As a cricket fanatic, I am of course pleased to hear that Channel Nine will be screening every Test of the upcoming Ashes Tour of England live on its digital arm.
But, judging by recent performances over in the UK, if someone could find a real-time feed from the Australia A tour of Africa, running simultaneously alongside the major series, it may just prove to be more potentially entertaining to watch – and worth an extra win or two.
Following a pre-Ashes stop-over in Ireland and Scotland, Australia A – with a few new faces – will head to Zimbabwe and South Africa next month for a few first-class games, plus a one-day triangular series against the hosts and India.
The 15-man squad, as announced by Cricket Australia yesterday, was: Steve Smith (captain), Aaron Finch (vice-captain), Ashton Agar, Fawad Ahmed, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Alex Doolan, Josh Hazelwood, Moises Henriques, Nic Maddinson, Mitch Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Tim Paine, Gurinder Sandhu and Chadd Sayers, with Pat Cummins considered a “development player” – whatever that means.
According to Cricket Australia, one aim of having the ‘A’ team in Africa during this period is to have ready-made Ashes Tour replacements available, should the need arise.
Essentially, the old conundrum is back – what’s the purpose of Australia A? Is it the genuine national second XI, i.e truly the next-best 11 men in the country? Or a give-the-youngsters-a-go side? Or something in the middle, the Sheffield Shield/Ryobi Cup All-Stars? In theory, it should, bar injury, end up as the second-best XI in the country.
But should the ‘A’ team actually be the side that fronts up for the first Ashes Test instead of jetting down to Harare?
Has Cricket Australia got it the wrong way round? Do members of the first XI need to be given the “development player” status of a second XI and experience life away from the full-on heady Ashes Tour atmosphere? We could, it would seem, hardly do any worse than to chuck some of those young blokes in anyway.
Or why not get Australia A to meet England’s Lions, possibly in a three-format series a-la the new women’s internationals– say three four-day first-class games, three ODIs and three T20s – for the “Consolation Ashes”?
It’s a bit like the Socceroos – fans moan when the old guard are kept on for another qualification campaign, yet when that same old guard actually contributes to qualifying they’re lauded as brilliant once again. Ditto for the cricket team – if armchair critics don’t think the current XI is capable, why not try someone new? But then, if we lose the urn, would it have played out any differently simply through keeping the elder statesmen in the whites in the first place?
While statistics don’t always tell the entire story, they do make for interesting comparisons. From encounters with Scotland and Ireland in the past fortnight, the best Australia A line-up (purely picked 7-4 on batting and bowling averages) is this: N. Maddison, P. Siddle, M. Henriques, S. Smith, B. Haddin (wk), A. Doolan, J. Pattinson, N. Lyon, A. Agar, C. Sayers, F. Ahmed.
Note here – Peter Siddle, not for the first time, performing well with the bat after showing plenty with the willow last summer when looked at against his supposed higher-order batting colleagues.
Admittedly, while dealing with a different match format, from the three Champions Trophy one-day games, also under similar pitch and weather conditions, the best XI on the same criteria is this: G. Maxwell, A. Voges, C. McKay, J. Faulkner, G. Bailey, M. Wade (wk), P. Hughes, M. Starc, M. Johnson, S. Watson, X. Doherty.
Does that mean that, for example, Mitch Marsh, Glenn Maxwell and Nathan Coulter-Nile should consider the ‘A’ team ticket a demotion?
At the conclusion of the Test tour of India, the average-best XI read like this: M. Clarke, S. Smith, M. Starc, E. Cowan, M. Henriques, B. Haddin (wk), D. Warner, N. Lyon, P. Siddle, J. Pattinson, G. Maxwell.
Some might be tempted to suggest that, as a minimum, Dave Warner could probably do with a temporary stint in the second-XI strip.
A casual glance at those player lists would also suggest, perhaps, that Australia currently carries a better bowling attack than batting order.
But going by the other major cricket-related issue of the past 24 hours – involving Channel Nine and Cricket Australia’s to-and-fro regarding television broadcast rights equaling selection suggestions – picking the right team to win some games would seem to be the least of the organising body’s struggles at present.
As CricInfo.com’s Dan Brettig put it on Tuesday: “All would wish to distance themselves from the horrid start to the tour, featuring as it has an injured, absentee captain, a timid first encounter with England, a drunken punch thrown by a foolish opening batsman, and a group quite happy to go out on the town until the small hours immediately after a bad defeat…Whatever has been said publicly by Clarke, Warner, Bailey and others, this is a team in desperate need of time together under firm leadership, to heal the ructions apparent over the past two weeks, and to re-focus on the steep task at hand.”
A team in desperate need of focus? More like three whole teams.
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