- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Cricket Australia has moved swiftly to replace national selection chairman Rod Marsh after he quit, with immediate effect, last Wednesday.
Former Test skipper Greg Chappell will be the interim replacement, with Trevor Hohns the new chairman.
An excellent choice with Chappell, but an emphatic ‘no’ for Hohns as chairman.
Chappell has twice been a national selector before – in 1984-1988 and 2010-2011 as Cricket Australia’s national talent manager after the infamous Argus Report.
These days the 68-year-old Chappell is right at the grass roots of Australian cricket, he knows more about where tomorrow’s Test and one-day cricketers will come from as the man in charge of the national performance squad.
Mark Waugh should be the new chairman, but in naming Hohns the panel has taken on a new set of dynamics.
Let’s get one part of Hohns’ CV right – he wasn’t responsible as chairman for one of the greatest eras of Australian cricket, the baggy greens picked themselves.
Mark Taylor, Michael Slater, Matt Hayden, Justin Langer, Ricky Ponting, Mark Waugh, Steve Waugh, Damien Martyn, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee.
A two-year-old with a pin could have picked those cricketers, and done just as good a job.
Where Hohns was different was his penchant to end careers early.
He had Taylor, Slater, Martyn, and Steve Waugh in his cross-hairs, as if to justify his position.
Hohns did get Martyn after the West Australia scored just six runs off 59 deliveries when Australia was set 117 to win by South Africa at the SCG in 1994.
Australia lost by five runs, Martyn did six years penance.
Hohns did get Slater, eventually got Taylor, but Steve Waugh escaped his darts to retire on his own terms.
Now Hohns is again chairman he has two votes which makes him dangerous in a four-man panel if the original voting is 2-2.
He wouldn’t have earned his nickname of “Hatchet” Hohns if he was a choir boy.
So what about the new selection dynamics?
There’s a pretty safe bet Chappell and Hohns will be in the same direction of recognising youth early, while Waugh and Lehmann will be more about the youth earning their representative way through performances.
That’s where Hohns’ vote will split the panel.
And he has the current situation of five Test losses on the trot on his side to use his hatchet with impunity.
The current NSW-Victoria Sheffield Shield clash at the SCG will answer many questions.
On duty for NSW – Test men Steve Smith, David Warner, Peter Nevill and Nathan Lyon.
Plus Test contenders – batsmen Nic Maddinson and Kurtis Patterson, with all-rounders Moises Henriques and Steve O’Keefe.
The Vics have contenders as well with Peter Handscomb, Glenn Maxwell, Cameron White, and Matt Wade.
Handscomb made the most of his chances on day one with an unbeaten 110 off a very patient 193 with 12 boundaries and a six.
Handscomb and Wade make an interesting comparison – both are keepers who bat.
While Wade was on ODI duty in South Africa, Handscomb kept wickets for the Vics. When Wade returned, he took over the gloves.
What makes it interesting is Handscomb is the better keeper and the better batsman, which means Handscomb is the bigger threat to Nevill as Test keeper than Wade.
Maxwell, White, and Wade will bat today.
With the ball Lyon went wicketless for 88 off 27, while O’Keefe took 1-65 off 25.
The third and final Test against South Africa will be a pink ball day-nighter at Adelaide, starting next Thursday.
The current Shield games will be finished before the new panel names the Adelaide squad.