Australia's Stuart Clark, left, celebrates with teammate Michael Hussey after taking the wicket of England's Paul Collingwood on the first day of the fourth cricket test match between England and Australia, at Headingley cricket ground in Leeds, England, Friday, Aug. 7, 2009. AP Photo/Tim Hales
The chairman of selectors for the Australian cricket team, Andrew Hilditch, has been rabbiting on in the wake of the tremendous victory at Headingley, about how his panel has got the selections “spot on” in this Ashes series, and that Stuart Clark is not guaranteed his place in the side for the fifth Test.
As for the “spot on” observation, just pull the other leg.
The selectors made a crucial mistake in not selecting Clark for the first three Tests. Now, with Clark saving their positions with a brilliant first innings performance at Headingley, they are foreshadowing going back to their initial mistake by leaving him out of the side for the Oval Test.
The suggestion is that Nathan Hauritz should come back into the side.
Hauritz seems to be a pleasantly nerdish sort of chap, although I wish he’d wear the Baggy Green cap like a cricket cap rather than a baseball cap. He has taken ten wickets in three Tests, at under four runs an over.
This looks good as a statistic, but as the old joke goes, statistics are like bikinis: what they reveal is interesting, what they conceal is vital.
What the statistics on Hauritz don’t reveal is that he could not do the job as a spinner at Cardiff on a turning pitch. The part-timer Michael Clark would have achieved similar figures if Ricky Ponting had given him some decent spells at the bowling crease.
More importantly, it was when Clark came back into the side, with his tight line and length, that the inexperienced young trio of Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus and Mitchell Johnson came into their own in the series and England were bowled out twice for Australia to record a much needed victory.
Hilditch has justified the speculation about dropping Clark on the grounds that Siddle, Hilfenhaus and Johnston did the job in South Africa, and now again in England.
This tells us everything about why Hilditch and his panel need to be replaced by people like Geoff Lawson, Shane Warne (even), and other former players who know what they are talking about.
In South Africa, the three tyros were helped by Andrew McDonald tying down an end when the South African batsmen were on a roll. Clark played a similar role, with the addition of taking important wickets, at Headingley.
Alan Jones, a better selector than rugby coach, always talked about the importance of ‘shape’ in selecting a team. You don’t necessarily pick the best players for your team. You pick the best players to play best as a team.
The team is shaped in a way where the strengths of some of the players are complemented by the different strength of other players.
This matter of ‘shape’ is the most crucial element in selecting teams. Hilditch clearly doesn’t have a notion about the power and necessity of ‘shape’ in putting together a side.
If you look at Siddle, Hilfenhaus and Johnson, you see immediately that they are at their best when they are trying to take wickets. They often leak a lot of runs when their wicket-balls are slightly astray.
In the first three Tests, they leaked runs and the England batsmen were not put under sustained pressure for long periods of time.
Now bring in Clark.
His opening stint of in the first innings at Headingley resulted in three wickets with 1.7 runs an over conceded. This miserly concession of runs allowed Johnston to bowl flat-out and to give away runs if necessary to take some wickets.
Clark, in other words, gives a shape to the three-man attack of Siddle, Hilfenhaus and Johnson. It is a winning shape.
Hilditch and his fellow selectors should approach the matter of dropping Clark in the same spirit as W.G.Grace’s advice about whether to put the opposition in to bat after you’ve won the toss: “Consider it and then never do it.”
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August 13th 2009 @ 10:42am
Brett McKay said | August 13th 2009 @ 10:42am | Report comment
Quite true Rick, something like that would amount to accountability, and we all know Hilditch’s thoughts on that subject..
You do raise a point about teams once picking themselves, and there for a while I’d imagine a gig on the selection panel would have been jumped at like the Pom looking after Hamilton Island at the moment. Plum jobs don’t come any cushier, so damn those retiring champiions!!
That said, the timing and the nature of this weeks “we were right, so ner ner..” statements don’t instill a lot of confidence. Even English selectors, who have made some selection howlers over time, wouldn’t be so stupid and naive to leave Stuart Clark out after Headinley. Surely…
August 13th 2009 @ 10:48am
Hansie said | August 13th 2009 @ 10:48am | Report comment
Our selectors must be very good to carry that selection panel. I was amazed that Hilditch even did a press conference; he seems allergic to openness and accountability.
August 13th 2009 @ 10:49am
Jameswm said | August 13th 2009 @ 10:49am | Report comment
They have no idea. Honestly, how closely are they watching and are they taking notes?
Here are some recent blunders they haven’t understood.
1. Michael Clarke is not an opener at 20/20 or test level. Forget the experiment
2. Shaun Marsh, even when he gets a decent score, struggles and puts pressure on the bloke at the other end
3. Even in one-dayers and T20 games, you need specialist and quality openers. You face quality bowlers with a swinging ball, and stopgaps like Warner, MClarke and Hopes will get exposed. Haddin is the exception, but you need Hughes or Katich there with him.
4. Krejza should get a go in one-dayers, where he has protection for the odd long hop. There is usually little protection in tests. The treatment of Krejza generally has been atrocious
5. Not picking speiclists for the T20 games. This was obvious to all the cricket workd except Australia. It is NOT a warm-up for an Ashes tour.
6. Not picking Stuey Clark for the first 3 tests this series. We all know about that one.
7. Contemplating dropping him for the final test.
8. Not taking a specialist backup batsman on this tour.
I should have started a sheet somewhere to note them as they go, because there have been a lot of others.
August 13th 2009 @ 10:59am
vinay verma said | August 13th 2009 @ 10:59am | Report comment
Jameswm..you’ve got most of them right except Kreja. You seem to be saying he’s ok in onedayers because his longhop can be defended. You should know you dont set fields for bad bowling. He bowls too many four balls. Longhops and full tosses. No good turning it a mile if it hits the squareleg umpire.
August 13th 2009 @ 11:23am
Brett McKay said | August 13th 2009 @ 11:23am | Report comment
Vinay, you won’t be surprised that I have a contrary view to you on Krezja – in my artcile looking at spinning stocks (almost twelve months ago now), I actually said that Krezja was my smokey for the one-day side, given that he’s an attacking bowler, and a more than handy bat. If his bowling is similar to Hauritz, then his batting puts him in front. I actually think James has got this one right too…
August 13th 2009 @ 11:34am
vinay verma said | August 13th 2009 @ 11:34am | Report comment
Brett,I believe their deficiencies cancel each other out leaving me with an opinion,not yet good enough for Test and yet to prove themselves at the shorter form. One is tight but not attacking enough and the other attacking to the point of a leaking tap,with the potential to become a raging torrent.
Play a spinner if he is good enough not for the sake of it. Peter Taylor,Colin Miller,,Greg Mathews were not great spinners but they were better than the two we are discussing.
Trawling through the domestic competition I think we have a youns left armer,Moss?, who could be next cab off the rank and Voges is handy with the ball too. So it is not as if there are no options. Voges for the one dayers,for mine.
August 13th 2009 @ 12:08pm
Brian said | August 13th 2009 @ 12:08pm | Report comment
With the next ODI WC in India shouldnt they be trying to find a genuine spinner. Yes I would play Clark at the Oval but to be the best test team in the world a genuine spinner is needed. Otherwise you can forever go to India using Cam White and you will always come back with the same result.
August 13th 2009 @ 12:40pm
vinay verma said | August 13th 2009 @ 12:40pm | Report comment
Brian ,CA have lots of young options for spinners.I was thinking of John Holland when I said Moss earlier. He is 22 year old from Victoria and is highly thought off. Voges is 29 but he has played 2 Twenty/20′s and one ODI. He has an economy of 3.27 in First Class and is a punishing bat and a good finisher in the Bevan mould. Also an otstanding fielder.
Lots of mid twenty spinners in Steven Smith(only 20 and a leggie) Stephen O Keefe, Cullen Bailey and Wade Townsend to name a few.
If we have enlightened selectors then these guys should be looked at now 2 years out from the next World Cup. It doesn’t matter if you lose the next 20 one dayers if you discover new talent before the next world cup. Australia will be aiming to go for four in a row.
August 14th 2009 @ 11:09am
FIsher Price said | August 14th 2009 @ 11:09am | Report comment
Voges is a myth. He’s nothing special for WA. How he always gets picked for Australia’s limited overs squads is beyond me.
See also Shaun Marsh.
August 13th 2009 @ 12:35pm
Robbo said | August 13th 2009 @ 12:35pm | Report comment
Absolutely spot on. Any talk about removing Clark is lunancy. Hilditch showed in his press conference the other day that he is both extremely arrogant (with his self congratulating) and clearly (somewhat concerning given he is a selector) cricket-illiterate.
August 13th 2009 @ 1:37pm
Jameswm said | August 13th 2009 @ 1:37pm | Report comment
Not quite vinay – I am saying he should have been given some game time in one dayers to see how he goes with some more protection. Aggressive spinners can do very well in the shorter format.
It seems ironic but I’d almost say defensive spinners are better off in tests.
I see Brett agrees!
In any case Krejza isn’t as loose as his reputation suggests. In some of the games (both tests I think) the batsmen went at him as part of a premeditated plan to attack him, and that includes the Indians in India. Yet he came out on top. That has to be taken into account, like Clark leaking runs in the 4th test to batsmen with the shackles off. You have to look at the economy rates in context.
August 13th 2009 @ 1:47pm
vinay verma said | August 13th 2009 @ 1:47pm | Report comment
Jameswm..Two different contexts. Krezja was attacked in the first innings when India had a lot to play for. Clark at Leeds was just unlucky that two guys who threw the bat as if there was no tommorrow got lucky.
The point is that you have to adapt to the game situation and be attacking or defensive as it warrants. Trouble is these two can do one or the other . They need to do both. I’d rather go with some of the untried young ones because we do need a good spinner.
I’m glad Brett agrees with you so I have twice the fun.
August 13th 2009 @ 11:12pm
Colin N said | August 13th 2009 @ 11:12pm | Report comment
“Clark at Leeds was just unlucky that two guys who threw the bat as if there was no tommorrow got lucky.”
As Geoffrey Boycott said “it’s not luck, it’s skill.”
August 13th 2009 @ 2:06pm
Worlds Biggest said | August 13th 2009 @ 2:06pm | Report comment
Can someone forward this article to this bozo Hilditch and the selectors. Dropping Clark would be madness. If a seamer has to make way for Hauritz it should be Siddle which would be harsh. I would keep the same lineup as Headingly and share the spinning duties amongst Pup,North & Katich. Hilditch like his batting comes across as a dour individual. Who is he kidding trumpeting there spot on selections at Headingly, what a farce. Why change a winning team and change the shape of the bowling lineup ?. Like the NSW Origin selectors, these blokes are a real worry, no one has any faith in them. Punter needs to step in and let common sense prevail.
August 13th 2009 @ 2:44pm
sheek said | August 13th 2009 @ 2:44pm | Report comment
Are we being retrospective suggesting it was a mistake not to select Clark for the first 3 tests?
Australia’s problems in the 2nd & 3rd tests were largely of their own doing. Would Clark have made the difference in the first test? It’s easier to say “yes” with hindsight.
I have mixed feelings for the 5th test selection. If I had my ‘druthers’, Hughes & Hauritz would replace Hussey & Clark. However, the 4th test team was successful, so keeping it as it is has its appeal. Alternately, they say the Oval does turn, which would help Hauritz’s chances.
I believe where all things are equal, you go for balance, which would mean taking a spinner. The Windies tried that until about the mid-70s when they finally realised, 4 great pacemen is better than 3 great pacemen & an ordinary spinner, so to hell with balance as far as they were concerned! And for the next 20 years, it worked a treat.
I don’t know, it’s a tough call.
August 13th 2009 @ 6:49pm
Nird99 said | August 13th 2009 @ 6:49pm | Report comment
Sheek, I think clark was underdone coming into the series and was glad that he was not picked in the team. The Australian team looked like they would be able to take 20 wickets with ease in the first and I was happy to see the same team in the second. After that though i thought we needed a change, it took another test to do it though.
The team that had been selected was the best at the time.
If fit, clark, as McGrath was before him an automatic selection in my mind. I am glad to see clark back in the team and think that Australia is looking for a spinner at all costs. I dont think we have any at the level at the moment, and if we dont, why not play an attack with a bit of variability in it.
August 13th 2009 @ 3:11pm
RickG said | August 13th 2009 @ 3:11pm | Report comment
I agree World’s, Hilditch must be made aware of the reaction his comments have generated.
Does anyone think he’s aware, or being made aware, of the reaction to his comments?
I’m a little surprised at how angry this has made me! (perhaps I need to get a life:))