- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
A number of the players who featured in the recent winning World Cup squad missed selection for the recently named squads to take on the West Indies and England, as well as an A team who will play four-day cricket in India.
In fairness, they probably didn’t deserve to be selected, but did they have any chance to prove they could?
Aaron Finch, Glenn Maxwell, George Bailey, James Faulkner and Xavier Doherty are currently one-day specialists.
All apart from Finch have played Test cricket, but none have played more than five Tests. Maxwell was the only one of this group to be included in the recently announced squads – and that was for the A team.
Given the way recent fixtures have been scheduled, one-day international commitments have prevented these players from participating in much of the last two Sheffield Shield seasons.
In 2013-14 the start of the shield season coincided with a limited-overs tour of India, while the T20 World Cup hampered opportunities at the end of the season. In 2014-15 there were games against South Africa in November and of course the recent World Cup at the other end, with the Big Bash in the middle.
Since Finch made his ODI debut in 2011, he hasn’t played more than five shield games in a season. Finch’s record in shield cricket is substandard, but he is a better batsman now than when he last played regular first-class cricket in Australia. Finch went to England in 2014, where he played for Yorkshire and averaged close to 50 in the red-ball format.
Faulkner and Maxwell both made their Test debut only months after their ODI debuts, however neither has gone on to be a regular member of the Test side.
Faulkner has had just one Test, and since making his ODI debut in February 2013, he has played seven Sheffield Shield games, including only five in the last two seasons. Maxwell has played 11 Shield games since his ODI debut in 2012.
There is an argument that both are all rounders and don’t demand a place in the Test side, however couldn’t they develop their longer game if they could play more red-ball cricket?
The limited overs schedule also seems to confuse the selectors at times.
Doherty played his last two Tests in India in March 2013. He had only played four first-class games in the whole preceding season, the last of which was in the prior November. He struggled against the quality Indian batsmen and claimed only four wickets.
Bailey was chosen as part of what turned out to be the 2013-14 winning Ashes team largely on the back of superb form during a one-day series in India. He was only able to squeeze in two Shield games between returning from India and the first Ashes Test and never passed 50. He never really had an impact in his five Tests, except for a T20 performance in one innings at the WACA.
Both of these players had played enough first-class crickets to suggest the selectors knew what they were getting; however was it the best time for them to be selected to show their worth and succeed at Test cricket?
On announcing the winter squads, Rod Marsh said that Faulkner desperately needs red-ball cricket. However Marsh and colleagues didn’t select him for the A team tour, so it is puzzling how Faulkner is going to do that. If he is to play county cricket, is this the only sustained red-ball cricket he and others are able to play?
Administrators are not going to stop scheduling one day or T20 cricket, and clashes with the Sheffield Shield will happen again. If the selectors want to develop young talent such as Faulkner for a longer format, then they must let them play shield cricket.
The next World Cup is four years away. Now might be a good time to bite the bullet and get some players off the one-day treadmill.
Build your own fantasy cricket team and put it to the test with Draftstars daily fantasy competitions. Pick your match, pick your team and watch the points roll in to take out cash prizes on each match. What are you really gambling with? Set a deposit limit.