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There’s a reason why OJ Simpson hired Johnnie Cochrane instead of a first-year Legal Aid kid. And why 80s action movies feature Schwarzenegger more than, say, Danny de Vito. It’s because if the very best is at your disposal, you tend to try to use them.
Dirk Nannes is the best Twenty20 paceman in the world. Brad Hodge is in the very top tier of T20 batsmen. Yet as Australia went down to England in a last-ball thriller last night, neither one of them was on the field.
Nor were they included in the 15-man squad for the upcoming one-day series, meaning they’re almost certainly out of World Cup reckoning.
Both are immensely experienced in the 20-over form of the game, through the IPL and Australia’s domestic Big Bash. Both have starred in an incredible run that has seen Victoria make all five Big Bash finals and win four of them.
Nannes’ List A record is less extensive but still impressive, while Hodge is by far the country’s premier batsman in domestic one-day cricket.
Indeed, of the likely World Cup players, only Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey could claim that their international exploits place them ahead of Hodge as one-day players at any level. And with Ponting’s star on the wane, his case may be shakily founded on past glories.
Yet in all the post-Ashes hysteria, this latest selectorial gaffe seems to have gone largely unnoticed. The omissions on their own are ludicrous, but even more so when you consider who has been picked instead.
In Shaun Tait, Brett Lee and Mitch Johnson, the panel last night saddled new skipper Cameron White with three bowlers whose extra pace can either shock batsmen or be smashed around the park. Nannes, on the other hand, is fast but accurate, and very rarely collared.
Tait was emblematic last night. His first over contained a dropped chance and three boundaries, his second a drop and 11 runs, his third a wicket and ten, and his last a monstrous six.
He leaked 39 runs all up, Lee 41, leaving White looking rather short of options. An absence of late yorkers when the game was tight was a particular feature.
Lee did show the value he brings to the team, both as an athlete (with an outstanding running catch) and an enthusiastic presence. And Tait was instrumental to winning the last World Cup. But a team can only afford one wildcard per match. Carrying three is like smoking in an ammo dump.
Johnson was tidy, with 1/27, but that can hardly be relied on. And his inclusion ahead of a T20 specialist like Nannes – especially after Johnson’s cod-ordinary Ashes performance – has no foundation in fairness or logic. It’s simply another instance of the selectors backing “their” boys.
The same goes for Peter Siddle’s spot in the one-day team – while Siddle has character, he’s yet to do anything of note in short-form cricket at any level.
The same inconsistencies mark the batting selections. Aaron Finch has had a good year for the Bushrangers, but his record is a Dandenong next to Hodge’s Pyrenees. It must have been bittersweet for Hodge to see his young Victorian opening partner in green and gold.
As for the 50-over game, keeping Ponting seems as chancy as playing Tait, especially if he insists on resuming his spot at first-drop. Without a turnaround of epic proportions, his team will be carrying the skipper.
As for his deputy, regardless of whether Michael Clarke comes good on the subcontinent, it is an insult to the hard work of cricketers around the country that he will be taken to the World Cup on the back of such indifferent form.
Indeed, the only batsman truly demanding his spot is Shane Watson.
The Chesty Bonds man hit a hat-trick of sixes with the bat last night in a match-high 59, then found himself on a hat-trick with the ball on his way to Australia’s best-ever T20I bowling figures. The previous best belonged to – guess who? Dirk Nannes.
A more positive aspect of last night, though, was seeing Cameron White’s first match as captain of an Australian side. We can only hope that it continues in the one-dayers when Ponting finally departs.
White’s ascension is due recognition and common sense. Yet both of these are missing in the cases of Hodge and Nannes, and this is what makes it so frustrating.
The approach to a World Cup is not the time to be blooding young players or thinking about the Five Year Plan. It’s a time to pick the best fifteen players in the country in limited-overs cricket, any other factors notwithstanding.
On any analysis, Hodge and Nannes would both have to be on that list. That they haven’t been picked only shows that the selectors are allowing their choices to be clouded by other things.
It’s an error that is both harming Australia’s World Cup chances, and doing an immense disservice to two very fine cricketers.