The Siddle Summit: Is Pete cooked or ready to resurrect?

Nobody likes to engage in frank and awkward debate on the merits of an unselfish toiler who’s dripped a tanker of sweat for the cause, but it must be done. Let’s clear the air on Peter Siddle.

Everyone knows the deal on the lusty gutsy Vic with the giant cardiac organ. Over the last 18 months, he’s drifted. It’s like we don’t know him anymore, and it’s nothing to do with the teeth and the slimmed-down size 34s.

He’s gone sans zip and gusto, and with Boof Lehmann demanding broadband and receiving dial-up in return, the workhorse has found himself again sans national assignment.

After rediscovering some of the barrel-chested pace and fire in the UAE, his velocity has since slowly tapered like the final rotations of a chocolate wheel. Theories abounding as to why are well documented. (The meat thing.)

Frankly, after giving it a 110 per cent for forever and a day, he may just be golden brown and in need of a short term Camomile and power nap regjme. Then again, I’m no body language expert.

Whatever the reason, for now, P-Siddy’s flow ain’t killa like it should be. In addition, being left out for Brisbane without mention of workload management or a sick note would indicate he has now moved officially backwards in a star-stacked pecking order – one who’s a reputable tough mother to fight your way back up.

His predicament has also been hampered by youthful whippersnappers shunning first-day nerves and cramp to carry a nation’s seam division. This is compounded by supplementary whippersnappers who make claims for his number nine position in the batting order. Not quite as bad, but an added inconvenience nonetheless.

I’m referring to one Joshua Reginald Hazlewood’s ridgey-didge bowling, and to a lesser and blithe extent Mitchell Starc’s bat. In all seriousness, the former is a man who could be fully responsible for snuffing out Siddle’s dream of a Boxing Day Test at least, and maybe even more.

The debutant showed he can provide the control that Siddle is renowned for, and the wickets that he’s not taking, all at an extra 10ish clicks. With reports that Ryan Harris is likely to be crow-barred out of his Smoky Dawson chair for the third Test and with Mitchell Johnson being Mitchell Johnson, they will be the obvious pace trio for cricket’s post-Chrissy turkey-purge showdown at the G.

For Siddle, with nothing but nets, electioneering and extremely limited time beforehand to make a case, will he spend a second consecutive Test mixing Cottees? Survey says probably yes.

So what about beyond that? Where does he figure in Boof’s plans for the remainder of the series, the Windies tour, Ashes, global engulfment et al?

This is where I’m calling on the people.

Tracking public sentiment, many missed him on the first day in Brisbane. As lines wavered while players melted and the 15th man suited up as a replacement alongside spin coach John Davison and super-catching Sub Lasagne, our watery attack thirsted for some solidifying Siddle cement. It seemed his value was sensed.

Alas, by the second day, Sid Vicious was no longer trending. By then, we were all enamoured by Hazlewood, and then he was further forgotten with a cloudburst of Johnson destruction, and then victory.

So will he back this series? In the Caribbean? Or ever?

The latter is worst-case scenario, but while not widespread just yet, doubting whispers of routine terminology are beginning to grow. They say he’s getting on, there’s emerging youngsters, here’s a bleak stat etc. It’s sacrilegious intimation that he’s within touching distance of last drinks. Say it isn’t so?

I, for one, shun the views of these Negative Normans and sincerely hope that closing time at Club Sids is not imminent. I hope he regains vitality and returns to slick tyres again, thus rendering this whole episode a minor blip on a 250-plus Test wicket career. He can go even higher if he wants. The fella deserves no less.

From the day he nicked-off Sachin Tendulkar, to withstanding taunts of ‘man-boobs’ in South Africa, to becoming the slimmed-down pillar of reliability he is today, Siddle is a commodity that shouldn’t be discarded hastily.

Experience like his doesn’t grow on trees, and if it did, I bet it would be from a towering oak holding up three houses, topped with a bushy crown that’s home to a family of extraordinarily-fit mongrel possums that charge in all day.

He’s the in-to-the-wind man, the foil, the backroom boy who creates chances for his flashier cohorts and asks for nothing in return. He’s a spotlight-shunning, honest-to-goodness toiler from the country who can evoke a pile of clichés and then run them in to the ground with his beastly endurance.

While amid slim and mouldy pickings, Siddle should be granted the same bottomless pit of patience and chances that some of our under-performing batsman are given around the clock. I’m not going to name and Shane, but you get the vibe.

But head over heart, I’m unsure. So where does Sids sit? It’s over to the Roarers.

Is the robust quick pushing a ship uphill to get back in the Test side? Is this loss of output similar to when the great Dizzy Gillespie quickly left the scene, or will he roar back to the blue-collar reliability we know and love?