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Calls for Ed Cowan to be dropped from the Australian test team border on ridiculous and should be completely ignored by chairman of selectors John Inverarity.
If there’s a permanent marker sitting around at Cricket Australia’s headquarters in Melbourne then can someone please pop it in an express post bag bound for Western Australia.
Inverarity needs it to write Cowan’s name on the squad list for the upcoming tour of the West Indies.
Have we really become that impatient that a bloke who has played four tests and scored two half centuries is considered to be in danger of being punted?
The calls for Cowan’s head haven’t been as vocal as the screams that followed Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey through the spring or the dark shadow that seemingly follows Shaun Marsh on his brief walks from the pavilion to the middle and back.
Still, the fact Cowan is being mentioned in conversations about an unstable top three is staggering.
You could argue it’s not a fantastic time to be making this argument after Cowan, David Warner and Shaun Marsh added a combined total of 79 runs to Australia’s tally across two innings in Adelaide, but Marsh is a different argument to Cowan and Warner at the moment.
I’d argue that performances need to be considered in a broader context rather than a knee jerk reaction to one test.
Cowan had a test average of 41.5 heading into the fourth test in Adelaide. The left hander scored 68 in Melbourne on debut and backed that up with 74 in Perth.
Sydney wasn’t the best of outings, making 16 in the first innings before being denied the opportunity to bat a second time thanks to a triple century from Michael Clarke.
Adelaide hasn’t been a highlight, but it’s far from terrible. He scored 30 in the first innings and 10 in the second. It has dragged his average down to a more modest 34.33 for the series, but this is a guy who is still finding his feet at the top level.
He hasn’t underperformed nor over achieved. He’s sitting in a comfortable middle ground.
The fact he hasn’t scored a hundred yet shouldn’t count against him at the selection table. Why? His test career is only four matches old!
Patience in modern cricket is non-existent.
The best thing about Cowan is that he occupies the crease. While Warner is blasting away with his hybrid Twenty20/Test technique, Cowan is at the other end ensuring he has a constant partner, frustrating the bowlers and taking the shine off the ball.
During this series he has spent a total of 683 minutes at the crease. 683 minutes!
Part of the brief given to an opener is to protect the middle order from fired up pacemen with a shiny red ball and a taste for blood. He gets a pass mark for this against India.
Last week, Cowan told me the impending return of Shane Watson didn’t phase him at all. His job was to score runs and the selectors would have to fit the all rounder in somewhere else. Two half centuries in your debut test series should be enough.
The century will come. Cowan admitted that he had thought about the milestone a little too much. That tends to happen when you have to wait until you’re almost 30 before getting a baggy green cap.
If he’s picked on the tour of the West Indies I’d bet he racks up the first of many big scores when the first test gets underway on April 7 in Barbados.
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