Talk » match for our fast bowlers, theyve bowled a lot

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Nick Saban doesnt want to leave Alabamas fate in the hands of a committee.The top-ranked Crimson Tide certainly is the closest team to a lock at making the College Football Playoffs if it wins out, but the precarious nature of that race was driven home when the rest of the top four teams fell last weekend.Alabama would make the playoffs for a third straight season with wins over FCS team Chattanooga, No. 18 Auburn and in the Southeastern Conference championship game. The Chattanooga game on Saturday seems to offer little risk of an upset, but Saban can use the losses by Michigan, Clemson and Washington to illustrate the added comfort of making the playoff selection committees choice a no-brainer.The message is when you win, you control your own destiny, he said Monday. When you dont, you allow someone else to determine what your fates going to be. We have all these teams that lost one game now. Somebody has to decide who gets to do what.If you put yourself in that situation, you let somebody else decide what your fate is. If you take care of your business and do things the way you need to do it, then maybe you can control your own destiny in the way you play.Alabama, which sports a 22-game winning streak, has already clinched the SEC West title and hasnt shown any signs that a slipup is likely. The Tide has allowed just three points in the last two games, beating No. 16 LSU 10-0 and Mississippi State 51-3 while easily dispatching four ranked opponents in the last five games.An early kickoff for a 51-3 win over Mississippi State gave Tide players a chance to watch other games around the country, including those upsets.Its kind of an eye-opener, center Bradley Bozeman said.Alabama had locked up the West outright by early evening, when Georgia upset No. 18 Auburn.Saban gave the Tide Monday off from practice to recuperate from that SEC stretch before the Iron Bowl. That doesnt mean hes any easier on his players just because the opponent is an FCS team.Hes going to be the same regardless of who were playing, wide receiver ArDarius Stewart said. Thats what makes our team so great. We play to a standard, and he keeps it that way.TIDE NOTE: Quarterback Jalen Hurts is SEC co-offensive player of the week along with LSU tailback Derrius Guice. ... Tailback Bo Scarbrough missed the Mississippi State game with a sprained knee, but Saban said hes OK medically to play once he gets his confidence back up. ... Right guard Alphonse Taylor hasnt played in the last four games after starting four straight, and may not return this season. The senior sustained a concussion in the Arkansas game. I think thats a medical decision, Saban said. I am not assuming that hes going to come back. It would be a bonus if he did. I dont think he will, based on the amount of time that weve had, so its something that were still evaluating but its something that were not counting on.---More AP college football: www.collegefootball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP-Top25 Ken Sears Jersey . Manuel was offered a position the day he was fired. He accepted earlier this week and the team made the announcement Friday. Allan Houston Jersey . A statement from the worlds top-ranked player says all checks "were satisfactory and showed positive evolution" regarding the injury, which contributed to his loss to Stanislas Wawrinka in the final in Melbourne. https://www.cheapknicks.com/1621x-allonzo-trier-jersey-knicks.html . The 19-year-old Olsen played 34 games with the Kelowna Rockets of the WHL this season. In that time, hes recorded 17 goals and 17 assists with 36 penalty minutes. Len Chappell Jersey . - The Washington Redskins have cut defensive lineman Adam Carriker and punter Sav Rocca. Paul Westphal Jersey . -- Jimmie Johnson held off a teammate, passed a pair of Hall of Famers, and dominated once more at Dover. Headingley, 1981: Australia make 401 and bowl England out for 174. Kim Hughes enforces the follow-on. Ian Botham changes the match with the bat, then Bob Willis dominates with the ball. Australia lose the unlosable Test.Kolkata, 2001: Australia make 445 and bowl India out for 171. Steve Waugh enforces the follow-on. VVS Laxman becomes a legend, his 281 a thing of cricket folklore. He and Rahul Dravid set Australia 384 to win. Australia lose the unlosable Test.Brisbane, 2016: Australia make 429 and bowl Pakistan out for 142. Steven Smith doesnt enforce the follow-on. He sets Pakistan 490 for victory. To win, they would need not only to break the world record for the highest successful Test chase, but demolish it. For Ian Botham and VVS Laxman, read Asad Shafiq. Could Smith also lose the unlosable Test?For much of the fifth afternoon at the Gabba, the answer seemed to be yes. Pakistan began the day needing 108 more with two wickets in hand, and the runs flowed. They were not struggling. They looked under little pressure. Before Smith knew it they needed 90. Then 80. Then 70. Then 60. Then 50. And all without a single wicket having fallen.The crowd was small. Only 2593 spectators were watching what could have turned into a Test every bit as historic as the tied Test between Australia and West Indies at the same venue 56 years earlier. And a vocal section of that crowd was made up of Pakistan supporters. They were so noisy that Smith might have wondered if he was in Brisbane or Dubai.And then came the moment he had been waiting for. Mitchell Starc, tiring, breathing the big ones at the top of his mark, sent down a fierce and accurate bouncer that Shafiq could not evade. He fended to gully and was out for 137. Four balls later, Yasir Shah absentmindedly wandered out of his crease after squeezing a yorker to second slip, and Smith threw down the stumps.Relief ran through the Australians. They had won. By only 39 runs, but they had won. They had not lost the unlosable Test. The legend of the Gabbatoir - where Australia have not lost a Test since 1988 - remains intact.Probably at about 60-odd to go, Smith said, when asked at what point he felt Pakistan had a strong chance of winning. That was where I started getting a little bit nervous, hoping that one of our world-class fast bowlers would be able to step up and get us that breakthrough. Thankfully Mitchell Starc was the one to do it today.The pink ball was 60 overs old, it wasnt really doing much. All the air was out of it, it was incredibly soft. To get the ball to rise like that, and get us that key scalp, a lot of credit has got to go to Mitchell.And the run-out of Yasir?Im not sure what he was doing, Smith said. But, it was nice that he was out of his ground and I was ablee to hit the stumps and finish what was a pretty amazing Test match.dddddddddddd A lot of credit has to go to Pakistan, the way they played in that last innings. Asad Shafiq was absolutely outstanding and all of the tail played beautifully around him.Smiths captaincy was under the spotlight during the day, especially when he began proceedings with only one slip in place to Shafiq, and later he moved the second slip out for the No. 10 Yasir as well, only for an edge to fly through that vacant spot immediately off Jackson Bird. Smith said his plan was a balance between attack and defence.It was about setting a reasonably defensive field but still bowling attacking lines, he said. The guys were slightly off both last night and this morning. I was happy for Shafiq trying to get off strike and having a crack at Yasir Shah. I thought it would be a great opportunity to close it out, the more balls we got at him, but credit to the way Yasir played as well. Australia have retained the same 12-man squad for the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, which could mean a reprieve for struggling batsman Nic Maddinson. However, they have also left open the option of adding an allrounder to the group, depending on how the fast men pull up after their heavy workload.Starc and Josh Hazlewood each bowled 56 overs in the Gabba Test, which for both men represented their greatest workload in any Test match. Hazlewood sent down 42 overs in the second innings alone, the highest tally by an Australia fast bowler in a Test innings since Glenn McGrath delivered 42 overs against New Zealand in Christchurch in 2005.I think the selectors are talking about it at the moment, Smith said. Its obviously been a very tough Test match for our fast bowlers, theyve bowled a lot of overs and we are going to have to see how they pull up over the next couple of days.They are going to be put on ice for the next couple of days and try to get back a bit of energy and get rid of whatever soreness theyre carrying. I think an allrounder will be talked about. But well wait and see which way the selectors want to go.Spinner Nathan Lyon finished with match figures of 2 for 139 after pre-match speculation that he could be left out to make room for a four-man pace attack.In periods of the game he bowled well, Smith said. In others he was a little bit off. Bowling at the Gabba with the pink ball that was pretty soft does make it difficult to bowl spin. He has a great record at the Gabba in red-ball cricket where the ball stays harder for longer and hes able to generate that bounce out of the wicket, but he couldnt get that bounce with the way the ball was. ' ' '