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When I stopped by the Palaeontology Museum in Patagonia a couple of months ago, I’m pretty sure I saw Andrew Hilditch staring out at me from one of the exhibits. The Australian selectors have shown about as much nimbleness and adaptability as the average diplodocus, and under their direction the team’s chances of survival are looking about as good.
In recent years, especially in regard to batsmen, selection policy has become atrophied and rigid.
For all the Aussie talk about backing yourself, team selections have been as imaginative and daring as Ricky Ponting’s field placings. My late grandmother lived more dangerously every time she enjoyed a delicious biscuit.
It was evident as far back as 2005, in England.
Mike Hussey, who had flourished in the English conditions of country cricket, finally got a shot in the one-day side as a lower-order finisher. He was a revelation. While never the brawniest batsman, he combined the impeccable placement and running that characterised Michael Bevan’s batting with an ability to improvise fours and sixes.
By the end of the two series, his 10 career ODI innings had netted 387 runs, with seven not-outs, at an average of 129, and a strike rate of 95.55. He’d sealed almost all of Australia’s wins, and was clearly in the form of his life. He also had a formidable first-class record as an opener.
Yet over five Tests in which Matthew Hayden, Damien Martyn and Simon Katich groped around like drunkards trying to find the fusebox in the dark, Hussey was never called upon. Nor Brad Hodge, who at the time was dominating country cricket despite the swinging conditions and green pitches that troubled the Test team.
And over the same five Tests, despite the English batsmen coughing up 40 wickets to the legspin of Shane Warne, and despite the Aussie pace attack looking toothless without Glenn McGrath, a chap by the name of Stuart MacGill ferried the drinks – one of cricket’s best-ever leg-spinners reduced to the role of waterboy.
As far as the bowling went, the selectors’ inherent conservatism wouldn’t let them play two spinners, despite back-up seamer Shaun Tait being so untrusted that Ponting wouldn’t give him the ball. With the batting, the attitude was that the top six had earned their spots in the team, and couldn’t be deprived of them until after a sufficient number of failures.
What an almighty crock of steaming rose-fertiliser. Cricket isn’t a court of law. You’re not innocent until proven guilty.
The selectors’ job is to pick the best possible team from all available players. If a new player looks more dangerous on current form, he should be included, whether or not the incumbent has committed any sin.
But the selection practices of 2005 extend to the current day. You now need to score a mountain of runs for twenty Shield seasons in a row before you finally get a gig, then once you’re in, there’s no getting you out again.
What’s wrong with making guys prove themselves, you might ask? Thing is, form for cricketers can be a very fleeting thing. A player might only be at his peak for one or two seasons, or three, or four. Purple patches don’t last forever. In many cases, by the time the current pay-your-dues policy has been observed, an opportunity has been lost.
Of the current Aussie batting line-up, only the openers are batting like members of a champion team. The rest have been unconvincing for a long period of time. They also happen to have very good records and plenty of talent.
Accordingly, you could easily argue that dropping any of them would be harsh. On that basis, I’d probably agree. But the point isn’t whether someone needs to be dropped. It’s that someone else is waiting in the wings.
Right now the crucial thing is to get Steven Smith into the team. His confidence is sky-high, and he smashed a swag of centuries last season. Who has to make way is irrelevant.
Smith’s batting is his stronger suit, so get him into the top six to take the pressure off his bowling. That will give him more latitude to develop the trickier art of leg-spin. If he masters both, he’ll offer more to Australian cricket in the next decade than any three of the current line-up.
Make him wait around for a few more years and you may well find that his development has been stunted, or his passion has waned. He’d hardly be the first promising young Aussie spinner to disappear.
As well as Smith, Usman Khawaja is another talented young batsman in peak form at the moment, following on his terrific last season with an effortless double-hundred the other day. And how about holding on to the dynamic Tim Paine as wicketkeeper, instead of just slotting Brad Haddin back into the spot he ‘earned’ in his years as Gilchrist’s understudy?
Nathan Hauritz is another conservative selection, picked for keeping runs down rather than any threat with the ball. Why not roll the dice and give Bryce McGain another go? He got precisely one Test, on an unfriendly South African greentop, and was expressly targeted by the well-set Saffer batsmen.
Sure, he’s 38, but he only started playing first-class cricket eight years ago. Without the usual wear and tear, he has a couple of years in him. McGain has been the only standout spinner in domestic cricket since Warne and MacGill retired. He’s bowled with talent and conviction. Conservatism says he’s too old, instinct says give him a crack.
Or if not him, then Steve O’Keefe, the left arm spinner. Yes, he’s inexperienced, but he’s averaging 25 with the ball and 52 with the bat in first-class cricket. Worth a run?
Then there’s David Hussey, unfairly pigeonholed as a limited-overs specialist, who is in the form of his life in all formats, and top-scored in the Shield last season. Or Michael Klinger, whose lifelong potential has recently flowered.
Both in their 30s, they’re less likely candidates, but again, age isn’t the important thing. The important thing is belief, confidence, momentum. That is what the current line-up is lacking, and that’s what is so abundantly on display elsewhere.
The one-day team for India has been picked much more along these lines, with plenty of fringe players and youngsters in Smith, Paine, Clint McKay, James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, and David Warner. But this is really to rest senior players, and one can’t help but predict conservatism creeping back in by the time the World Cup rolls around.
It’s the most frustrating thing about the Aussies’ current run of poor form. Instead of just picking the guys with long records, with the most Tests and the highest averages, why not look around for those who are burning trails across the sky? Haven’t Hilditch and Co. ever watched Dead Poets Society? Sometimes we need the courage to seize the day.
After all, what’s wrong with going on a hunch once in a while? In 2005, it wasn’t a matter of needing to get rid of a batsman. It was that Hussey had to be in the team. With a batsman in that kind of form in such a finely-balanced series, Australia would have won.
Players have to be included when their talent is peaking, when they’re at their best. Don’t wait until the party is over. It’s time for the selectors to stop being so negative. Instead of looking at whether anyone should be dropped, start looking to see who’s screaming out to be promoted.