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HENRY: Australian selectors show ignorance and arrogance

1st March, 2013
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James Pattinson's latest injury puts in question Australia's quest for speed demons. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
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1st March, 2013
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The definition of madness is to keep repeating the same action and hope for a different result.

The Australian selectors extended this for the first Test by looking at a dusty, grassless, red-hued, spinning stretch of Tamil Nadu dirt and naming four seam bowlers and one spinner.

“Play to our strengths,” was the cry from Michael Clarke and Mickey Arthur, captain and coach respectively and both selectors. This mantra is 100% applicable to all teams, companies, groups anywhere.

The forcefulness of the iteration by the Australian management reminded me instantly of the great West Indian sides that dominated through the 1980s and into the 90s.

Clive Lloyd’s teams couldn’t give a rat’s backside over criticism for glacial over rates. Four fast bowlers strolling through 70 overs a day were occasionally augmented by a few Viv Richards overs of arm balls.

When queried about why he was not playing a spinner in crumbling conditions (poor old Roger Harper may have been the best fieldsmen in the world but he didn’t have any hope of getting in the starting XI), Clive would trot out the standard, “We pick our best four bowlers and the fast bowlers are all more effective than any spinner.”

No one argued or got on the front foot. He was right with the ingredients and the decades of dominance proof of the eating.

This Australian team is not the West Indies of that era, not even close. The folly of playing a lone specialist slow man in Chennai was not an observation of hindsight.

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The idea seemed magnificently ill-informed before the match, totally disbelieving at the toss and downright ridiculous at the losing press conference.

The loss (and let’s remember Australia won the toss and had first use of a surface that was at its best during the opening over and went downhill from there) was significant – eight wickets is a wide margin.

Yes, MS Dhoni was magnificent, but he was challenged by the same bowling over after over.

Nathan Lyon bowls a good looping off break but he keeps landing it in the same spot – ad nauseam, nil effectivum. Prima facie, you might think it a good modus operandi, but Test cricket, especially for slow bowlers, demands creative thinking as much as adequate technical ability.

Michael Clarke’s dismissal was by a huge turning snail decapitating off break straight out of the Gobi desert. Phil Hughes was gloved on the obverse side of the pitch by a likewise spitting Cobra that pounced from a snake hole just inside the return crease. Unless you land the ball in the footmarks, you never know what might happen.

Sometimes bowlers need to give runs way in search of dismissals, a point that Nathan hasn’t absorbed. Shane Warne once accused Monty Panesar of “playing the same Test match 32 times” (Monty had just completed his 32nd Test with diminishing returns), suggesting that the turbaned one has learnt nothing, improved zero since his Test debut.

Just one wide but potent delivery may have ended Dhoni’s assault and, given the impact of that innings, Australia may have even crafted a victory with a 200 run fourth innings chase.

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Clarke’s part timers were used little, Warner barely, and overs delivered by Clarke and Warner were a part of the greater scheme of justifying one spinner. The plan was ill conceived and poorly delivered.

Sometimes it is difficult to read a pitch, tea leaves can be as accurate as stimpmeters, but Chennai’s secrets were laid bare in history and presence. The excuse for getting the team wrong is ignorance and arrogance – poor bedfellows for success in any vocation.

Hyderabad will pose more of the same dangers. Spin will be an important ingredient in the mixture so Australia will have a second opportunity to get it right.

Resting James Pattinson will not be getting it right but, given Stephen O’Keefe is not in this touring party, Xavier Doherty must play.

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