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Buchanan bemoans quality of opposition

Buchanan has claimed he fears for his side when the World Cup gets underway in two months' time ... because England and New Zealand are simply not good enough

Cricinfo staff
25-Jan-2007


John Buchanan has one trophy in the bag, but he fears for Australia's prospects in the World Cup © Getty Images
If Australia's coach, John Buchanan, is to be believed, it's not just England's World Cup preparations that are suffering at the moment. Such is the dominance of the Australians in the current CB Series, Buchanan has claimed he fears for his side when the World Cup gets underway in two months' time ... because England and New Zealand are simply not good enough.
"I do not believe that there has been too much quality batting displayed at present," said Buchanan, although he did single out four performers - Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff, Ross Taylor and Craig McMillan for their one-off efforts. But, he added: "All our bowlers have been able to control each game for most of the matches."
Victory may beget victory, but Buchanan, who always likes to push the boundaries of his talented squad of players, would prefer it wasn't so simple. "Our ability to deliver yorkers, length balls, bouncers, variety balls, such as slower balls and cutters, has not been placed under constant scrutiny by an opposition batting line-up."
"This testing of our bowlers' response to situations when we have lost control (temporarily hopefully) is not happening. In essence, the batting efforts of our opposition are not assisting the development of our bowlers' one-day skills and the decision-making that accompanies being placed under the microscope of competition.
Buchanan will never call a spade a spade when he can call it a portable digging device, but in summary, it was a pretty damning appraisal of his underperforming opponents. Australia have four dead-rubber matches to negotiate before the best-of-three finals next month, but Buchanan insisted he would be upping the workload as the World Cup approaches.
"It is with these thoughts in mind that we will approach our training over the next few weeks," Buchanan added. "Like the swimming analogy, we are not looking to taper until the finals begin. After the Commonwealth Bank Series finals, we will be looking to increase the workload again through the Chappell-Hadlee series in New Zealand and the early weeks and rounds of the World Cup."