Why Lawson should be made Chairman of Selectors

Solution. Interview each State level coach and ask if they were choosing the Australian cricket team who would they choose? They would have to select a team without players from their own State. Should give a pretty good pool of talent. Actually now that I've thought of it, perhaps this is the best way to go with team selection. I find it hard to believe the selection panels of the past have been to every shield game ever played and watched more the 90% of the game. Coaches, and Captains, of the State teams are in a perfect position to choose based on observations of players over a longer period.

I think it was Salman Butt who said it best "Geoff Lawson is a very stupid man!"

This situation, is to me, a little like determining the chronology of the chicken and the egg. You can spend an eternity trying to work it out but in the end it doesn't bloody matter. As I got older I vainly thought I would get more patient, more tolerant. Instead, like the television show, Grumpy Old Men I find that I just get annoyed at people pissing about doing nothing. Modern society has, without even thinking of it or realising it, just become more and more politically correct and more and more process driven. All in the name of "making sure", "getting it right". Absolute tosh. It pre-supposes that the people making the decision are capable of just that - making a decision - and it also assumes they were the best people appointed at the time. How would we ever know? Certainly the evidence so far does not necessarily support the fact that Cricket Australia is in good hands. The Australian public at large were pretty consistent in their view that something had gone horribly wrong with Australian cricket as they watched the Ashes debacle unfold. It was not, incidentally, a complete shock to the system either given we had previously seen Ashes losses in 2005 and 2009. I also seem to recall the South Africans touched us up at home, the Indians made life difficult everywhere, the Pakistanis should have beaten us in Sydney (and we think we know why they didn't) and they failed to roll over in England just prior to last summer's horror story. So it's not as if we were travelling well at any time in the last couple of years. Yes, I know the "guns" all retired at once and that's got to hurt but, equally, it's not as if we didn't know that was about to happen. And it has been a while now. So, finally CA decides that not only should something be done but it should be seen to be done - hence the Argus Report. Now this report was no doubt ground-breaking and very thorough but, with all due respect to CA and Don Argus, any group of five cricket fans anywhere in Australia could have delivered most of the final recommendations after a couple of hours discussion at the pub. Those recommendations, incidentally, may or may not have included creating the position of General Manager of Cricket Operations. As someone who spent a lifetime in the IT industry and observed corporate behaviour at close range this position looks awfully like yet another tier of management to a) build an even bigger empire for James Sutherland or b) create another buffer zone between Sutherland and blame. Of course, I could be just being cynical to go with my age aquired grumpiness. On Geoff Lawson's premise that a decision should perhaps have been made already I can only concur. In my experience, most job interviewers, or interview panels (I presume in this case), have a fair idea of the best candidate within minutes of the interview ending. Additional candidates are often interviewed then not only to ascertain their credentials but to compare them with the potential "chosen" one. Of course, if the chosen one is the last one interviewed - and it can happen - then usually a decision is made very quickly once all candidates have been heard. The current situation would suggest CA has yet to finish the interview process but I must wonder why. In days gone by decisions like this would have been made long ago. Today, apparently, we seem frightened of making a mistake and attracting criticism. There's no logic other than self protection in this current delay. Either that or the "chosen" one is yet to extricate himself from his current role. If so, why so? And if CA is yet to see a good candidate, again, why so? It has been months. Perhaps nobody wants the job! Since it seems that follow-on decisions cannot be made until this job is filled then delays can only hurt Australian cricket further. There is either a good candidate or there is not. If he's good then appoint him and if there are no good candidates move without the position being filled and make the follow-up decisions now. It is nine months since England took us to the cleaners. People, previously healthy, have died in the meantime from accident and illness. Babies are conceived and born in nine months. Nine months ago Warney probably didn't even know Liz Hurley - today she could be carrying his baby. In other words, it is a bloody long time. The Argus Report reeked of outside contribution to merely deflect the critics if anything unpopular was put forward. CA is then blameless and can point the finger at Don Argus while telling us that all they are doing is implementing the recommendations. Why couldn't the CA Board, with the help of those former captains, have conducted the review if not to avoid being tainted by the grim decisions that everyone else knew had to be made. And why couldn't such a review have been done in January/February this year so that everthing could be in place before we are forced to send an interim coach to South Africa on the back of the original selection panel - who we knew in January were dead men walking. CA cannot hide behind "process" with vague notions of "getting it right" as the excuse. Because it's simply bulldust. As I have already said, processes are put in place just as much to justify a position in an organisation as they are to "get it right". These days, on any project (IT or otherwise) we take five times as many people five times as long to complete it at five times the budget compared to days gone by. Largely due to the processes and all that box ticking. No wonder organisations waste money and go broke. The truth is that most projects can be implemented very much faster at a fraction of the cost as long as it is accepted there will be some gaps to fill and pieces of the puzzle to apply later. This is simply part of the planning. In the case of job interviews it should be done relatively quickly. The difference in quality of the candidates is negligible against the advantages to be gained by appointing someone as early as possible. By all means talk to everyone - but make a bloody decision! Most of these candidates will have some verifiable record of achievement otherwise they shouldn't be there in the first place. In truth, probably any one of them could do the job and do it well. I wonder, did CA take nine months to interview then appoint James Sutherland? And that position, presumably, was a harder slot to fill given the ultimate responsibility. CA has clearly gone very modern corporate - it now takes an age for anything to come to fruition. No wonder Geoff Lawson is a bit frustrated. Me too!

so what's the short term solution Chris?

Have selectors been present at all Shield/limited overs games in the past? I seem to remember there being games where there was either no selectors present, or they would only be there for part of the game. Point being, as long as it is a short term situation, I don't see it as a major problem. As mushi says, let's get the reforms right rather than worrying about a couple of rounds of Shield cricket. I think by and large the current squad is reasonably settled, and the next cabs off the rank have already been identified.

no question Mushi, the right people need to be selected. I don't think it matters if they are the type of people that watch Shield cricket, the fact of the matter is they'll HAVE to watch Shield cricket as part of the selecting job. My point is just who's doing that while the current selectors are in South Africa?

The worst line was: "Whether Lawson gets the job or not is irrelevant. He’d be a good choice, but the most important thing is that a decision is made soon". I completely disagree. The most important thing is for the right person to be appointed, whether it takes a month or two longer or not. Yes, sooner is better than later, but we don't want another Hilditch. I do however agree with Luke that Henry would be a good choice - smart cricket brain, tough enough, and won't be told what to do. Several others fit that category too, mind you.

Should we be employing a single one of them if they are so lacking in knowledge of the Australian game that they would need to rely mainly on papers and websites to form their views in the past? Or is it possible that the type of people that believe themselves in the running for these jobs may just be the type of people who watch shield cricket? Even if these guys are pretty much clueless about Australian cricket that they need websites to form a view I still think that forgoing the assessment of some weeks of Shield cricket would be more beneficial than the rushed execution of the entire reform process.

Chris, I don't think any of that is in dispute, and indeed, I agree that time must be taken to get the right person. My point about the decisions being made sooner rather than later is just coming from the perspective that six or so weeks of Shield cricket kicked off yesterday, and to the best of my knowledge (and I'll stand corrected, happily) there are no selectors left in their positions to observe local First Class performances. With the first local Test starting on December 3, this concerns me. Everything seems to be hanging off the appointment of the new General Manager position, and perhaps that's fair enough. I just wonder how Shield form is going to be viewed in the interim. What are Michael Clarke and Troy Cooley going to see from South Africa? Are the papers and websites now going to be the main points of judgement for state players? I don't really care if Geoff Lawson gets a gig or not. I just hope it's all finalised with enough time for these people in the new positions to get a decent view on form around the country. Is that unreasonable??

Hang on a minute, let's look at the facts. According to Lawson the closing date for the position of General Manager of Cricket Operations was about 6 weeks ago. I don't think it's unreasonable for CA to take at least that long to go through the applications and kick off an interview process. Once an offer is put forward to someone there is bound to be some negotiation about the details of the contract. I would expect CA (just like any organisation hiring a senior person) to go through the proper processes. Just because Geoff Lawson hasn't been informed of every step in this process doesn't mean it isn't progressing at an appropriate pace. I have no idea what qualifications/experiences are needed to apply for a role on the selection panel, but just maybe Geoff Lawson doesn't qualify. He's not doing himself any favours by going on national TV and displaying impatience with the process. This may astonish him, but the world doesn't revolve around Geoff Lawson. CA has copped a lot of flack over the past year or so, particularly around the selection panel. Let's give them a chance to take their time and get the right systems, processes and people in place rather than jumping off half-cocked like Lawson seems to have done. After all, if CA rushed the decisions and something went wrong, they would be criticised for not thinking things through properly.

Agree Kersi - even if Lawson doesn't get the job, the decision needs to be made sooner than later..

Chris, I disagree with you. I found Luke's article very interesting. About time CA hurries up and makes its decision soon. Lawson has excellent credentials.

Is this the same Geoff Lawson who back in the nineties told the world that Greg Matthews was a better spinner than Shane Warne would ever be? No thanks.

What a riduously written article! Following a title "Why Lawson should be made Chairman of Selectors", the author writes "whether Lawson gets the job or not is irrelevant". So which is it? And as far as I can tell, the main reason for arguing Lawson should get the gig is that he (LAwson) thinks the decision making process at CA is too slow. Right.... On that criteria half of Australia should be appointed Chairman of Selectors. With this level of writing, the author is clearly angling for a job writing for the Daily Telegraph.