Country before club: Who shouldn't be in India

CA are in a bind though as they are part of the CL shenanigans. There are plenty of other reasons to drop Huss though!

Hussey should not be in the test team. His form has not warranted it for the last 18 months if we want to win the Ashes drop him now. Sick of middle order collapses.

sounds good. shall get in touch closure to the date!

Vinay, perhaps, I got distracted by peripheral issues. The point I'm making with regard to your original post is that it is the boards that need to change their scheduling practices, not the T20 leagues. And that is no bad thing, because the current schedule is woeful. If it comes to a fight for players between the two, the boards will lose.

Vinay, I don't see why you'd think that? Tendulkar and Kallis proved in the last IPL that you can go a lot further with a sound technique than a loose one. T20 is far from flawless, but I enjoy it, not for the spectacle, but for the cricket and the tactical elements (even the repressed one), and far more than a 50 over game. (Also, you do baseball a disservice, it is a much slower and more tactical game than any form of ODI match) Regarding fledgling nations. Their players have learnt a lot more playing in the (private) county league than they've ever learnt being pounded by the major test teams. That is as true of Ireland, whose improvement is closely matching the increase in first class cricketers of Irish origin, as it was of the West Indies, New Zealand and Pakistan in the 1980s, when all three were much stronger, and had substantial county experience in their ranks. Players from small nations need to learn from professional outfits, and domestic teams offer that, even in the T20 format. You are right too, I wrote of a cyclical test championship that was shorter - a year, in fact, for the main competition, but over 4 with regional competitions and qualifiers. But that was also predicated on what I wrote above: the economics of the game are changing, and domestic leagues have a financial advantage over national sides. They always did, but the international game crowds out competition in a manner that only benefits the tv companies. The ECB-Sky deal, for example, in almost doubling the international fixture list has effectively turned the county sides into serfs, dependent on hand-outs from their greatest competition.

Vinay, Very pleased to see you've got enough material to write for another century. I look forward to reading it all.

Lolly, Yes, absolutely I can understand players like Hussey taking the money at this stage of his career. What I cannot understand is CA still picking him in the Test team if T20 is his first priority. But, like the fellow who starts a fire in his canoe, you can't have your kayak and heat it too!

But you can understand players who have hardly anything left to their international career wanting to make as much money as they can ie Hussey? Or at least I can. And bang on about our tailend batsmen. As soon as we started batting, I posted somewhere that the tail has to wag again or we are stuffed. And so you see.

Vinay, First, let me say I could not agree more with your sentiment. The current Australian team talk a lot about how proud they are to represent their country but, it seems, they're even prouder to accept the dollars on offer from twenty/20. The problem is that now everybody thinks they are "professional". Professional, of course, relates only to the money not the preparation. Could you imagine this scenario back in the days when Bradman ran Austrailain cricket. Despite the fact that Bradman was probably the first player to really understand his commercial value these two would have been given a choice; play for Australia or accept the T20 money and disappear from the international scene. It is impossible to serve two masters, except it seems, in cricket. Players are free with their platitudes about how they can fit everything in but, the fact is, Australian cricket at the international level is not going so well that players can please themselves. Optionally, it's going as well as it is because players please themselves! Frankly, I'm astounded that CA put up with it. Given these guys happily miss Shield games because their contract with CA not only allows it but encourages it I'm amazed that any of them can play T20 in the IPL and then in the Champions League for a team other than their home state. It would appear that cricket is now run by lawyers and player managers and CA sees itself somehow caught in the middle. The truth is, however, that CA is under no obligation to pick these guys in national teams. There is, after all, a selection panel (although you and I have previously doubted its relevance). Selectors, to my knowledge, have never had to justify selections. Indeed, it's counter productive to even try so leaving them out would not seem to be a big deal. The current situation though is indicative of a relatively new trend in Australian cricket. That is, the inmates are running the asylum. Bradman would never have tolerated it. Nor would countless other men who have filled the selector/administrator role over the years. These days, however, the panel is full of guys who grew up in the more "professional" era (the money one) and obviously the players are being allowed to decide who does what and when. After todays second innings capitulation of the top order, following a pretty reasonable opening stand, I'm looking forward to hearing from the players who should be dropped for the next Test - or the Ashes series to follow. It seems that 428 is what you get when the tail wags and 192 is what you get when it does not. And not for the first time! At what time, do you think, will the players think that the top order is letting the team down? Sure as hell the selectors don't know but I, for one, am curious. The argument put up by the modern fan will no doubt be that today's players are entitled to earn whatever they can from the game. I agree, but the other side of that coin is that, as I said previously, CA is under no obligation to pick them for Test tours. Gideon Haigh once famously said that T20 was invented for those people who don't like cricket. One thing is for sure, if T20 becomes the game of choice of the people then Test cricket will wither and die. Along with it will go the literature of the game. Cricket is probably the most prolific sport in terms of quality sports writing. I doubt any game has had more books written about it, more newspaper articles, more magazines. Very little of this will continue if T20 prevails. As you said to Russ, without technique cricket is just baseball and the Americans do baseball better. There is probably another topic in this area of the game because I'm firmly of the belief that, even now, the true knowledge of the game, and I'm talking technique, is diminishing at a similar rate to the increasing salaries. So Vinay, enjoy Cardus, Robertson-Glasgow, Frith, Haigh, Roebuck and Coward because their time has well and truly passed if T20 becomes dominant. Who would bother to write anything significant about that version of the game. Some may call it progress - I prefer to think be careful what you wish for. A question - who were the top three performers in the Champions League final. Yes, I know it was only a week ago but I can't remember either. That's how significant it really was. A month from now none of us will remember who won it or who they beat in the final. Still, the important thing is that Dougie and Mike got their winners bonus - that's really what it's all about.

Hussey and Bollinger turning up late to the tour was a disgrace. I'm not sure who is to blame, whether it is the players personally or Cricket Australia. It is not acceptable for the thousands of supporters who follow the Australian team to have important members of the squad turn up at such a late stage that it is not even possible for them to compete in a warm up match. We as fans are ripped off and the cricket community as a whole is ripped off.

Vinay, CA might have the "right" to issue NOCs but that power can only be pushed so far. Fact is, the model of international cricket that has been in place since the Packer years is dead. Like then, the players will insist on being playing where they can earn the most, and if that means forfeiting the end of an international career to play domestic cricket then that is what they will do; if it means refusing to play international cricket then they'll do that too. And frankly, I'll be glad if they do. Cricket viewing has changed. When you couldn't see cricketers except when they came to local shores then you could anticipate a tour, and relish the unique qualities of their play. But cricket is a constant, year-round, global sport, and last season, watching Australia play poorly but still easily get the better of a pair of woeful touring sides, was the most tedious season of cricket I can recall. Central contracts, and the need to play internationals day in day out that they imply, are killing the game. We need a lot lot less international cricket, structured into proper competitions, not tours, with international windows so players can play domestic cricket without that competition having to compete for viewership. And we should support domestic T20, because it has many advantages: it supports a much larger professional playing base, it allows substantially more games at each venue which is a better use of grounds and allows the public to see more live games. Finally, CA, the ICC (and the BCCI and ECB) need to wake up and realise that if they don't start structuring their international schedules around the competitions that the players want to play and the fans want to watch, then the players will desert them and international cricket really will diminish and die. Which would be a pity.

But Vinay, The cynic in me wonders if it is ever any different anywhere else, in any environment - "the Indian model of governance which is basically formulating what suits the people in power"?

Jiggles, We're a dying breed, us test cricket lovers. Current & future generations are conditioned to shorter & shorter forms of the game. Future administrators are getting younger & younger & represent the interests of their peers. In the next 20 years the cries will get louder, "why do we bother with test cricket anymore"? Eventually, test cricket will be consigned to the dustbin of history. I hope I'm wrong, but the writing is on the wall, so to speak. As an example, when I first learnt to drive (early 70s), automatic gearbox cars were becoming more in vogue. But if you wanted to be a "real" driver, you had to master a manual gearbox. Today, nobody cares about manual gearboxes. The chances of driving a manual car are becoming rarer, & rarer, & its need as a learning tool more & more irrelevant. Today's cricketers are learning to master the skills of the crash-bang game (T20) - quick runs & quick wickets. The skills required for test cricket, like the changes from manual to automatic gearboxes, are becoming less & less relevant.

Yep, I can concur with some of Vinay's comments. About 10 years ago, Indian cricket fans were asked to select their all-time XI via the internet. The player whose career stretched furthest into the past was keeper-batsman Farook Engineer, who played from early 60s to mid 70s. Engineer's selection itself was surprising given he beat Syed Kirmani. Everyone else selected began their careers after this time (early to mid 60s). Obviously, the selections were done via blogs by internet savvy Indians aged between 15 to 45 (at the time). Sunil Gavaskar's opening partner was Kris Srikkanth, whose test batting average was..... wait for it..... just 31-odd. Obviously, they loved him for his cavalier batting (as was the case with Engineer). BTW, both Engineer & Srikkanth, & these selections were made before Virender Sehwag came along, & he makes just about everyone else look like batting snails at the crease. Except perhaps Adam Gichrist! It seems to me many of these Indians were confused between what was required for a test XI, & what they liked to see in one day cricket. Vinay is right, how many Indians today would know about Amar Singh & Mohammed Nissar, or even Vijay Merchant or Lala Amarnath? Or even Vijay Hazare or Vinoo Mankad. Or that elder statesman CK Nayudu? Mankad was the last of these to retire, in the late 50s. But all these guys made their debut for India in the 30s (at the dawn of Indian test cricket), either officially or unofficially.