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This summer the brothers Hussey have been victims of the chopping block, and Brad Haddin too has been demoted to the role of understudy wicketkeeper.
Dirk Nannes, despite excelling in this year’s Big Bash League, isn’t on the radar for re-selection.
Brad Hodge, again a man who not only has excelled in this year’s Big Bash but also in previous seasons, is nowhere near the Australian team.
The selectors this summer have made it very clear that they are in a rebuilding phase in limited overs cricket in preparation for a successful assault on the World Cup on home soil in 2015 and to finally win a T20 World Cup in 2014.
The selectors wish to create a youthful base of cricketers and develop them so that in two to three years they will be well experienced internationally and in their prime for these major competitions.
These are perfectly reasonable goals and targets that have been set. It may even succeed. However, I argue that it still carries one inherent risk: the Australian team may not have the best XI available playing.
The obvious common factor among the aforementioned players are their ages (though a case could be made that D. Hussey was dropped for poor form). At least three of the above players, M. Hussey, Nannes and Hodge, would be walk ins in any one-day and T20 team if they were 10, or even five years younger.
Few would deny that Michael Hussey would still not only be a contributing team member of the T20/ODI team but also one with whom you could actually structure an innings around. Just because someone is in their mid-30s doesn’t make them expendible.
In fact, the advent of T20 has meant that the retirement ages of players can now be extended a little longer due to the game being less strenuous than other forms of the cricket. The older players should still have a critical role to play in any team.
The recent one-day and T20 series against Sri Lanka highlighted a vast lack of sensible batting, good death bowling and pure experience from the Australian team. Maxwell, Finch, Kane Williamson among others all looked out of depth when introduced to international cricket.
A couple of older hands on deck would have corrected some of these deficiencies and won a few more games.
At the end of the day, the team needs to win matches. A team can be as youthful as they like, but without the knowledge and experience of players who have had a decade of domestic experience, coupled with a few years in the international mix, you will not win.
Sri Lanka won not because they were a better team but because they were more experienced.
The cool head of Jayawardene in the batting, the experience of Kulasekera and Malinga in death bowling, and even the wise mind of Dilshan with his tight spin bowling ensured that Sri Lanka would meet the essentials of a good limited overs team.
Experience counts in international matches. You cannot create experience from nothing or expect 11 fresh players to develop cricket smarts on their own.
They need to be shown it by having an existing core of experienced players in the team.
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