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Let me pose you a question: Would you rather Drop Chris Rogers or Shane Watson?
Now I’m not really directing this at you, the reader, but more the Australian selectors.
There’s plenty of speculation over the future of Chris Rogers in the Australian team and most are expecting him to lose his spot. Rogers is 38 and struggling, a good performance at the ‘Gabba won’t distract the selectors from his modest average of 35.94.
So it sounds like we might be seeing the last of Chris Rogers, but at least have the common courtesy to drop Shane Watson at the same time.
Here’s what you need to know about Shane Watson:
– He’s 33 years old.
– He has four centuries from 101 knocks.
– He has a long and recurring history of injury
– He is now unthreatening with the ball and unable to bowl anything over 130 km/h
But here’s the key stat, Shane Watson’s batting average is 35.51. An unavoidable stain on his record. But it’s a number the selectors tend to forget at the start of every series.
Let’s keep that number in mind as we go through some of the other tough decisions Cricket Australia has had to make in the last decade or so.
Phil Jaques
It’s widely known that Phil Jaques’ Test career was cut short due to a long term back injury that required surgery. However just before he elected to have that surgery he was dropped in favour of Simon Katich in 2008. In his 11 Tests he managed three 100s at an average of 47.47.
He never made it back to the Test team, his back being the reason. A recurring degenerative back injury however is not a reason to keep you out of the side, as long as you’re name is Shane Watson.
Simon Katich
Poor Simon Katich. His departure (putting it kindly) from the Australian side doesn’t make sense to me as Katich was one of the most consistent batsman in the world at the time. Averaging over 50 as an opener and 45.03 overall, Katich has a whopping 10 100s at Test level. That’s six more than Watson from about the same amount of matches. He also boasts more 50s.
So undoubtedly Katich is a better bat. With the ball, Katich’s average and strike rate are better than Watson’s too. It’s pretty obvious here that when it came to Simon Katich it wasn’t his cricketing ability that lost him his spot.
A row with Michael Clarke saw him axed before returning from a three month layoff due to an Achilles injury in 2011 with ‘Looking to the future’ as CA’s excuse. Funny how Watto never gets the same ‘Looking to the future’ treatment.
Brad Hodge
Hodge and Watson both made their debut for Australia in 2005. When Hodge was dropped for the final time in May 2008 he averaged 55.88 and had a top score of 203.
At the same time Watson was averaging 20.25. Watson kept his place in the team due to his bowling, which admittedly at the time was quite handy. But you still have to feel sorry for the poor bloke who stood up in the face of hostile South African Bowling and grinded out a knock for the ages who is stuck playing BBL fixtures for all his hard work.
I could do a write up on a few more names who have faced the axe but to give you an idea of the kind of company I keep Watson with. Here’s an excerpt from a list of Aussie Batsman of the last 10 years ranked by batting average.
| Rank | Player | Matches | Inning | Runs | Average | 100s |
| 21 | Tim Paine | 4 | 8 | 287 | 35.87 | 0 |
| 22 | Shane Watson | 54 | 101 | 3480 | 35.51 | 4 |
| 23 | Marcus North | 21 | 35 | 1171 | 35.48 | 5 |
I guess the point is, it’s not good enough to drop Watson now. It should have happened years ago. When the back problems started and we all started seeing how often he ‘missed a straight one’.
It’s not that he’s struggling for form, it’s that it’s been so long since he was in form it’s kind of embarrassing. Even if he scores a few this week I’m sick of him taking the spot of someone with some sort of potential.
At least try and prove me wrong Watto, go and do it when it counts otherwise I’m putting my foot-down and calling you ‘pretty average’.
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