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Since Australia’s capitulation in the second Test at Lord’s, the spotlight has been shone not only on those responsible for Australia’s deplorable batting, but on the system that appears to be producing fewer and fewer Test-standard players.
I’m referring to the time-honoured Sheffield Shield.
The finger of blame has been pointed to the number of “result wickets” being prepared across the country as responsible for the dearth of heavy run scorers over the past six seasons as well as Australia’s frailties against quality spin.
Pat Howard mooted the idea of five day Shield fixtures in the coming seasons, presumably to encourage more spin bowling and therefore expose our up-and-coming players to conditions they may be unfamiliar with.
The idea has merit but for the game to last into the fifth day, both sides must possess the quality batsmen in the top order they evidently do not have.
Theoretically, Australia’s young batsmen should be given the best apprenticeship they could ask for given this apparent abundance of bowlers’ wickets and the quality bowlers most shield sides have in their attack at the moment.
New South Wales may well field an attack that contains any or all of Hazlewood, Cummins, Sandhu, Starc, Copeland and Lyon at some point this summer while Victoria could potentially wheel out McKay, Pattinson, Siddle and Ahmed.
Tasmania’s attack looks as strong as ever with Bird, Butterworth and Faulkner forming the backbone. Queensland have a good crop of youngsters as well as Ryan Harris while Chadd Sayers, Kane Richardson and Gary Putland are developing into fine fast bowlers in South Australia.
Burt Cockley and Ryan Duffield, both fit and firing, have set tongues wagging in Western Australia, not to mention two of Australia’s most hyped young cricketers Mitchell Marsh and Ashton Agar.
So, with all this bowling talent around to develop against, why are our Test batsmen struggling on the bowler-friendly, but largely timid, English pitches?
Is it a lack of “tough runs?”
Is it the relatively “easy” pathway into first class cricket for our youngsters?
Is it the great evil of our time, T20 cricket?
Maybe it is all three, maybe it is none of them.
Test cricket should be a test of a player’s ability, their patience, their discipline and the desire to win.
Sadly, the Australian team is failing each of these tests, largely because the six or seven batsmen each Shield team puts on the park each game are too.
Justin Langer began his tenure as coach of Western Australia with the phrase “I’ll pick character over cut shots every time.”
This is a huge step forward for Western Australian cricket who have been propping up the table for longer than they haven’t been over the past decade due to ill discipline and a culture of ego.
Langer, a man who made his Test debut against the might of the Windies, was dropped more times than “the beat” on the latest Ministry of Sound album in the early part of his Test career and who shed blood playing for his country, but wished he could have shed more, is the perfect man for the job in Western Australia, and also the perfect role model for our aspiring Test batsmen of all ages.
Langer loved his reputation as grinder, a grafter, a scorer of “tough runs” because that’s what he knew it took to succeed at Test cricket and to be called those things meant he was a successful Test player.
If you look across the country, there are a few batsmen who are capable of being successful Test players, but for one reason or another are yet to cement their opportunity or stake their claim through weight of runs for an extended period of time.
Laziness, rash shots, a lack of discipline and injury have all prevented George Bailey, Mark Cosgrove, Shaun Marsh, Phil Hughes and Callum Ferguson, to name a few, from being successful Test players so far.
It is upto batsmen like them and those around a similar age group to apply pressure on those in the Test team to maintain their spots through weight of runs and consistent performance.
In years gone by, Langer would look at the Gabba deck greener than Bruce Banner after a bottle of angry pills, look up at Andy Bichel at the top of his mark and think “this is going to be fun”. It is up to our current crop of batsmen to adopt the same attitude.
The six groundsmen around Australia need to keep the pitches green to maximise the challenge for our future Test batsmen and breed a culture of “challenging cricket” in the Shield over the coming years.
With the fast bowling depth across the country, there’s never been a better time to encourage an appetite for the contest across our latest crop of first class cricketers.
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