Another calamity for Australian cricket, this time off the field, has heaped extra pressure on besieged chief selector Andrew Hilditch.
Hilditch has copped a barrage of abuse during Australia’s dreadful summer but this time a rushed PR bungle and not a bewildering assessment of a player appears to be to blame.
Hilditch was pilloried for his comment, expressed in a press release about the Australian World Cup squad, on Tuesday, that off-spinner Nathan Hauritz’s “one-day record in India is excellent”.
Statistics, though, tell otherwise.
Hauritz has taken just four wickets at an average of 70 in seven ODIs in the country, although he did bowl economically in Australia’s highly-impressive 4-2 series win over India in late 2009.
While Hilditch normally writes comments that appear under his name in Cricket Australia press releases, he did not pen the appraisal of Hauritz, which was included by public affairs manager Philip Pope.
Pope on Wednesday accepted blame for the mistake, which occurred in the rush to have the release ready for the media on Tuesday morning after the 15-man squad was selected late Monday night.
According to CA’s public affairs general manager Peter Young, Hilditch signed off on the press release as he was stepping on to the plane for 4am flight from Adelaide to Sydney for a 9.30am press conference.
Both Young and Pope stressed Hilditch almost always writes his own quotes and the large bulk of his comments on the squad release were his own following a late-night briefing with Pope.
“Off the field we are not perfect,” Young told AAP on Wednesday.
“Sometimes you get an outside edge or drop a catch.”
Despite Hauritz’s lack of wicket-taking success in India, which also contributed to his axing from the Test team before this season’s 3-1 Ashes series loss, he does boast a decent record as an economical bowler.
Young said his efforts in helping NSW claim the Champions League Twenty20 title in India that year were also taken into account in assessing his suitability for the conditions.
“The continuing view of the selection panel and the chairman is that (Hauritz) is an important player (in the squad),” he said.
Hilditch, who juggles his selection commitments with a full-time job as a lawyer, has been a national selector since 1996-97 and has been the panel chairman for more than four years.
His head is on the chopping block following the Ashes failure but he hopes to continue in the role when his current contract finishes at the end of the World Cup where Australia is bidding to continue their 1999, 2003 and 2007 triumphs.
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