Australian cricket needs to pull its finger out

While Australia is taking on the Sri Lankans in the northern cricket season, it’s nearly that time again for Australians to start getting excited for our home summer. But to be honest, who really is?

In the last three years, Australian cricket has really dug itself a massive hole, and is struggling to maintain the patience required to crawl back out again.

Cricket is losing popularity fast and the problems start from the top and go right down to juniors.

As everyone knows the main key to popularity is success. The failure of the Australian cricket team cannot be directly blamed at the 11 blokes that take the field every match.

It’s up to the selectors to ensure the best 11 players in the country are on the field at every game.

Case 1: Steven Smith. He is simply not good enough, not at Test level, not at ODI level and maybe he’ll just scrape into Twenty20. Yes, he is a talented young cricketer but he’s not the answer.

The technique is just not there in his batting and ‘increasing fun around camp’ is not a reason for selection. Give him a few years to show strong performance at state level, then pick him.

We all know that the departures of Warne, Gilchrist, Langer, Martyn, McGrath and Hayden had an effect on the team but Cricket Australia just had to keep doing what they were doing and not go into this panic mode.

They started well with blooding the talented youth; giving the best Shield players a go, but made unjustifiable Test selections like Xavier Doherty, Michael Beer, Cameron White, Bryce McGain (at 37), Peter George, Steve Smith.

Selections that should’ve been made were those like Michael Klinger (averaged 80 three years in a row) and Brad Hodge.

Players were dropped who shouldn’t have been like Nathan Hauritz, Phil Jacques, Simon Katich.

None of this has helped, and has put more pressure on the players trying to retain their spot when really they’re not good enough.

Test players must be being playing more than one Sheffield Shield game per year; this will add more credibility to the competition and will give the better Shield players an opportunity to show their skills against the best in Australia.

This will also help selectors decide which Test players aren’t pulling their weight and performing at state level and whether they deserve to be in the Test team.

If Test players were playing regular state games it would bring more crowds to the games and more attention would be given to the performances of every player, making it a performance-based team.

The Test players at the moment are not showing the respect (and form) of the Test players of the recent past. Poor batting techniques, not valuing their wickets, stupid dismissals, bowling poor lines, no attacking bowling, lack of intensity in the field, losing tempers on the field and poor captaincy decisions have all been contributing factors to the demise of the team.

This was put into very clear context with the recent Ashes series where all of these poor performances were put on display and England destroyed us.

Never have I been so embarrassed to be an Australian cricket fan.

With recent Australian teams you would find them in a hole struggling to get out with a dominant performance from their opposition, but then Steve Waugh or vintage Ricky Ponting would pull their finger out and attack with everything they had.

The whole team would lift, it was great to watch but it simply doesn’t happen anymore. This defensive and pessimistic attitude will never help this team.

This is also why experience must be valued and why Simon Katich’s axing was wrong. Statistics show that in the recent slide of the Australian Cricket team the best bowler and the best batsman have been the experienced ones (Ponting-08, Katich-09, Hussey-10 and Johnson).

When players are playing badly, you drop them, give them a chance to perform at state level (like with Mitchell Johnson for the second Test of the 2010/2011 Ashes).

These players have to be assured that their position in the team is not guaranteed, keeping everyone on their toes and making them push for the best performance all the time.

Another thing that could help would be employing players of the past who have helped players through tough times themselves and been through long periods of success. They hold the knowledge and understanding of what it takes to be the best in the world.

People like Allan Border, Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor, Craig McDermott, Glenn McGrath. Having Justin Langer in there will already be helping.

Cricket Australia must also realise that Twenty20 is not the answer. Trying to be like India is not getting us anywhere. Cricket Australia is blinded by the success of the IPL and introducing future Test players to this style of cricket is ruining techniques and attitude towards the game.

I don’t know if anyone else realises but the more popular Twenty20 cricket is becoming, the worse our team is getting. Furthermore, the feeble attempts at state Twenty20 cricket is making the sport itself in Australia more popular.

The fact is the better the Test team is going, the more popular the sport is. It’s the ultimate test (hence the name). The success of a Twenty20 team is about as important as Glenn McGrath’s batting average.

I don’t know if Cricket Australia is aware but the decisions they have been making have pushed young kids further and further away from the sport. This is pretty much due to the selection dramas causing poor results, causing kids to sit at home on summer mornings and not play junior cricket.

Kids are the future of cricket, the future fans, the future players, the future management and the future coaches. If we’re not there who will be?

I’m glad the investigation into the structure of Cricket Australia has finally happened. All I have mentioned above and more has to be done to ensure this once world-beating team may reach the top of the world again.

All we need is patience and the right decisions. On the other hand we could go the way we are going and end up like the West Indies.

Cricket Australia and the players involved need to pull their fingers out and get Australia back where it should be… at the top.