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The chairman of selectors might have been a bit flippant with that comment yesterday, but certainly not greedy with the attrition rate of Australian pacemen the worst in world cricket.
It comes at a time with Ryan Harris and Mitchell Johnson retired, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc out for the summer, Josh Hazlewood a match-by-match proposition, Peter Siddle’s suspect back, James Pattinson underdone, and Jackson Bird on the comeback trail.
Little wonder Rod Marsh and his selection panel have turned to Nathan Coulter-Nile and Scott Boland in the first Test squad to meet the West Indies at Bellerive next week.
Coulter-Nile (28) is a hot-head who hasn’t played a Sheffield Shield game for Western Australia this season, while the 26-year-old Victorian bolter Boland has match figures of 2-41 and 7-31 in his Sheffield Shield game last week against the West at the WACA.
Marsh likes Coulter-Nile’s pace with no comment on his wayward line and length, while praising Boland’s potential. Both will be making their Test debuts if they make the final X1.
But the more burning question that no-one wants to answer is why the attrition rate is so high, so constant, and the worst in world cricket?
Browsing through the eras since World War II, there were no injury woes with the legends Ray Lindwall, Keith Miller, and Bill Johnston in the 1940s and ’50s.
In the ’50s and ’60s there were Alan Davidson, Ian Meckiff, and Gordon Rorke, and in the ’60s and ’70s the likes of Graham McKenzie, Frank Misson, Alan Connolly, Neil Hawke, Grahame Corling, Dave Renneberg, Eric Freeman, and Alan Thomson.
The ’70s and ’80s saw Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson, Max Walker, Len Pascoe, Rodney Hogg, Gary Gilmour, Geoff Lawson, Terry Alderman, Mike Whitney, and Carl Rackeman.
The ’80s and ’90s – Craig McDermott, Simon O’Donnell, Dave Gilbert, Merv Hughes, Bruce Reid, Tony Dodemaide, and Brendon Julian.
The ’90s and 2000s – Damien Fleming, Michael Kasprowicz, Jason Gillespie, Andy Bichel, Nathan Bracken, Glenn McGrath, Shaun Tait, Stuart Clark, and Ben Hilfenhaus.
Of all those pacemen, only Lillee suffered stress fractures of his back in the ’70s and had to revamp his delivery. Reid had a weak back.
But Australian pacemen injuries were so rare no-one took any notice of them with the exception of Lillee and Reid.
Not so with the current crop – Ryan Harris, Mitchell Johnson, Pat Cummins, James Pattinson, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Jackson Bird, James Faulkner, and Mitchell Marsh.
Every one of them has been a regular member of the physio table rehab club.
So what’s the problem? Is it too much time in the nets, too much time in the gym, or a combination of both?
My gut feeling is the combination of factors, something that never happened to the pacemen in the amateur days when all cricketers had Monday to Friday jobs, practiced Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and played on Saturday.
World Series Cricket changed the dynamics and the professional era was born where there were daily net sessions and daily gym work – the latter a big no-no in the amateur days.
Come on, James Sutherland, it’s well overdue finding out the cause of the pacemen’s problems.