In dropping Usman Khawaja, the new selectors have dropped a player who is capable of being the next generation of players that Australia’s Test team will be built around.
This is the fielding equivalent of spilling a gentle top edge to short cover from the best batsman who has got to 40, off a part-time medium pacer.
Khawaja has been on the wrong end of three poor selection decisions: he was wrongly picked at three rather than at six, then wrongly dropped after Sri Lankam and now wrongly dropped rather than being given a chance in the middle order.
The previous selectors put him into number three on debut, allowing the older guard the relative comfort of middle order to prolong already flagging careers. The best batsman in the team bats at number three. Khawaja, on debut, was not the best batsman in the team, particularly against a rampant England team armed with a potent balanced bowling attack that had the added benefit of an awesome, in form, batting lineup.
Khawaja was a member of a dysfunctional, underperforming and aging team.
Now, after scores of 12 and 65 against the strong South Africans at home and 38, zero not out, seven and 23 against New Zealand, and 56 not out against the Indians in Canberra, he has been dropped.
Khawaja’s performances tell us is that he is not ready to bat at number three. Dropping him makes him a scapegoat for the ludicrous decisions of the selectors in the past 12 months.
At some point, the selectors will need to invest for and in the future. Khawaja is just 25 years old and the ideal place to start. He has an excellent technique, is an intelligent cricketer and, as the first Australian Muslim player, has passed character test for now.
Eventually he will need to prove himself at the crease. His 37 on debut and 65 against South Africa were worthy performances.
He is three years younger than Shaun Marsh and four years younger than Ed Cowan and deserves a chance to find his feet. By comparison, Hughes has struggled with an inadequate technique and an inability to adapt his natural gifts to Test cricket.
Now that it is official that the Australian team is situated somewhere between crises on several fronts, (top and middle order batting collapses, sometimes at the same time) and need to rebuild, why should Ponting and Hussey get the benefit of dropping down the order as their powers wane while the players of the future are thrust into the fray up the order, when they are not yet ready?
The complication is that the dropped players do not return to the first-class cricket scene for some intensive coaching and to get some solid runs under their belt. They return to the T20 Big Bash competition.
This is the equivalent of sending a seriously ill patient home to a bed under a bridge, without medication or follow up support and then expecting them to heal themselves and be job ready for the next middle management vacancy.
Cowan is a decent choice at best. But he has come from the clouds on the back of some good recent form. At 29 and a half, and a first class average of 39, at 47 runs per 100 balls, and 12 first-class centuries in 99 innings, he is not the Messiah. Rather, he is another Shaun Marsh, with his first class average of 39 and a strike rate of 46 from 119 innings with just seven centuries but 23 fifties.
To take 100 first class innings and have an average in still in the late 30’s indicates that they will not adapt consistently or quickly to the much more demanding Test arena. Marsh’s century on debut was an outstanding innings by any standards, but it was against Sri Lanka on a belter. The Australian batters scored seven for 417 in 515 minutes.
Khawaja, by comparison, has a first class average of 45, a strike rate of 50 and nine centuries and 11 fifties in 71 innings!
Rather than protect the senior players such as Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey, Ricky Ponting and Brad Haddin, these players should be given and accept the front line roles. The future of Australian Test cricket is at stake.
My team would have been:
1. Warner
2. Hussey
3. Clarke
4. Ponting
5. Haddin
6. Khawaja
7. Christian
8. Siddle
9. Pattinson
10. Hilfenhaus
11. Lyon
When will the selectors demand that the senior rather than junior players be given or take responsibility for this ailing team?
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