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?
Charlie
Guest
I think the style of play from playing t20 and one day cricket is the problem. where the batsman relies more on his eye than his feet, because the pitch is true and hes trying to spank the ball. Now playing the spank shot is turned into a push, and the instinct for the footwork to change length, and what can be left in that split second cannot be fixed. Why dont they prepare a pitch to imitate these conditions at one australian ground for all competiion and use a duke, or a ball that will give similar results?
Chris
Guest
If a player is good enough, he's old enough. Picking youngsters tends to mean you are having to give them the chance to make mistakes and learn from them and work things out, go through struggles and come out the other side the better for it, all at test level. Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting are two classic examples. They were picked young, and their records after 20-30 tests weren't great compared to what they would become. Michael Hussey was picked older, on the back of a weight of runs for years, averaging 55 in first class cricket. His average after 20 tests was still around 70 and then gradually came down. Picking the older, more established player is more likely to get that instant result than picking the youngsters. Youngsters need more time and patience, and at the moment the difficulty is that Australia doesn't have one or two youngsters in an otherwise experienced team like England, but one or two experienced players in an otherwise young team. This means we can expect struggles for a while as they find themselves, but there is no real other alternative. We don't have the Michel Hussey's in Shield cricket at the moment. All the guys close to that 30 sort of age who've been playing first class cricket for a decade have worse records than the youngsters. Shaun Marsh has played 79 first class games and still averages 35. Players averaging 35 in test cricket have us calling for their sacking. Why would we think a player like that would come into test cricket and do better than he can in first class cricket. If he hasn't worked out how to score mountains of runs by now he's never going to. And he's just one example of many, Ferguson, Bailey, Vogues. None of them are any better. I'd rather pick the 21 year old who's averaging 40 over a few seasons and getting better every year and give him the chance to find his way in test cricket, giving him a good run, giving him the chance to fail and learn from it, than pick a 30 year old averaging 35 still after many years of first class cricket. In the absence of the senior Shield batsmen who are regularly putting the youngsters in their place by scoring lots of runs, better off picking the youngsters, giving them a good run and the chance to build themselves into a quality test batsman.
A punter
Guest
There needs to be a clean out of the administration at the top level.
A punter
Guest
The biggest cause of the current mess is CA and ultimately, the CEO Sutherland, They have decimated the Shield competition. They are collecting more revenue than ever but the goose the laid the golden egg is dead!
Thomas
Roar Rookie
Hi Blocker. It's the same story no matter what your profession is,. If you don't train the way you play, how can you perform? Playng T/20 in the middle of the shield season is complete lunacy
blocker
Guest
Thomas, that is a very thoughtful piece. I especially agree with you about players being picked for test cricket after performing in ODI's and 20/20. I have never understood this. Nor am i actually sure how you tell someone is in form in the shortest version of the game. There is no doubt CA have a massive scheduling problem with test cricket running concurrently with 20/20 over the Christmas holidays. As i said, how do you tell who is in form and for those dropped from the test team, how do you regain form?