What is Simon Katich’s problem? Why is he so angry all the time? These are questions many casual observers of Australian cricket may have asked in recent weeks as Katich has directed invective at almost every section of the national team establishment.
The sad truth, however, is that Katich has just cause for frustration and bafflement, and that the establishment has a lot to answer for.
Simon Katich has played 56 tests. He’s made 4188 test runs at an average of 45.03, and made 10 centuries.
He’s made them in Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, England and the West Indies. After the first test of the 2005/2006 summer, in which he made a third ball duck, he didn’t play a test for nearly three years.
But he came back.
He made so many runs in the Sheffield Shield that they had no choice; to continue to leave him out was to weaken the side.
The statistics tell it.
In 2008, in only his second series back in, as Australia were battered in four tests in India, he averaged 50, second best of the Australians. He did the same in the losing home series to South Africa that summer.
As his second career prospered, he continued to graft away runs, negate the new ball threat and set Australia up for big scores.
And yet now there is no place for him.
If there was a Simon Katich ‘form slump’, it existed only two series before the axe fell.
The issue here is consistency.
Matthew Hayden, Michael Hussey and Ricky Ponting each endured long spells where runs seemed unlikely, and yet each was allowed to return to form, with little to no threat of replacement.
Michael Clarke scarcely made a run at all for twelve months, including averaging a paltry 21.44 in last season’s home Ashes catastrophe, and was rewarded with the captaincy.
Where, Simon Katich asks, is the fairness in all of that? It seems his only crime was a poor series in India in late 2010, and succumbing to injury two Tests into the Ashes.
With all these precedents and mitigating factors, surely Katich was due more time to recover than he received. There is not even the justification that someone else bashed the door down.
Phil Hughes’ performances, or lack thereof, against England last season shows that he is far from a compelling alternative to Katich’s stoic reliability. Indeed, he appears the antithesis of it, too often parting with his wicket in the pursuit of impetuous and ill-considered strokeplay.
Though his technique may often have been offensive to the purist, rarely did one see Simon Katich give his wicket up cheaply.
The questions about Hughes will likely be answered by his upcoming encounter with Dale Steyn, but the questions about Katich’s omission run deeper. His comments this week show why.
He believes he has been overlooked not because of his ability to face the new ball (which after his match saving 110 against Victoria this week is still not in question), but because of his place within the team’s social hierarchy, and the famous throat-grabbing incident of a couple of years ago.
Simply, he thinks he was dropped because Michael Clarke is now the captain and Michael Clarke does not like him.
Looking at his career, his ability and his recent history, it is hard to see another explanation.
Usually, Australia’s most baffling selections are reserved for the spin-bowler’s position. However this one takes the cake.
The Australian cricket team is not a sandpit, and selections cannot be made based on one’s number of Facebook friends or allies within the team.
However, that’s what seems to have happened in this instance, and it sets a very dangerous precedent for Australian cricket’s future.
That’s why Simon Katich is angry.
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