In the best of all possible worlds, this is the Australian team that I would select for the SCG Test: Simon Katich, Phillip Hughes, Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke (c), Michael Hussey, Marcus North, Luke Ronchi, Mitchell Johnson, James Hilfenhaus, Peter Siddle, Doug Bollinger.
Hughes comes into my team because he is the next great Australian batsman and the best time to blood him in Test cricket is at his home ground, the SCG.
Matthew Hayden is denied his chance for a farewell to his legion of fans.
This is unfortunate, but the task of rebuilding the national side should be more important than allowing an old warhorse one more sniff of battle.
The Australian’s esteemed cricket writer, Mike Coward, and Ian Chappell, an extremely shrewd judge of a cricketer, are also pushing for Hughes, which suggests he is the goods. Coward points out that Hughes is 17 years younger than Hayden and that it is time Hayden is “formally consigned to history.”
Amen to that.
This is a fantasy team, remember.
In fantasyland, my captain would be Shane Warne. I’m sure he’d love the chance to captain Australia. But there is no way an offer is going to made to him from Cricket Australia, so I’m opting for the next best captain.
Clarke has elements in his leadership style of the young Richie Benaud. I think he would give an energy, intellectually and in terms of cricket nous, that is lacking with Ponting’s generally lacklustre style of captaincy.
I’d bat Michael Hussey at number 5 because he is more versatile with the tailenders than Clarke. Clarke seems to bat best when he is spontaneous and exuberant. He can be that at 4.
Hussey can play the attacking game, and the defensive milking the runs game, and is better suited, in my view, to the lower position in the batting order.
Marcus North comes into my side as the all-rounder.
He is a left-hand batsman who has scored 19 first-class centuries and averages around 44. He bowls sharply-turning off-spinners, with 90 wickets at 44 average and expense rate of 3.10, which is reasonably tight.
His ‘most dismissed’ batsman is Phil Jacques (3 times).
Luke Ronchi is my wicket-keeper. He is a better glove man that Brad Haddin, which should be the main consideration (unless the alternative is Adam Gilchrist).
His first class batting average of 33 with a strike rate of 84, 3 hundreds and nine 50s does not reflect the brilliant heights his batting can attain. He has the third-quickest ODI half-century by an Australia (22 balls). He has scored a run-a-ball first class century against NSW, and a 56-ball century against NSW (the fastest hundred in Australian domestic cricket against an attack that featured Stuart Clark).
The fast bowling line-up is balanced between two skidders and cutters of the ball, Siddle and Johnson, and two swing bowlers, out-swinger Hilfenhaus and in-swinger Bollinger.
A key principle in selecting any side is its shape.
The team’s attack must be flexible enough to handle any eventuality. This attack enables the captain to keep pressure on the opposition batsmen by allowing the bowlers shorter, sharper spells.
It is an attack, too, that has a variety of methods to dismiss batsmen: cut, swing and spin.
Although this team is an impossible dream for the SCG Test, it would not surprise me if something like this side (not perhaps the change of captain, though) will take the field in one of the Ashes series Tests.
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