Australian cricket needs a complete review
Roar Guru By Jason Cave, 29 Dec 2010 The Crowd is a Roar Guru
- Tagged:
- Ashes, Australian Cricket, boxing day test, Cricket, Cricket Australia, England cricket, ICC Test rankings, Sheffield Shield, Test cricket, The Ashes, Twenty20
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Australia is on the edge of losing the Ashes on Australian soil for the first time since 1986/87 while sitting in fifth place on the ICC Test rankings. It is simply not good enough.
Yes, the retirements of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist and the like has hurt the team, and it’s one of the key reasons why Australia has not performed to expectations in this Ashes series, but it goes much deeper than that.
The Sheffield Shield, once the world’s premier domestic first-class competition, has gone backwards over the last few years, with little or no chance of improving because of the growing trend that is Twenty20 cricket.
Also, Australia’s form both at Test and ODI levels over the last few years hasn’t been all that good.
The way Cricket Australia forced the team to prepare for an Ashes series by sending them to India for a full-scale tour, then having to pick a 17-man squad for the first Test in Brisbane, to see who will be in the final XI, is not good enough. England already knew who would be in their first Test XI two months before the series had even started.
While there will be an internal review by Cricket Australia at the end of this series, will that achieve anything? Not much. The status quo will remain intact.
What is urgently needed is a full-scale independent review of every aspect of Australian cricket – club, Sheffield Shield, Test and ODI.
The recommendations from that review should be swiftly implemented without delay. Otherwise, cricket in this country would take the hardest hit ever seen since the turbulent days of WSC.
The Ashes journey begins
The Australian cricket team have left Australia to begin their tour of England, with a mission to reclaim the Ashes.
Australian captain Michael Clarke and his teammates were optimistic about their chances before jetting off.
Click here to hear the thoughts of our Australian cricket team as they left for England.
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December 29th 2010 @ 5:15am
Lolly said | December 29th 2010 @ 5:15am | Report comment
They don’t have the cattle and the cattle they do have, don’t have any confidence. I don’t know where they will find any either. Not against this English team. They are submitting now in a very cowed manner.
December 29th 2010 @ 7:10am
Kermit is a frog said | December 29th 2010 @ 7:10am | Report comment
Don’t blame the sheffield shield.
The selectors have opted to ignore the shield form.
Phil Hughes as an example. Had a 1st class average of 20 this season and THAT earns him a recall??
His poor form for Australia since recall has only reinforced his poor form in the Sheffield Shield.
Likewise the batting of Steve Smith. He’d pulled his season starting 1st class avg from around 40 down to mid 30s already, and that got him in the test team as a specialist bat??
Form players like McDonald, Kawaja, and even D.Hussey have been ignored. Why?
Bowling wise, the Sheffield Shield tells us that Beer is inexperienced and needs work but shows potential but has a bowling average similar to Brad Hodge and Cam White. Why do the selectors think they know better midway through a crucial ashes test series??
Thankfully they haven’t played him just for the sake of it, and certainly if Peter Siddle was considered the 4th bowler in Melbourne, he has performed well above what could ever have been expected of Beer.
Hilfenhaus had done stuff all for Tassie this year, the form bowlers being Butterworth and Faulkner. And Hilfy has struggled for Australia. Again – it vindicates the Sheffield Shield form line.
And the strange thing is – a guy like Cam White, get’s the captaincy of Aust A, does a fine job, scores a captains 100. And with a handful of tests experience in India, and a growing reputation in the top 5 of the Aust ODI line up and the T20 vice captaincy – - – why the dickens was he NOT elevated to number 6 in the test line up ahead of Steve Smith??? Did Smith get there on the back of his bowling??? Surely not.
Fair enough – selectors need to be able to make judgement calls. But sheesh – - the judgement to IGNORE form?!?!!?
December 29th 2010 @ 9:46am
Long On said | December 29th 2010 @ 9:46am | Report comment
In the aftermath of a loss, especially a loss to the English, the tendency to get angry and call for all sorts of changes is natural but a mistake. For most the last twenty years we have dominated the game so our system has worked pretty effectively. So effective it has forced most other countries to copy our methods. When it all comes to an end we fall hard and ugly. The important thing now is to be smart and not reactive. Radical changes will be a mistake.
We also have to be realistic, our domination is unlikely to be repeated and not just by us. The combination of players that carried us through this period was unique. We had a series of quality batsmen that produced big scores reliably for many years. We had great bowlers and generally fielded well. Presently our young fast bowling stocks looks to be pretty good but our young bats and spinners seem to be less promising.
It is times like now that make you realize how good Shane Warne was, he was both a miserly bowler and an attacking weapon. The pressure he applied from one end is unique in the history of our cricket and probably will not be emulated quickly. Warne’s presence took a very good team and made it great.
I believe we will become strong again quite quickly, but the sort of domination that allowed us to regularly win away from home, surely the true test of quality, producing long undefeated runs will be beyond us and all other nations. This is the more natural state of the game and we better get used to it. Anyway winning all of the time can be boring.
Mind you some change needs to be made and sacking our four selectors would be a good start.
December 30th 2010 @ 6:41am
Frankie Hughes said | December 30th 2010 @ 6:41am | Report comment
Australia, seeing as their pretty desperate to have a left handed opener, could give Shaun Marsh a go. His technically very good. Good cutter and puller. Fantastic driver as well.
Marsh
Haddin (in fine form and could do a similar job to what Sehwag/Dilshan do)
Khawaja
Hussey
Watson (He’s in good nick, but loses focus and never gets the big 100. Also adds steel to the middle order.)
White (c)
Paine (w/k)
Hauritz/O’Keefe
Copeland (they need a good seamer, who can bowl a tight line and length)
Siddle
Cameron (Pretty rapid, fair replacemt for Harris)
Punter, Clarke, Hughes are all woefully out of nick. Johnson is to hit and miss
Oz need to groom a side for the future and this is the best way forward.
Hussey, Haddin and Watson are the experienced members. White is a classy skipper. Paine is the bes gloveman in Oz. Most importantly, you have to have a spinner for balance
December 30th 2010 @ 11:23am
Timmuh said | December 30th 2010 @ 11:23am | Report comment
Jason,
I would disagree a little on the India tour. Once there were Tests involved that tour became as important as the Ashes in its own right. Going to India was not an “ashes warm-up” as it was seen by many people, but a Test series (albeit short, and hastily arranged) against the number one side in the world. The Sri Lanka games should never have happened, and the original India tour – originally it was to be limited overs only – never scheduled; but the eventual Test series was important cricket. It was also lost, though the losses were much closer than Adelaide or Melbourne.
The Shield has lost its lustre to a point. And this is simply because the Test players are never available for any games. Instead of playing four day cricket, half the Australian team was playing limited overs games against Sri Lanka. Even more amazingly, one good spell with the white ball saw Doherty picked for Test cricket. That really is sad.
The things I believe need to be done are:
- more Shield matches with Test team players available, this will necessitate the end of limited overs only tours
- more tours by the A-side, ideally these would include some associate nations to help them develop into Test nations as well as other test nations A-sides (state teams could also look at playing associate nations, eg Afghanistan could do a tour of Australia playing against two states and Austalia A, helping our first class cricketers and aiding their improvement)
- removing the captain and coach from all selection decisions, their input may be required for how the side wants to approach something tactically, but the players must be chosen by the selectors alone; with that, its time to replace the selectors. The captain and coach only see those who get into a squad for internationals, therefore they are likely to have bias towards what they have seen, the selectors job is to see everyone and make judgements based on much more knowledge from across the spectrum of first class cricket.
- a new captain, not Ponting or (for the immediate term at least) Clarke
- the attitude in the team needs to change, the gung-ho “dominate the opposition” can work, and be intimidating, if a side is good enough to pull it off, currently this side isn’t and it falls in a heap on a regular basis
- despite the bulk of Australia living in the five main capitals, roughly half the side originates from the regions or bush; CA needs to find out why the big cities aren’t producing the players they should be (and ideally find a way to rectify it)
January 4th 2011 @ 9:06pm
Jason Cave said | January 4th 2011 @ 9:06pm | Report comment
Another thing that could be done is to have three selection committees for each level of international cricket-Test, ODI, Twenty20, rather than the current selection panel, working under the Chairman of Selectors (likely to be Greg Chappell).
Also, have Australia ‘A’ tours more often in places such as India or England and have them play against their ‘A’ side or 2nd XI in 3 or 4 game series.