB Series games. The World Cup understudy, he heads to the Caribbean with 21 ODI appearances after deputising during the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy, a top score of 70 in Malaysia, and the experience of a place on the 2005 Ashes tour.

A former Australia Under-19 captain who grew up in Gundagai, Haddin began his domestic career in 1997-98 with the Australian Capital Territory in their debut Mercantile Mutual Cup season, and two years later was playing for New South Wales. Promoted to the national one-day outfit in 2000-01 as a replacement for Gilchrist, he has been on the national contract list for the past three years and is ready for the first chance at a full-time promotion.

Career statistics

Statsguru Tests filter | Statsguru One-Day Internationals filter
Test debut India v Australia at Delhi - Oct 10-13, 1996 scorecard
Last Test Australia v Zimbabwe at Sydney - Oct 17-20, 2003 scorecard
ODI debut Australia v Zimbabwe at Colombo (RPS) - Aug 26, 1996 scorecard
Last ODI New Zealand v Australia at Hamilton - Feb 20, 2007 scorecard
Twenty20 Int. debut South Africa v Australia at Johannesburg - Feb 24, 2006 scorecard
Last Twenty20 Int. Australia v England at Sydney - Jan 9, 2007 scorecard
First-class span 1993/94 - 2006/07
List A span 1993/94 - 2006/07
Twenty20 span 2004 - 2006/07

Profile

With his booming grin, zooming flipper and hard-to-pick wrong'un, Brad Hogg is Australia's most mercurial chinaman bowler since 'Chuck' Fleetwood-Smith in the 1930s. He announced himself to the world with a stupendous flipper to Zimbabwe's Andy Flower in the 2003 World Cup. Flower leapt back, waited for the away-spin and then slumped, hideously bamboozled, as the ball fizzed straight through on to his stumps. Until that moment, Hogg's cricketing trajectory had been anything but straightforward. Like Stuart MacGill, he had spent years in the shadow of Shane Warne. He went to that World Cup hoping to pick Warne's brain, and unexpectedly found himself filling Warne's boots. His initial Test opportunity, at Delhi way back in 1996, also arose as Warne's stand-in. He made 1 and 4, took 1 for 69, and was promptly dumped for the next seven years and 78 games. No other Australian has waited so long between his first and second Tests; Alan Hurst, dropped for 30 matches, was the previous record-holder.

During his time in the wilderness, Hogg learned to practise less and enjoy himself more. He began first-class life as a solid left-hand batsman, before flirting with chinamen in the nets one afternoon at the playful suggestion of his Western Australia coach Tony Mann. His batting has fallen away, although he hit a Pura Cup century in 2004-05, but his jack-in-a-box fielding makes up for it. Hogg used to be a postman - "I do my round like a Formula One driver," he once bragged - and has the ever-present smile of a postie who's never known yappy dogs or rainy days. Boasting the Man-of-the-Series award against Bangladesh, Hogg passed 100 ODI wickets in April 2006 and still makes energetic contributions. Despite being a youthful 36, his days as an international are shortening and he was usually surplus to Australia's CB Series requirements until Andrew Symonds was injured. A second World Cup looms and will probably decide how long he stays in green and gold.

Career statistics

Statsguru Tests filter | Statsguru One-Day Internationals filter
Test debut England v Australia at Nottingham - Aug 25-29, 2005 scorecard
Last Test England v Australia at The Oval - Sep 8-12, 2005 scorecard
ODI debut Australia v England at Sydney - Feb 2, 2007 scorecard
Last ODI New Zealand v Australia at Hamilton - Feb 20, 2007 scorecard
First-class span 2002/03 - 2006/07
List A span 2002/03 - 2006/07
Twenty20 span 2004/05 - 2006/07

Notes
Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year - 2004

Profile

Shaun Tait's shoulder-strong action slung him on to the 2005 Ashes tour, where he played two Tests ahead of his more celebrated South Australia team-mate Jason Gillespie, but it soon disrupted his quest for further international impact. With a muscular and unrefined method that seems to invite pain, Tait returned from England buoyed by his promotion only to hurt himself in a grade match and the subsequent shoulder surgery forced him out for the rest of the year. Fortunately he experienced no damage to his frightening pace stores, although he was surprised how easily his thunderbolts disappeared at Trent Bridge and The Oval.

Despite the injuries - a back problem suffered in the nets ended his trip to South Africa and a hamstring complaint delayed his ODI entry - his old-fashioned approach of yorkers and bumpers mixed with a modern dose of sharp reverse-swing has excited followers who cross fingers Tait and Lee can be the 21st century's version of Lillee and Thomson. "That's what I've had in the back of my mind as well," he said when asked if the pair could replicate the 1970s icons. To confirm the point he even shines the ball across his chest and finished his first Test day with a splash of red on his shirt as well as the wickets of Marcus Trescothick and Ian Bell. Unlike his tearaway predecessors, he can't live without his Playstation 2.

The Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year in 2003-04, Tait also picked up the ING Cup's Best New Talent prize, chiefly for his 8 for 43 against Tasmania, the best figures in domestic limited-overs history. When Lee was injured Tait was taken as a development player on the Sri Lanka tour, where he introduced himself to the newly installed captain Ricky Ponting in the nets by hitting him in the head with a bouncer. His early beginnings might have been spicy, but his follow-up year was even tastier with 65 first-class wickets in ten matches. An abbreviated 2005-06 included 6 for 41 in the ING Cup Final, which included an amazing combination of spot-on speed and 14 wides, and he backed up the following season to earn his first start in the national one-day side.

In two matches he showed his range, giving up 2 for 68 and 1 for 26 from his ten overs, and clocked 160kph. It won him a World Cup spot and proved Dennis Lillee's belief he "has all the resources to stick the ball right up the noses of the batsmen". A child of the Adelaide Hills, he received his best advice at the age of seven when his father suggested he play cricket.

Career statistics

Statsguru One-Day Internationals filter
ODI debut New Zealand v Australia at Christchurch - Dec 10, 2005 scorecard
Last ODI New Zealand v Australia at Hamilton - Feb 20, 2007 scorecard
First-class span 2001/02 - 2006/07
List A span 2003/04 - 2006/07
Twenty20 span 2005/06 - 2006/07

Notes
Australia Under-19s 1999 to 1999/00
Australia A, 2005-06

Profile

Mitchell Johnson is Australia's most exciting fast-bowling prospect since Brett Lee first dyed his roots. He's quick, he's tall, he's insanely talented, but most of all, he's a left-armer. Only the digging up of a blond legspinner can create more excitement in an Australian cricket scene that has had just two of this style of diamond - Alan Davidson and Bruce Reid - pass 100 Test wickets. Picked in the one-day side on promise - his best first-class figures after 12 first-class games were 5 for 43 - Johnson's future depends on whether he can stay fit and keep taking the big wickets.

Dennis Lillee fell hard and instantly when he spotted him as a 17-year-old at a Pace Australia camp and called him "a once in a generation bowler". Lillee immediately phoned Rod Marsh, who was then the Australian Academy head coach, and Johnson was quickly headed to Adelaide and the national under-19 team. Injuries, mostly to his back, kept interrupting his long-term plans but he played a full season in 2004-05 and was a fixture with Queensland a year later after being picked for Australia A's tour of Pakistan. Another representative catapult arrived in December 2005 when Trevor Hohns launched him into the Australian one-day squad for the final match of the Chappell-Hadlee Series.

Johnson's domestic highlight came when he followed the Bulls' 6 for 900 declared in the 2005-06 Pura Cup final with 6 for 51 and ten for the match to mop up a demoralised Victoria. "What a performance on a flat wicket," his captain Jimmy Maher said. The display cemented a spot on the Bangladesh tour and when he came back he was given a full Cricket Australia contract only two years after driving a delivery truck and considering walking away from the game because of his fourth back stress injury. On trips to Malaysia and India Johnson showed his capabilities with a series of big wickets, including Tendulkar, Dravid, Lara and Pietersen, and he spent the season as Australia's Test 12th man before earning regular one-day spells and a World Cup place.

At 189cm, he has the height to worry batsmen and is intent on scaring them as well. Shane Watson, his Queensland team-mate, has been impressed. "He has just about the most talent I've ever seen in an all-round athlete and I've only seen him playing cricket. If he can keep improving the sky's the limit."

Career statistics

Statsguru Tests filter | Statsguru One-Day Internationals filter
Test debut Australia v New Zealand at Perth - Nov 12-16, 1993 scorecard
Last Test Australia v England at Sydney - Jan 2-5, 2007 scorecard
ODI debut Australia v South Africa at Melbourne - Dec 9, 1993 scorecard
Last ODI New Zealand v Australia at Auckland - Feb 18, 2007 scorecard
Twenty20 Int. debut New Zealand v Australia at Auckland - Feb 17, 2005 scorecard
Last Twenty20 Int. England v Australia at Southampton - Jun 13, 2005 scorecard
First-class span 1992/93 - 2006/07
List A span 1992/93 - 2006/07
Twenty20 span 2004/05 - 2005

Notes
Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1998
Wisden Australia Cricketer of the Year 1999
Allan Border Medal 2000
Test Player of the Year - 2000
One-Day International Player of the Year - 2001
Wisden Australia Cricketer of the Year 2005-06

Profile

The young Glenn McGrath was described by Mike Whitney as "thin - but Ambrose-thin, not Bruce Reid-thin". Much later, Mike Atherton compared McGrath to Ambrose on a vaster scale. Catapulted from the outback of New South Wales into Test cricket to replace Merv Hughes in 1993, McGrath became, after a faltering start, the great Australian paceman of his time. And after passing Courtney Walsh's 519 wickets in the 2005 Super Test only Dennis Lillee threatens his title as the greatest Australian fast man of all time. His obituary has been prepared a few times - he was doubted after coming back in 2004 from ankle surgery and there were similar fears following a long lay-off to care for his wife two years later - but he wrote his own farewell by retiring from Tests on his home ground. Apart from bowing out with a 5-0 Ashes win, he walked of the SCG with a wicket from his final ball to capture his 563th victim. The World Cup will be his last tour as an international before he becomes a full-time Dad.

McGrath bowled an unremitting off-stump line and an immaculate length, gained off-cut and bounce, specialised in the opposition's biggest wickets - especially Atherton's and Brian Lara's - was unafraid to back himself publicly in these key duels, and showed himself to be unusually durable. He was a batting rabbit who applied himself so intently that while playing for Worcestershire he won a bet with an Australian team-mate by posting a fifty. The work eventually paid off in Tests when he made 61, the third-highest score by a No. 11, against New Zealand in 2004-05. Only in his occasional fits of ill-temper did he fail himself.

He rewrote the World Cup record-books in 2003 with 7 for 15 against the outclassed Namibians, on his way to adding another winner's medal to a bulging collection. An ankle injury threatened to derail his quest for 500 Test wickets, but after briefly contemplating retirement he bounced back with yet another five-wicket haul against Sri Lanka at Darwin in July 2004. Three months later, at Nagpur, he became the first fast bowler to play 100 matches in the baggy green, and his greatness was further confirmed when knocking down the brittle Pakistanis at Perth with 8 for 24, the second-best figures by an Australian.

Adept at picking his moments, he chose the first day at Lord's to reach 500 and his subsequent ankle and arm injuries were crucial to Australia losing the series. The following summer was also painfully disrupted with the reoccurrence of his wife Jane's cancer, which called for immediate treatment and McGrath's full attention. He pulled out of the VB Series finals as well as tours to South Africa and Bangladesh, but he returned to help Australia reclaim the urn.