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I’ve very deliberately held off from airing my thoughts on the South African squad thus far, preferring instead to let it sit for a few days and see if I can work out where the Australian selectors are coming from.
There’s no doubt the selection of Western Australian batsman Shaun Marsh has garnered both the most surprise, and the lion’s share of the adverse reaction.
Marsh had admitted surprise himself, for what it’s worth, saying after the announcement that he was a touch shocked to get the phone call from NSP Chairman John Inverarity on Sunday night.
“I’m very excited about it. If I do get an opportunity hopefully I can have a lot of fun out there it is great to be a part of it again,” Marsh said in Perth on Monday.
“Fourteen months ago I wasn’t even getting picked in the WA side. It was disappointing; I had some injuries and some poor form too being dropped from the Test team, hopefully that is all behind me now.”
Hopefully indeed, Shaun.
Certainly, most of the angst smashed through keyboards has been in relation to Marsh being preferred to Phillip Hughes.
Not too many tears have been shed for George Bailey – not even from George himself – though I’ll happily admit to thinking not even making the tour squad seems harsh on Bailey, even if he didn’t play a Test.
In sitting back on this topic for a few days, I’ve been trying to look beyond the raw numbers, and that was partly motivated by a tweet on Monday from senior cricket writer for The Age, Greg Baum, replying to some punters:
@gcowan86 @Tom_underscore If only figs counted, a computer would select team. Selectors’ job is to identify and back class. Not easy.
— Greg Baum (@GregBaum) January 20, 2014
And he is course, correct. So many comments – sooo many comments – have been made in these and many other online forums, and indeed, on social media, referring just to the raw numbers.
And don’t get me wrong, the raw numbers paint a pretty clear picture. Phillip Hughes has had an excellent Sheffield Shield season. Shaun Marsh has struggled since he was dropped from the Test side two summers ago.
But selecting a cricket side – as many of you would know – is not just as simple as looking at stats, as Greg Baum was alluding. Stats give a good overall picture, but selecting cricket teams often involves more intangible measures, like technique, and temperament.
For fans of NCIS, you can throw some Leroy Jethro Gibbs “gut” in here, too. And probably guesswork, if I’m honest.
And so, ignoring the numbers, I can kind of see where the selectors are coming from for South Africa.
Alex Doolan has a very upright, a very classical technique, with a high backlift and not too much movement around the crease before the ball arrives. He’s got all the shots straight and square of the wicket, and he does just seem to have time.
I’d say the same about Marsh. He’s quite good technically, and when he’s ‘on’ there aren’t too many better looking left-handers in Australia.
Like Doolan, he doesn’t move around the crease too much, and gets into position to play his shots quite early.
Contrast this to Bailey and Hughes. Both of them, but particularly Hughes, are a bit fidgety around the crease, and have vulnerabilities playing outside off early in an innings.
On the fast, bouncy decks against the best bowling attack in the world, that’s not quite what you’d be wanting to send into battle.
Doolan was always going to go to South Africa. Given he was next in line during the Ashes, and just like Bailey coming into the Ashes, it does seem like he was always going to be picked at some point.
So as much as I’d still like to believe Cameron White was in the frame, the last batting spot quite obviously came down to Bailey, Hughes, or Marsh.
And I think they’ve picked correctly of those three.
I’ll say it again, anyone who has ever had to select a side would know that there is more to form than just the numbers. “He’s hitting them well in the nets,” or “he’s batting well, just not getting the rewards” are pretty much cricketing clichés these days, yet every batsman and every selector in the country has uttered them at some stage in their cricketing lives.
And it’s true. Sometimes, batsmen are hitting the ball very well for no reward.
I can’t really comment on Marsh’s last two years overall, but certainly over the last six weeks or so that I’ve seen more of him, from a purely bat-on-ball perspective, he is, as Inverarity said on Monday, “striking the ball very well” at the moment.
Bailey and Hughes aren’t. Bailey has continued to look scratchy in his two one-day innings in the last fortnight, and his Test form has been well documented.
The Adelaide Strikers are trying to dress it up as being “rested”, but Hughes had been in horrible touch in six of his seven Big Bash innings, and was rightly dropped for Wednesday night’s game.
Again, from that purely bat-on-ball perspective, neither Bailey or Hughes have looked particularly good of late, and nothing like being ready to face the likes of Vernon Philander and Dale Steyn.
Some batting order flexibility has also come into the equation, evidently, with both Doolan and Marsh being viewed as options for both No.6 and No.3, should Darren Lehmann and Michael Clarke decide the time has come for Shane Watson to move down to No.6.
Bailey will never be a Test No.3, and the same can said of White.
And despite using him at No.6 at Trent Bridge in July, Hughes is now viewed as being “best suited to a top order position”.
The mere detail that the new batsmen are now quite likely to bat in the top order anyway is probably another topic for another day.
So if this is how the selectors came to their final decisions, I can probably live with it. I wouldn’t have gone that way myself, but I can see why they’ve gone the way they did.
That said, I’m quite expecting responses to come back at this quoting yet more stats, to which I’ll say again, there’s very little argument.
Regardless, and even though I’m still as shocked at the South African tour squad as anyone, I can see some method in the evident selection madness.