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CA XI a great idea, but youth need experience around them

Steven Smith continued his amazing form in India. (AFP PHOTO / GREG WOOD)
Roar Guru
5th October, 2015
46

As the One Day Cup got underway, the new Cricket Australia XI had their first hit-out against the boys from New South Wales.

This new team – comprised players around the country who have only just missed out on selection for their respective states – is on trial for two years.

This is a fantastic idea. Just look at the county cricket system in the UK, and the opportunity to showcase your talent is enormous due to the amount of sides available to play for. The more sides at the professional level here in Australia the better.

But being made up of younger players who lack experience, the biggest question is how competitive can this side be?

It was a disappointing result against NSW, but when you look at the calibre of players they were up against, this should come as no surprise.

Batting first, Steve Smith and Nic Maddinson led the way with hundreds, setting the CA XI 339 to win. Coming up against the likes of Mitchell Starc, Gurinder Sandhu, Sean Abbott and Steve O’Keefe proved too much for the young team, eventually bowled out for 59, with Starc taking 6/25.

On social media I came across a few people getting carried away with the CA XI performance for all the wrong reasons. These are are kids looking to develop and learn to become top international cricketers for Australia, they need time. It can’t be easy to come into a team you are unfamiliar with and perform at your absolute peak at such a young age.

As the competition goes on we will see these young blokes do some incredible things and show their respective states what they are made of.

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The biggest issue with with putting a team full of kids together against such a good standard of cricket is they lack a leader with experience. You want younger players led by someone who can guide them through the competition. They don’t have that.

This is the best domestic one-day competition for years, due to the influx of international players from the cancelation of the Bangladesh Test tour. It’s a fantastic challenge for the CA XI, but you get the feeling from their first performance that throwing a few older blokes into the team wouldn’t do any harm.

When it gets tough, having someone around the team to give advice and encouragement would certainly be beneficial.

The CA XI have the ability to play in this competition – the players in the squad are on the verge of representing their state, so ability isn’t the issue, experience is. Putting together a team of unexperienced players against this standard of cricket is a massive challenge, and will leave them in better stead for the future, but a few more experienced players to guide them would be far more beneficial.

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