- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
With the first Ashes Test sewn up so handsomely on Monday, the Australian team’s focus for the second in Adelaide and beyond is to simply not let up.
The pressure is firmly on England now, with the annual day-night fixture to begin at the Adelaide Oval on Saturday afternoon. Lose this Test, and their grip on The Urn will slip even further as the series moves to Perth.
In just two seasons, the pink-ball Test has become as anticipated a cricket event as the first ball of the summer and Boxing Day, and indeed, the seven-wicket win over South Africa last summer represented the first big step forward for much of this current Australian playing group.
The first win in an Ashes series is a new high-water mark for the group now, and while the motivation for the playing group couldn’t be easier, it’s a bit different on the periphery.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the people under the most pressure this time last week were the national selectors. Chairman Trevor Hohns, Mark Waugh, coach Darren Lehmann, and interim selector Greg Chappell rolled any number of dice in pitching Cameron Bancroft, Shaun Marsh, and Tim Paine into the First Test, particularly in the cases of Marsh and Paine, where neither selected player was so far and away a better option than the incumbent or the widely touted alternates.
Bancroft, Marsh, and Paine all had very good matches in Brisbane, but that doesn’t make their initial selection any less contentious. Depending on whether you choose to give credit where credit’s due or not, the performance of the three either justifies their inclusion, or it doesn’t change a thing.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Given the selectors can only live and die by the scorecard and the final result, I’m happy to give them their dues.
In picking Marsh and Paine in particular, they’d have known the possibility of public meltdown was very real had either player had an ordinary week at the ‘Gabba.
I like Shaun Marsh as a cricketer, and even though I wouldn’t have picked him myself and had moved on some time ago, I could understand the reasoning the selectors gave. Like plenty, it still wasn’t that hard to poke holes in their logic around their stated need for “valuable experience [in] the batting line-up” – especially given their jolting shift toward youth this time last year – but I could see where they were coming from.
Likewise, though Paine hasn’t done a lot of First Class wicketkeeping in recent seasons, the fact he was the incumbent Australian Twenty20 ‘keeper meant he was always on the radar. And his ‘keeping has generally always been very good, so again, it was hard to argue with the view that he was the best gloveman in the country.
But now that these three players have all made excellent contributions to the First Test win, helping deliver some serious series momentum to the home side, the selectors’ biggest challenge will be in keeping their powder dry.
[latest_videos_strip category=”cricket” name=”Cricket”]
Rightly or wrongly, good luck or good management, the Australian selectors have unearthed a well-balanced side that, with everything going on in and around the England camp now, could go a long way toward regaining the Ashes.
As tempting as it might be to parachute Glenn Maxwell after the Victorian’s outstanding double hundred against NSW last week, the selectors need to hold firm.
Barring injury, the ideal scenario should see all three players play out this series, particularly if the series is decided well before Sydney. Having backed them to start the series, the selectors have to be of the belief these players can be part of an Ashes-winning side.
South Australian seamer Chadd Sayers – in whom I’m hoping by now my former Cheap Seats Podcast colleague Ryan O’Connell is better-versed – was included in the squad for the first two Tests with a view to playing in Adelaide, but after the way the English lower order was bounced out in Brisbane, I think even that move shouldn’t be rushed.
Manage the training and preparation loads of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, and Josh Hazlewood between now and Christmas. Pull out the old climate-controlled cryogenic chamber that used to get Ryan Harris from one Test to the next; just do whatever has to be done to ensure the three first-choice quicks go deep into the series.
So the challenge for the selectors is not to do nothing more for the rest of the Ashes series, but to ramp up their discussions in motivating the fringe players.
The hard job of selecting the side is done; the harder job now is to keep talking to Matt Renshaw and not forget about him. Maxwell needs to be told that his highest First Class score was excellent, but a fifty or a hundred in both Sheffield Shield games between now and the Big Bash would be even better.
(AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Paine needs to know that more runs will solidify his spot, rather than more catches and superb stumpings, but the likes of Peter Nevill and Alex Carey – and Matthew Wade, to be fair – need to know how close they were to being in Brisbane themselves.
A casual chat with the injured Sam Whiteman wouldn’t be a bad move either, particularly given what Paine has gone through to return to Test cricket, and noting that Whiteman and Paine have spoken since the WA ‘keeper was ruled out for the entire summer back in August.
Sayers just needs to keeping swinging the ball, and like Jackson Bird, keep taking wickets and bowling well. The selectors probably need to identify their preferred second spinner and have the same conversations ahead of Sydney.
Communication, not gut feel, is the selectors’ best tool for the time being. Having gone down a new road this summer, the selectors’ best work for the rest of the series shouldn’t be done in the papers, but on the phone and in coffee shops and at net sessions.
Their most important conversations over the next few weeks shouldn’t be with the players in the team, but the players lining up to get in.