The farcical situation whereby Mitchell Starc was pulled from the Sheffield Shield match between Queensland and NSW after bowling only 15 overs to put him in cotton wool for the upcoming Test against South Africa was a blight on the game of cricket.
Apart from being an insult to the spectators who had attended in the expectation of seeing a genuine contest, it’s just not in the Spirit of Cricket for a team to pull one of their best players out of the game so that he can rest up and to prevent any possible further injury.
It totally devalues from the Sheffield Shield Competition as a spectacle and it could be argued that it turns it in to a virtual practice match.
Welcome to the age of High Performance Coaches and Sports Scientists. If anything all that they’re doing is over-analysing across the board and depriving some players of the opportunity to compete at maximum intensity.
I wonder how players such as Allan Border, David Boon and Jeff Thomson – who represented their states with pride and passion, who left nothing in the tank and who were never prevented from playing in a Sheffield Shield game in the lead up to a Test Match – must feel when they see players being rested and treated with kid gloves?
The ironic thing here is that Mitchell Starc may quite conceivably end up being underdone for the first Test Match and come day four or five he may lack stamina and run out of steam. This would leave the Australian bowling attack short due to Starc’s lack of fitness and conditioning.
In the meantime in their pursuit and endeavour to improve and manage player performance may inadvertently do more harm than good. You only have to look at the careers of bowlers such as Pat Cummins and James Pattinson to name a few.
Dutski
Roar Guru
There was an interesting study on this as far back as 2003, which found the following: "There appears to be a dual fast bowling workload threshold beyond which the risk of injury increases and maintaining a workload that is too low or infrequent is an equally significant risk factor for injury as maintaining a high bowling workload. Further study is required to determine the reason why players who bowl infrequently suffer more injuries." Dennis R, Farhart P, Goumas C, Orchard J. Bowling workload and the risk of injury in elite cricket fast bowlers. J Sci Med Sport. 2003 Sep;6(3):359-67. The science is there that underbowling is as much of a risk as overbowling. I'm not sure if there has been more recent research, but this paper is pretty solid.
Rellum
Roar Guru
Why was that moderated?
Rellum
Roar Guru
I was going to write something about this myself. This was not the only interference in the first round of the Shield by Howard and his lot. Victoria were also warned about not selecting Maxwell, they are being forced to pick him in the next round. There is another example I have no evidence for but all reason would say that CA has forced Tasmania to pick Doran over Paine. Another case of a player being handed State cricket because CA, Pat Howard and Greg Chappell believe they need exposure. Tassie's chances of winning the Shield are not a concern clearly. This now happens on a regular basis and as you say, and as I have said on this site many times. It devalues the Shield and turns it into a series of practice matches. CA actively encourages players to move state now as well. Previously that was a big deal, as players did care about playing for their state. Look at Chris Rodgers recent book to see how the Western Australian players thought about his move to Victoria at the time. State pride or loyalty is clearly gone from Shield cricket. Stories like the one Stuart Law tells about the guy travelling thousands of kilometers to touch the Shield are long gone. Darren Lehman has commented on the Australian dressing room being a very indivualistic place, and to me that plays into what is happening in the First Class scene. Here is his quotes. "The dynamic within a cricket dressing room reminds me of the movie Con Air,” Lehmann writes. “In that film, starring Nicolas Cage and John Malkovich, a prisoner transport plane is taken over by the inmates ... the plane is full of disparate characters and although all of them want the same thing – freedom – they all have their own ideas too. “It makes for a dysfunctional and edgy environment to say the least. It might seem like an odd analogy, but in many ways it mirrors the situation we, as an international cricket team, find ourselves in.” To me that attitude is generated by the very individualistic and controlled nature of the pathways and the way State cricket is now run. How can their be a team ethic brought into State cricket if players see it as just a development job that they just turn up to where CA tell them to go and focus on their own development. That attitude is then passed on the the Test team. I wonder if modern players look back their time in state cricket with any sort of pride or honor. CA clearly does not value the comp and does not care about who wins it, well at least in my opinion.