As Australian cricket descends painfully from the halcyon days of the late 1990s and early 2000s the deterioration of the foundations of previous success are in full view.
Australian cricket was based on well rounded cricketers gilded in the cauldron of the Sheffield Shield. Players who built their reputations and careers on hard earned runs, and a cricket administration that valued these results.
The wider cricketing public engaged and related to the personable players and their successes and rare failures.
In this article I would like to look specifically at a number of the main issues affecting cricket in Australia.
The Fall of the Sheffield Shield
The Sheffield Shield was the gold standard of domestic competitions, an arena in which hardened veterans plied their trade, and talented youngsters were brought back to reality.
The past decade has seen the Shield begin to be treated differently by Cricket Australia. In an era where the money is more important than the results, an expensive, largely unattended competition has been treated with contempt.
Staging the Big Bash in the middle of the Shield and Test season may make sense financially, however anyone with interest and knowledge of cricket would tell you that this scheduling is problematic.
Test players have been picked on ODI or T/20 form, and the hard edge of Australian cricket has turned into a soft underbelly. The production chain of Australian cricket has stalled and talented young players are picked early, and the unpolished nature of their games is obvious.
Steve Smith and Phil Hughes should never have been picked when they were and would not have been anywhere near the Test team with obvious technical problems they were yet to iron out.
The rise of T/20
T/20 is important for the future of cricket in this country, as well as it’s marketability to the wider sporting world.
However, Cricket Australia has been too quick to ascend this form of the game to the level it currently holds.
The prevalence for T/20 and the money it provides has changed the way cricketers are developed. The preference for powerful stroke makers has meant that cricketers like Chris Rogers are a dying breed.
Accumulators and grafters will need to evolve their game to fit ever more extravagant parameters to achieve success at the selection stable.
Mismanagement of cricketers
There is a missing generation of cricketers in this country that should be approaching 30 and hitting their careers peaks. Players who were ignored and burnt.
To think that the great Michael Hussey was once told he needed an “X factor” to break into the Australian team highlights that Australia has had a problem with managing and developing players for some time.
Future Uncertainty
Cricket is at a cross roads, T/20 evolved to attract audiences however the long term viability of the longer formats is questionable. India is crickets powerhouse, the financial driver, and its problems are systematic of cricket more broadly.
Test in India cricket has lost its audience, and its respect, the cash and flash of 50 over and T/20 taking preference. With Sachin Tendulkar set to retire what interest will be left for the Test format?
These are some of the issues affecting cricket in this country, over to the knowledgeable comments and opinions of Roarers. What are your thoughts?
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