How Shane Watson has become Australia's most important player

I think he will be a bit player. Most of the squad are ahead of him now. He has done well in the second half of BBL and bowled well in ODIs. Batted well once. Potentially, he will turn in a few good performances but way less important than our main bowlers and batsmen and less important than Faulkner and Marsh. Can we carry all of Finch, Watson and Khawaja in the field? (Maybe the reason Zampa got the nod ahead of Boyce).

Watson has the best cricketing mind of current Australian players. Unfortunately he lacks the support of the Channel 9 peanut gallery and there often appeared to be tension between him and Michael Clarke.

Yeah, probably something to that. Geoff Lemon wrote a great article about that sort of mentality a while ago ... http://phone.espncricinfo.com/tcm/content/story/824155.html

A huge factor is people just disliked him based on their perception of his character. Tall, decent looking bloke with a good rig, big pipes and a hot mrs. Must be a d---head!

Yeah, I agree TWAS. Also, just putting it out there, most of his reviews were Umpires Call clipping the bails. It's not like he was frivolously reviewing things that came back with three red lights.

Well, he played when he was selected and did the best job he could. He can't do much more than that, can he?

You can't be called a reliable anything when you have an attendance rate of 50% and in 10% of tests you weren't actually allowed to bowl because of injuries.

No. Watto's problems in the test shirt were that he didn't just be a damn superstar like everybody wanted. He only played good enough to be picked over the next best option.

Completely agree

I do agree that he was a much better limited overs player, I still reckon he was a better Test player than that. He wasn't an absolute legend, sure, but averages of 35 and 33 are pretty decent for an all-rounder. People dismiss him as a 'holding bowler', but he did the job his captain asked of him - slow the run-rate, tie the batsmen down, change up the pace, create some pressure - and he did it very, very well every time. He wasn't anything specky, but he was a reliable and effective change-bowler and when he didn't take the wicket, often someone at the other end did. His batting could always have been better, but it could always have been worse too. He did average close to 40 batting in the top three. At the end of the day, 24 fifties, four 100s and 75 wickets is hardly an abject failure of a career.

Yeah, well, considering how good Watto was against India, and how badly we played in NZ, he'd probably be worth a go, wouldn't he? I guess the question is who would you drop, and would you put him in the middle order or have him open?

Love how i now have more than a few supporters of Watto!!!!!

Watto's problems in the test shirt where a lot of his own doing. Failing to convert starts, planting his foot down the pitch leading to LBWs and wasting reviews on plumb decisions which left his team short. At the start of his test career he couldn't move the ball when bowling so he was just holding up an end.

Two Alan Border medals opening in ALL forms of the game. Then crucified when shifted everywhere else in the order.

Watson is still good enough for the odi team. He is still only 34.

I know the least important based on performances, G Maxwell.

Just to give an hint of watson's popularity, youtube video "Shane Watson's Maari version" made by some guy. I don't know the language in the video either (you know, there are so many languages in india), but i love the video. And as a bonus, watch this music video released yesterday by a PSL team. Watson appears at 1:20 mark & its hilarious. Youtube (Chakka Choka Islamabad United)

It is not that Australia do not know his value, it is simply that many Australians are unable to separate Watson the limited-overs cricketer from Watson the test cricket. From a Watson article in 2013: "Let’s get one thing clear. Shane Watson is the best and most valuable limited-overs cricketer in the country and perhaps on the planet. That’s a personal opinion, but in anyone’s list of the top ten in the world, Watson is there. He opens, he hits hard and scores fast centuries and he bowls tight wicket-taking balls. I am a big fan of Shane Watson in coloured clothing. But in Test match cricket Shane Watson is a wasted cap. He is not worth selecting."

For 3 years now, RCB had Gayle, AB devilliers & Kohli in their team, but couldn't even reach the finals. Never won IPL. Frustated by this, Vijay mallya (owner of RCB) was hell bent on getting watson. Watch his interview after the auction. 'We wanted watson only. Very happy. Now we can just sit back & watch the rest of the auction' Vettori said the same. This is the 1st time in 8 years watson is in the auction, because he has been retained by his franchise every year. This year he was released into auction after his franchise was suspended. Indian media (except cricinfo which is anti-watson for some unknown reason) predicted a massive bid for watson. If you watch the auction on youtube, you will see they (RCB owners, coach vettori,...) were ecstatic after winning the bid for watson. In the whole 6 hour time of the auction, the only time you hear claps is when they get watson. No claps for yuvraj or anyone else. Except Australia, the rest of the world knows his value, & hence he has a massive fan-base in subcontinent. He's 34 & still is twice as popular than (maxwells, warners, finchs,... all combined). Hence they get paid much less than watson. You see, once you are honest, stay true to the right morals, & work hard & give all the fun for the viewers, like watson did in india for the fans, people appreciate it & that appreciation will never go in spite of all BS lies Oz media creates everyday trying to destroy him in everyway. In spite of all this, he never ever spoke anything against the media. He simply says ' I will do my work, they will do their work. I can't change anything' For me, he's a hero. A warrior. A self-less human.

Also lol at people who think he's overpaid in IPL. Open watson’s wiki & see all his T20I & T20 records one by one. He is the number 1 T20 player in the world. Period. Holds records with both bat & ball. He was paid AUD 2.8 million (US 2m) per year for 2014 & 2015. This year its much less than that, coz his franchise has been suspended. After the auction, both vettori & RCB franchise owner said “we got watson at a bargain price” Google it. They thought they had to pay much more to get him. But didn’t need to, because the salary cap of all franchises were nearly empty even before the auction & many already had a full set team, since every franchise retained most of their players before the auction itself.