Are the Australian cricket selectors value for money?
Columnist
By Spiro Zavos, 12 Jan 2009 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert
The Sunday Telegraph, in another serve on Andrew Hilditch, notes that the chairman of selectors for the Australian Cricket team is on a salary of $100,000. Nice work if you can get it.
And the week before, when Matthew Hayden was going out to bat in the fateful Third Test at the SCG, the Sunday Telegraph revealed, with a photo, that Hilditch had been walking his dog on a beach in South Australia at the time.
The selection panel is unsatisfactory for a number of reasons, the main one being that it has made mistakes of omission and commission in the discharge of it duties.
There is a strong case for Cricket Australia to get off its complacent seat of power and make some hard-headed and sensible choices about the selection panel.
The new chairman and at least three changes in the panel, leaving David Boon as the only re-appointed incumbent, is what is needed.
The chairman clearly cannot treat the job as a virtual full-time occupation, as it needs to be. He has a successful law practice in Adelaide (which is a sign of his competency as a lawyer). But he does not seem to have the time to see many of the Tests overseas.
The duty selector on many overseas tours is Merv Hughes, who is also leading a tour party at the same time. He has been advertising his tour party to South Africa with a co-leader, Kerry O’Keefe.
This raises the important issue of whether a duty selector should be tied down during a Test with the interests and needs of the many people on his tour.
Or should be be devoting his main energies to acting with the captain and the coach to work out tactics, strategies and team selections? It’s pretty obvious what the answer to this question should be.
A third selector Jamie Cox is also the high performance manager of South Australian cricket. There is a clear conflict of interest issue here, as well as the consideration of whether this job gives him sufficient time to cover all the cricket played throughout Australia during the season looking up up and coming talent.
One of my favourites as a great talent for Australia in the near future, if the selectors had the gumption or nous to give him a chance, is Steve Smith. On Saturday in Sydney grade cricket playing for Sutherland against Randwick-Petersham (and captaining the side) he took 3 for 62 off 16 overs and then smashed 115, a six and 17 fours off 135 balls.
You’d like to think that in the search for a wrist spinner and batsman one of the Australian selectors might have wandered down to the ground to have a look.
But, of course, there is a geographical imbalance on the current panel. There are two selectors who live in South Australia (Hilditch and Cox), a Victorian (Hughes), and a Tasmanian (Boon).
NSW, WA and Queensland are not represented, despite the fact that these three states have been the strongest states in terms of producing great players over the decades.
Can we expect Cricket Australia to rectify this situation and ensure that it gets value for money from its selectors?
On the evidence of Cricket Australia renewing coach Tim Nielsen’s contract for another two years, despite some woeful strategic and tactical decisions made by the Australian team in the past year, the answer is probably no to this question.
If the Test side, particularly, does poorly in South Africa and England, there will be pressure on Cricket Australia to start expecting the same high level of performance from its coaches and selectors as the public expects and demands from the team itself.
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Rickety Knees said | January 12th 2009 @ 9:29am | Report comment
Absolutely agree Spiro – as stated in a previous post – Australian Cricket has lost its way and that starts right at the top with the Chairman – Jack Clarke.
sheek said | January 13th 2009 @ 8:47am | Report comment
Spiro,
Selectors are so poorly thought of, I couldn’t find anywhere, not even Wikipedia or the official CA site, a list of Australian cricket selectors through history.
I wanted to know the selectors under Lawrie Sawle around the late 80s-early 90s. These guys played a crucial part in first lifting the standard of Australian cricket with wise selections, then nurturing them as they developed.
I believe the other selectors were John Benaud, Greg Chappell & Jim Higgs. They picked Ian Healy after just 4-5 first class games (including a Shield final) & took an educated punt on Shane Warne. On the other hand, when they showed geoff marsh the door, Allan Border went ballistic in defence of his vice-captain.
You just can’t win as a selector.
The much maligned Trevor Hohns carried on the good work as chairman of selectors after Sawle. Interesting how some of the best selectors were fair to average cricketers themselves. They innately understand the meaning of struggle for example.
The current group of selectors don’t strike me an overly perceptive bunch. Merv Hughes is a terrific bloke, but I don’t know if he has deep thinking in his blood! But then again, maybe that’s a good thing. Andrew Hilditch is perhaps over-analytical.
But then again, they’ve been let down by their senior players. They took the punt to give some of them time to find form, but it just didn’t happen. Which only made the selectors look even sillier. Who would want the job???
Sluggy said | January 14th 2009 @ 1:55pm | Report comment
“Or should [the duty selector] be devoting his main energies to acting with the captain and the coach to work out tactics, strategies and team selections? It’s pretty obvious what the answer to this question should be.”
Not sure he should be – while there is an overlap between selections and game plans, the selector should leave the coaching to the coach, same thing for on field tactics and the captain. Too many cooks, and a loss of detachment caused by getting too close to the senior players that will make the hard decisions even harder.
Green n Gold 2010 said | February 4th 2009 @ 8:40am | Report comment
YES YES YES!!!!
I say yes…….must be high but perhaps after seeing Aussies get knocked off their thrones on Friday!!!!
hahahahaha…more mediore performances please
Tommy Smith said | March 12th 2009 @ 2:54am | Report comment
I always thought that the old method of selection on away tours was the most effective – the skipper, the vice-captain and the tour manager would decide the XI amongst themselves. Surely there is no one with greater insight into the balance of the side, the areas of strength and deficiency, than the captain and his assistant, with the tour manager adding a degree of objectivity. Although this would raise the question of impartiality, as Spiro points out, Jamie Cox being SA’s high performance manager must surely raise eyebrows with regard to the same issue. I’m in total agreement over distractions, also – however the captain, vice, and manager engage with every delivery of every match by virtue of their roles within the team. Maybe this system is not ideal, but an improvement, in my opinion.