Police have found woman “safe and well” after a car was swept off a flooded causeway near Mudgee, in NSW’s Central West last night.
More than a dozen flood warnings are in place across multiple states after a complex low pressure system swept east, battering the country with heavy rain and extreme winds.
Police said they were called to Macdonalds Creek, near Lower Piambong Road in Erudgere, last night after receiving reports a vehicle had been swept into the causeway.
When the car was found without a driver, a desperate search was launched.
It summarized this morning, with police soon “notified a 59-year-old woman sought assistance at a nearby property in Piambong.”
She has been taken to Mudgee Hospital for assessment.
A recovery mission is under way to recover her vehicle.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said between 50mm and 99mm of rain has fallen over parts of NSW since 9am yesterday.
A dozen flood warnings are in effect for NSW, with drivers urged to take extreme care.
“People are encouraged to continue to monitor warnings,” BoM said.
“Damaging winds remain possible in parts of the southeast.”
A series of destructive low pressure systems have been sweeping east since Monday, causing havoc across southern Australia.
Multiple states have recorded significant rainfall after a series of destructive cold fronts. (BoM)
It was NSW’s turn to batten down the hatches yesterday as the intense rain band swept east.
Heavy rain pounded the state’s snowfields, turning powdered snow into sludge and transforming once tranquil creeks into raging rivers.
Perisher Creek, near Australia’s largest and second-highest and most popular ski area, spilled it’s banks.
Perisher Creek burst its banks as heavy rain lashed the NSW alps. (Steve Smith/Weatherzone)
Thredbo received 63.8 mm of rain to 9am yesterday and a further 47.6 mm between 9am to 4pm.
The popular ski resort was forced to close its lifts amid safety concerns.
High totals were also seen at Perisher.
Up to 64mm fell to 9am and a further 53.8mm was recorded between 9am to 4pm.
Senior Bureau Meteorologist Jonathan How said conditions will start to “ease off” today, but showers will continue across much of the south-east into the weekend.
“We do see that cold front push into the Tasman Sea,” he said.
“But showers and rain will push north east NSW and southern Queensland.
“Across the south east a number of troughs will maintain those cold, blustery and showery conditions.”
More snow is likely to fall over the alpine regions from today, repairing some of the rain damage.
‘River City’ wakes to white-out as fog swallows city
At least five people, including a baby and pregnant woman, were killed in a fiery crash involving at least six cars at an intersection in Los Angeles’ Windsor Hills area.
Shocking new surveillance footage of the crash shows a seemingly normal intersection, with the flow of traffic going at a reasonable pace, before a black Mercedes comes plowing through a red light like a rocket.
The crash was reported just before 2 pm at La Brea and Slauson avenues. The CHP said four to five people, including a baby and pregnant woman, were killed in the crash and fires.
Eight people were taken to the hospital with injuries. Six children and two adults suffered minor injuries, authorities said. The five dead were declared so on the scene.
At least four people, including a baby and pregnant woman, are killed in a fiery crash involving up to seven cars at a Windsor Hills intersection. Alex Rozier reports for the NBC4 News at 3 pm on Thursday Aug. 4, 2022.
Two of the three burned cars came to a stop under a fuel station sign. Another appeared to have rolled onto its roof near the gas station entrance in the community about 10 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles.
Video from a witness showed a column of black smoke rising form one of the cars.
Another witness said one of the drivers appeared to be making a left turn before the crash.
“Those two right there exploded, just fire everywhere,” the witness said.
Debris was scattered in the intersection, where several ambulances were staged.
Google Search is getting a slight improvement for people who type double quotes when placing queries. The tech giant said after evaluating user feedback, it’s bolding text within Google Search with words or phrases that a person places within quotes, according to a blog post Thursday.
Specifically, snippets, the lines of text that appear under a search result, will now feature a portion of the article right into search, bolding the specific quoted word or phrase.
For example, if someone searches for “Galaxy ZFold 4” in quotes, Google will return results with that specific phrase bolded, showing where it appears in the article. This can make search faster for users, as they can see whether the relevant information they’re looking for is in the article before clicking on Item.
If your Google search includes quoted text, your result will have that text bolded.
Google
Google said it didn’t always do this in the past, as the phrase a person might be looking for could appear in the menu for a page. For some, a snippet about a menu button may not be useful.
Bolding is only available to desktop users. Google didn’t say if or when bolded quoted queries would come to mobile.
When asked for comment, Google pointed to its blog post.
The Wordle answer today for August 5th, 2022, can be unpredictable and prone to errors, but also a lot of high-octane fun.
Puzzle 412 features the most challenging of all the Wordle tricks: the dreaded double letter. To make matters worse, it’s also a consonant that doesn’t come up very often – only twice in the last month, in fact – so you’ve got your work cut out for you if you’re going to narrow things down in time .
Double letters are particularly difficult because there are so many options to consider in Wordle. It’s very easy to discount any orange or green letters you get from your future guesses as you try to eliminate others.
Once you’ve got a couple of letters in the right place though, hopefully you should be able to fill in the blanks.
To make things a little bit easier, we’ve compiled some Wordle hints for August 5th, 2022, to give you a few clues, as well as a list of recent solutions from the last month if you’re stuck for ideas.
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Clues and hints for Today’s Wordle Answer
When you finally manage to place a couple of tricky letters in Wordle, it can be as exhilarating as jumping over dunes. But all it takes is a couple of mistakes to feel like you’re stranded in the desert.
To help squash any errors, here are a few Wordle hints to give you some ideas.
Your clues for Puzzle 412 are:
The answer contains just 1 vowel
There’s a repeated consonant with the letters next to each other in the word
The word contains 3 ‘descenders’ (letters with a tail that goes below the writing line) at the end of the word and 1 ‘ascender’ (letter with a tail that goes above the writing line) at the start
Previous Wordle Answers
While words only ever appear once in Word, it still pays to know what’s already been used – even if it’s just what to avoid. Here is a list of all of the recent Wordle solutions from over the last month to give you some ideas.
#382 – Fluff – July 6
#383 – Agape – July 7
#384 – Voice – July 8
#385 – Stead – July 9
#386 – Berth – July 10
#387 – Madam – July 11
#388 – Night – July 12
#389 – Bland – July 13
#390 – Liver – July 14
#391 – Wedge – July 15
#392 – Roomy – July 16
#393 – Wacky – July 17
#394 – Flock – July 18
#395 – Angry – July 19
#396 – Trite – July 20
#397 – Aphid – July 21
#398 – Tryst – July 22
#399 – Midge – July 23
#400 – Power – July 24
#401 – elope – July 25
#402 – Cinch – July 26
#403 – Motto – July 27
#404 – Stomp – July 28
#405 – Upset – July 29
#406 – Bluff – July 30
#407 – Cramp – July 31
#408 – Quarter – August 1
#409 – Coyly – August 2
#410 – Youth – August 3
#411 – Rhyme – August 4
Today’s Word Answer August 5th
The Wordle answer today is buggy.
Modern applications like a dune buggy or buggy code might come to mind when you first think of buggy these days, but as a word it’s been in use a lot longer than you might think.
Buggy has referred to a covered, four-wheeled carriage since the late 1700s, but no one knows why. The best guess is that it was a colloquial term that came about because the roof of a carriage looks a bit like a beetle’s shell.
Using buggy to mean “infested with bugs” has also been around for a long time. While it might seem like a more modern way of speaking, adding the suffix “-y” onto the end of a word to mean “full of, or characterized by” has actually been a linguistic phenomenon since the times of Old English.
Test your mettle against these Wordle alternatives if you’re still angling for some more word game action!
Newcastle legend Matthew Johns says the Knights overreacted by issuing David Klemmer with a “show cause” notice and standing him down after he blew up at a trainer last weekend.
Klemmer refused to come off the field late in the second half of his side’s 14-point loss to the Bulldogs, spraying trainer Hayden Knowles.
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The saga surrounding the front-rower sparked rumors he could be sacked, while reports emerged of an unhappy camp at Newcastle — who are in danger of claiming the wooden spoon at the end of what’s been a disastrous season.
the Sydney Morning Herald reports Klemmer was stood down due to the company policy of the Wests Group, who own the Knights, after a formal HR complaint was lodged against him.
Rumors about Klemmer’s potential axing from Newcastle have since died down and coach Adam O’Brien reportedly has no issue with his prop. But there are suggestions changes are afoot in Newcastle after too many years of mediocrity.
Club legend Johns said the Knights are at a low ebb and criticized how Klemmer’s situation has been handled, given he saw players refuse to come off “a thousand times” during his career.
“It’s led to a big situation. The situation itself (isn’t a big deal) – I’m really surprised. I sprayed a trainer, I didn’t want to come off. He’s been stood down, apparently his Knights career is in the balance for refusing to leave and giving a trainer a spray, ”Johns told Fox League on Thursday night.
“I’ve seen that a thousand times. I just think it’s an overreaction. Even if it isn’t, and you want to address it, I don’t know why and how it’s turned up in the public domain … I can’t get my head around it.
“You see it a million times, a bloke’s going (off) to the trainer – there’s always argy-bargy.”
Former NSW forward Bryan Fletcher said it would be a “disgrace” if the Knights were trying to use this episode to justify moving Klemmer on, in order to free up space in the salary cap.
However, reports this week say that’s not the case.
The drama comes after O’Brien was criticized for his post-match press conference after the loss to Canterbury. Speaking to reporters, O’Brien said he’d been involved in four grand finals as an assistant coach with the Roosters and Storm, so he knows what it takes to win — even though he’s overseen underwhelming results at Newcastle.
Johns said it’s been an “absolute bludger of a week” for his former club, adding: “The press conference after the game, (after which) Adam O’Brien was criticized for a lot of his comments, talking about his four premierships as an assistant.
“I can’t be too critical of Adam with this – he’s a coach without answers for a fanbase asking a lot of questions. He’s really at a loss at the moment.”
South Australia’s Transport Minister says the state government is looking at deploying nets to catch runaway trucks traveling down the South Eastern Freeway.
Key points:
Nine people were injured when a truck hit a bus and cars last month
Several options are being looked at to improve safety on the South Eastern Freeway
A net to catch runaway trucks is one solution being considered
After a crash at the bottom of the freeway that nine injured people last month, safety concerns will be on the agenda when transport ministers from around the country meet today.
Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the Department for Infrastructure and Transport (DIT) was working around the clock to come up with a way to make the road through the Adelaide Hills safer.
“The idea of nets has been considered, but of course when you deploy a net it’s out of action for a while afterward and you could have another event,” he said.
“There is infrastructure available like that but it is extensive and damaging.
“The department is working overtime trying to work out how we can actually make sure that if we have a runaway truck what can we actually do.”
Transport Tom Koutsantonis met with freight industry representatives earlier this week.(ABC News: Shari Hams)
Other options also being considered
The South Eastern Freeway descends from the Adelaide Hills suburb of Crafers to where it ends at the intersection of Cross, Glen Osmond and Portrush roads.
Several crashes have occurred at the intersection, including some that have involved fatalities.
An allegedly unlicensed Queensland truck driver was charged with multiple offenses over the latest crash on July 24.
Other options that Mr Koutsantonis said were being considered included taking over CB radios to warn drivers about the steep descent, more signs, point-to-point cameras, forcing trucks into arrester beds, real-time brake monitoring and forcing heavy vehicles into a slow lane.
A Dragnet truck net on an arrester bed in the US state of Connecticut.(Impact Absorption)
But he said better training for truck drivers was probably the best solution.
However, he said it would not stop the 1 in 100,000 irresponsible drivers, who could be targeted with more prosecutions.
“We are working towards fixing the one who does break the law, but of course the consequences of the one person who doesn’t follow the law is catastrophic,” he said.
“We’re talking about trucks that are over 10 tonnes heading down at 110kph towards parked cars at the intersection of Cross Road and the South Eastern Freeway and it was a miracle no-one died two weeks ago.”
Hard spot for arrester beds
Soon after the crash, DIT chief executive Jon Whelan told a parliamentary committee a third emergency truck arrester bed at the bottom of the South Eastern Freeway was being considered.
“It has to meet the standards and it has to meet the design protocols for that to occur as well,” he said.
An arrester bed at the same location was considered after the 2014 double-fatal crash but in 2015 the Labor government said it had looked at nine locations but none were feasible.
“None of those are practical and none of those achieve the sorts of safety benefits that we’ve got with the two existing safety ramps,” then-transport minister Stephen Mullighan said.
A truck on an arrester bed on the South Eastern Freeway in 2014.(abcnews)
The Royal Automobile Association of South Australia suggested a “dragnet type arrester system” in a report from 2020, along with another arrester bed.
The former Liberal government scrapped its proposed GlobeLink project to divert road and rail freight around the eastern side of the Adelaide Hills in 2020.
A smaller $12 million freight route upgrade opened last month, while a bypass around Truro has received funding.
Allegations that biased FBI agents shielded first are Hunter Biden from criminal investigations are “deeply troubling,” FBI Director Christopher Wray was forced to admit Thursday under grilling from Republican senators — before cutting the Q&A short by claiming he needed to catch a flight.
The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) noted that Wray wasn’t flying commercial and pleaded in vain for the FBI chief to reschedule the departure of his government jet.
But before leaving, Wray was pressed by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) about whistleblower claims against Tim Thibault, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s DC field office, and FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten.
Kennedy confronted Wray with allegations against the two FBI workers that Grassley revealed last month.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee at the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill Aug. 4, 2022.Getty Images
“Isn’t it true that Mr. Thibault — Agent Thibault, excuse me — and [Auten] covered up derogatory information about Mr. Hunter Biden while working for the FBI?” Kennedy asked Wray point-blank Thursday.
“I want to be very careful not to interfere with ongoing personnel matters,” Wray replied. “I should say that when I read the letter that describes the kinds of things that you’re talking about, I found it deeply troubling.”
Wray was questioned about alleged bias in agents’ probing of Hunter Biden.
Kennedy also cited to Wray a variety of Thibault’s social media barbs against Republicans, which resembled the anti-GOP attacks by FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page during the bureau’s investigation of possible Russian collusion with Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Grassley’s July letter to Wray said Auten and Thibault allegedly were involved in “a scheme” to “undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation.”
Auten “opened an assessment which was used by an FBI Headquarters (‘FBI HQ’) team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease,” Grassley wrote.
“[V]erified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation,” Grassley wrote, citing unnamed whistleblowers.
Thibault, meanwhile, allegedly tried to kill off a valid avenue of investigation of possible Hunter Biden criminality.
GOP Sen. John Kennedy questioned Wray during the hearing at the Capitol Thursday.AP
“In October 2020, an avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting was ordered closed at the direction of ASAC Thibault… [when] all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants,” Grassley wrote.
“Thibault allegedly ordered the matter closed without providing a valid reason as required by FBI guidelines…. [and] subsequently attempted to improperly mark the matter in FBI systems so that it could not be opened in the future.”
Kennedy on Thursday cited some of Thibault’s social media messages and asked the FBI director, “Do you know how this looks to the American people?”
“I will tell you that what you’re describing is not representative of the FBI … where I see patriots working their tails off with tremendous integrity and objectivity,” Wray said.
Kennedy asked Wray to confirm whether or not Thibault was involved in the ongoing investigation of Hunter Biden for possible tax fraud, unregistered foreign lobbying and money laundering — but Wray wouldn’t directly answer.
“Did he or does he work on the FBI investigation of Mr. Hunter Biden?” Kennedy asked.
“The investigation that you’re referring to is going to — and I need to be a little bit careful because we’re talking about an ongoing investigation — is being run out of our Baltimore field office, working with the Delaware US attorney who’s a holdover from the prior administration,” Wray tried to deflect.
Sen. Chuck Grassley’s letter to Wray last month concerning conduct by FBI agents was discussed during the Thursday hearing. AP
Kennedy followed up, “So I’m confused, Chris, with your answer. Did he work, or does he work on the Hunter Biden investigation?”
Wray again avoided a direct answer, saying, “As I said, that the Hunter Biden investigation is being run out of the Baltimore field office.”
Thibault’s alleged social media activity included a retweet of a Lincoln Project message that called Donald Trump a “psychologically broken, embittered and deeply unhappy man” and tweet saying that he wanted to “give Kentucky to the Russian Federation.”
Hunter Biden recently cut the IRS to check for about $2 million in an acknowledgment that he failed to pay taxes on a windfall of foreign income. The funds reportedly were provided by Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris, but it’s unclear what strings are attached and the repayment doesn’t prevent prosecution.
The first son’s overseas dealings gained significant attention this year when the Washington Post and New York Times in March belatedly verified documents from a former Hunter Biden laptop that were first reported by The Post in October 2020.
Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, was discussed during the Senate Judiciary hearing Thursday. AP
Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s business deals generally is murky and they continue to present conflicts of interest for the president.
Emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop indicate that his father, then vice president, attended a 2015 DC dinner with a group of his son’s associates from Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. A photo depicts Joe Biden posing with the Kazakhstani group and one day after dinner, Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at Ukrainian gas company Burisma, emailed the then-second son to thank him for the opportunity to meet his father. Hunter Biden earned a reported $1 million per year to serve on Burisma’s board while his father led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina, an alleged attendee of the 2015 dinner and the widow of a former mayor of Moscow, has not faced US sanctions this year in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite Biden sanctioning many other members of Russia’s elite.
In China, Joe Biden allegedly was involved with his son’s dealings with CEFC China Energy, which the Washington Post reported paid Hunter Biden and his uncle Jim Biden $4.8 million in 2017 and 2018. Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski says that he spoke with Joe Biden in May 2017 about the deal and a May 13, 2017, email says that the “big guy” would get a 10 percent equity stake in a corporate entity established with CEFC. Bobulinski alleges that the president was the “big guy.”
Also in China, Hunter Biden cofounded an investment firm called BHR Partners in 2013 less than two weeks after flying with his father to Beijing aboard Air Force Two. Hunter introduced Joe Biden to BHR CEO Jonathan Li in the lobby of a hotel in China’s capital. The fund is controlled in part by state-owned entities. Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark said less than a week after President Biden’s November summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping that the first son divested his 10% stake in BHR Partners, but Hunter Biden and the White House provided no further details and online business records indicate that Hunter Biden still owns the 10% stake.
Who doesn’t love a freebie? As most PC players are well aware, the Epic Games Store gives out free games each and every week. Once claimed, they’re bound to your Epic account and are yours to keep for good. Titles change each and every week, and you never know what Epic will pull out of its bag of tricks next.
This week’s game is Unrailed! It’ll be available free from today until August 12, 2022, at 1:00 am AEST.
This piece is updated weekly.
Unrailed!
Unrailed! is a co-op multiplayer game in the vein of Overcooked! where you have to work with friends to build a train track across endless proc-gen worlds. The idea is that you are laying the tracks before the train in an effort to get it from one side of a map to another. You’ll need to deal with mountains and rivers, forests and your own compatriots to get the job done. This one looks like a cute, if anarchic, little party game. One to throw at the natural organizers in your life.
next week
A little peek into the future: next week’s title is Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!, a restaurant management game where you are also the head chef. We’ll talk more about that one next week.
And that’s all for this week! You can grab this week’s titles at the Epic Games Store right over here. Will you be grabbing this week’s titles? Have you played them before? Give us your thoughts in the comments below.
Sports journalist and former Commonwealth Games champion Matthew Syed described his son’s surprise encounter with Kate Middleton.
In his Tuesday column in The Timesthe former table tennis player said he overheard a conversation between his son and a seemingly random woman while he was using the bathroom on a train on the way to the Commonwealth Games.
He only realized who his son was talking to right before he got off the train.
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Journalist Matthew Syed’s son bumped into the Duchess of Cambridge on the way to the Commonwealth Games. (WireImage)
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“‘Come on Ted,’ I say, ‘we have to get off!’ ‘Oh, and thanks for keeping him company…’ I say turning to the woman waiting for her turn from her when I am stopped in my tracks.
“My brow furrows, my face works. ‘Kate?’, I blurt out. There are no security guards in the vestibule; no armed guards. But here is the Duchess of Cambridge, chatting merrily with my son.”
After getting off the train, Syed asked his son if he knew who he was talking to, and he replied, “No idea, but she was really nice.”
The journalist said their interaction took place while he was in the bathroom.
The Duchess of Cambridge was chatting to the boy while waiting her turn outside the train toilet. (Getty)
“Judging by the laughter, they are having a whale of a time,” he wrote. “I hear my son telling the lady that his father once won Commonwealth gold and sense that he is brandishing the medal he has brought along for the occasion.”
He says the group continued chatting right up until they arrived at the Birmingham New Street station.
Syed also praised Kate for her amicability to his son,
“The Duchess had no idea she was chatting to the son of a journalist so I take this to reflect her character and sense of duty.”
“The monarchy is in consummate hands.”
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Glenn Maxwell has revealed he was “shattered” to miss out on selection for Australia’s most recent Test against Sri Lanka in Galle, but it has only reignited his desire to play Test cricket again with a tour of India on the horizon early next year.
Maxwell was close to playing in the first Test in Galle, but Head passed a fitness test and retained his place. He was even closer to playing in the second Test when it was revealed by skipper Pat Cummins that Maxwell was in line to play at No.8 in place of Mitchell Starc if the Galle pitch was going to be a duplicate of the surface used in the firstTest.
But conditions changed significantly with a much more placid batting surface presented, and Maxwell missed out.
“I was shattered when I got told,” Maxwell said about his exclusion from the second Test. “It wasn’t that I thought they made the wrong call, I was just genuinely disappointed.
“I really wanted to play. I loved being a part of it [Test cricket]and I loved the thought of playing again.
“Even not thinking about Test cricket for a couple of years, I felt like I was ready again. I loved working with the coaches and coming up with new tactics to deal with difficult spin bowling and balls exploding.
“I’m glad Heady got through his fitness test because I’d have hated to be in because of an injury to one of your players. Unfortunately, they changed the conditions. If it was the same conditions for both Tests, I probably would have played.But they made a slightly better wicket, and the selectors made the right call.
“I tried not to get too excited or get my hopes up too much because I know, having been in that situation so many times and been on the wrong side of it, the ups and downs of selection and the 50-50 calls … but yeah, I allowed myself to get a little bit too excited.”
Maxwell also revealed that he felt a lot more love and positivity around his possible Test recall than he had done in the past, even if he did regret that his batting style wasn’t more accepted when he was around the Test team between 2014 and 2017 .
“It’s certainly nice to have support, where I feel like I probably didn’t have that in the early days of my Test career,” Maxwell said. “It was probably the other way around, where it was just like, no, you can’t have this guy in the team. So it’s sort of nice to see it change. When I came back into the side in 2017, it felt like there was a real shift of positivity coming my way, which was rare.
“For so long, whenever I played a reverse sweep, it was frowned upon and it’s become a staple of Test cricket wherever you play in the world. Everyone plays it.
“So it’s like, where was this six years ago? It would have been nice when I was playing, if people would have looked at me and gone, oh, visionary [laughs]. uzzie [Usman Khawaja] plays 300 of them, and he’s a superstar, [he] get 150 and like, [we] bow down to him.”
Maxwell is now firmly in line to play in the four-Test tour of India next year, particularly after Head’s lean tours of Pakistan and Sri Lanka where his highest score was 26 in five Tests. Head now averages just 21.30 in Asia from seven Tests and has passed 50 only eleven. Maxwell has played all seven of his Tests in Asia and averages just 26.07 there. He has also passed 50 just eleven, but he made a superb century in Ranchi on Australia’s last Test tour of India in 2017.
“Last year I had a preseason at Junction Oval, where we would use the same pitches, maybe four or five net sessions in a row and by the fifth net session they were basically India”
Glenn Maxwell on his preparations for the India tour
The balance of right and left-handers in Australia’s top seven will be important against the left-arm orthodox of Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, and the right-arm offspin of R Ashwin.
Maxwell’s experience facing all three in India, across red and white-ball cricket, will no doubt give him an advantage from a selection standpoint. He revealed the Australia selectors have spoken to him about what specific preparation would be best for him ahead of the India tour and he stressed, as he has previously, that playing Sheffield Shield cricket on Australian pitches will not help.
“They sort of just asked what do you need to get ready and would Shield cricket make a difference? I said no, it won’t,” Maxwell said. “Because the conditions are just so different over there. It’s certainly hard to prepare for spinning tracks in Australia during our first-class games.
“I think we’re able to still get nets up in Melbourne that can spin and do some different things. Last year I had a pre-season at Junction Oval, where we would use the same pitches, maybe four or five net sessions in a row and by the fifth net session they were basically India. And it was awesome. They were the best net sessions I had. Because I was going away, I think at that stage, the next subcontinent tour, it might have been the IPL and it was awesome. It was the perfect prep, and I had no excuses, I suppose, going into the next series.”
Alex Malcolm is an Associate Editor at ESPNcricinfo
