Young batsmen trying to find their feet in the Test side should be getting out in the middle as much as possible.
You’d think this would be fairly well understood, and one those cases where common sense surely must prevail.
Yet there was a little bit of talk at the end of the Third Test win over South Africa last Sunday evening that it was a far from a done deal that any Australian players not required for the three-match ODI series against New Zealand starting on Sunday afternoon.
With the ODI squad named just prior to the pink-ball Test in Adelaide last week, Test players Matt Renshaw, Usman Khawaja, Peter Handscomb, Nic Maddinson, Jackson Bird, Nathan Lyon, and 12th man Chadd Sayers are all – in theory – free to play the round of Sheffield Shield games starting next Monday.
In truth, they all should be playing in the three Shield games around the country. This round of matches is the last before the break for the Big Bash League, and all will be played with a pink Kookaburra as a day/night fixture.
There is also a full week before the end of Shield games and the first day of the First Test against Pakistan, with Brisbane to make its pink-ball debut on December 15.
Hopefully common sense find a way through, and all fit and available players do play. With the exception of Khawaja – who might have played his best Test innings – all of them will benefit from more First Class cricket, and none more so than Maddinson and Renshaw.
It’s fair to suggest the New South Welshman’s Test debut didn’t go the way he dreamed it would.
By his own admission leading into the Adelaide Test, Maddison admitted that he had trouble against the pink ball at the Adelaide Oval, the sort of admission that you wouldn’t even entertain making public before the selectors met!
Regardless, his honesty played out in front of everyone’s eyes: feet rooted to the crease, playing and missing, before ultimately being bowled twelve balls later by a pretty handy in-swinging yorker from Kagiso Rabada.
New South Wales head back to Adelaide next week to face South Australia, meaning Maddinson not only needs to put his disappointment behind him, but he also needs to deal with his pink-Kooka-at-the-Adelaide-Oval issues all over again.
But there’s no point in trying to avoid this type of thing. If Maddinson couldn’t get a look at the pink rock under lights in Brisbane in his next innings, then the next best thing for him is to tackle the issue at the Adelaide Oval again.
It’s been a very up and down season for Maddinson so far. Two centuries in his last twelve innings looks ok on paper, and the last of them was only a month ago in a Shield game, but that same piece of paper will also show only one more score of the remaining ten above 36, and six of them under 13. Worse still, he’s made four single-figure scores in his last four games.
For Maddinson to find his feet and become a fixture in the Test side, he needs to find form rapidly. With the selectors undertaking such a bold overhaul of the batting order, they would be mad now to make any further unforced changes.
They’ve pumped for youth, and now they need to back them.
Maddinson needs to know he can play this Shield game with no fear of losing his spot in the Test side to yet another mid-season change of tack by the selectors. And then he needs to be told he’s got three Tests to prepare for and to play his best cricket of the season in.
Free him of any unnecessary anxiety and mental hurdles, and let him be the stroke-maker in the Australian side he was selected to be.
Those same freedoms should definitely be afforded to young opener Matt Renshaw.
How a split screen comparison of the debutant and Matthew Hayden wasn’t pulled out and featured heavily during the third Test coverage, I’ll never know. Maybe Channel Nine forgot about it during the second innings rush to condemn a batsman on debut and simultaneously sound clueless.
But Renshaw needs to play in Queensland’s trip to Perth to face Western Australia – also under lights – not because he needs runs or is under any pressure, but simply because his Test Debut was just his 13th First Class match!
The only player who should be told to make runs in this game at the WACA is Shaun Marsh, and suggestion that he should come straight back into the Test side if fit is as premature as it is short-sighted.
Renshaw is far from a finished product, but few 20-year-old bats are. But there is a lot to like about him as an opener, and a First Class of strike rate in the low 40s is exactly the kind of approach that has been needed in an overly cavalier top order.
Let these guys play, and let them play without the pressure of thinking their spot is on the line. Let them walk out to bat in these Shield games for the enjoyment of the game, and to bat the way they enjoy batting the most.
Just make sure they walk out to bat next week.
Alan
Guest
Not to mention the dozen or more NSW products playing for other states. Shield champions, Victoria, has 3 in their current 12. I'm sure that NSW could make good use of Tremain at present.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
I suspect Smith and Starc are both in the ODI squad, hence they won't play in the Shield round, but anyone not in the ODI squad should be playing Shield definitely.
Geoff Foley
Roar Rookie
That would be 2013/14 at Manuka against WA, when Hazlewood took a bag and Moises scored a ton. M Marsh scored an excellent 92 not in the first innings too and B'Dorff took 6.
steve
Guest
Agree Don. Its a travesty that Chris Hartley hasn't played test cricket. Has been the best keeper in the country for a decade.
matth
Guest
I agree any player not selected for Australia should play in the Shield, unless there is some legitimate risk of injury. Firstly a player like Renshaw who has only played a dozen games needs every drop of experience he can get. I'm sure at this age he is also living the dream and he's be desperate to play as much as possible. Secondly, the key to a strong test team is to treat the Shield as an important competition. Each state should be picking whoever they want to try their hardest to win the trophy. We need the Shield to be the hardest domestic cricket it can be. But instead Maddinson will probably be rested after his exhausting 12 ball debut, and will then get dropped anyway without the opportunity to push his case (the Mennie Effect).
Pedro the Maroon
Guest
Another forgotten man. If he were playing for NSW, he'd be onto his 70th test by now. Would have slotted straight in after Gilly retired. Instead we got Brad "Swing and a miss" Haddin (who did save our bacon a few times against the Poms).
Lancey5times
Guest
Aren't NSW helping all of the states enough when it comes to winning the Shield by having 6 of their 32 capable test cricketers playing in the national side?
Rellum
Roar Guru
Smith and Starc should be playiny as much as possible, let alone Usman. If you are not playing Aus then you go back and help your State to win the Shield.
Don Freo
Guest
White? You may as well pick Hartley (averaging 80 this season) and get a bonus best keeper in the country.
Don Freo
Guest
Don't think of it as "picking and ditching". If you refer to it as "replacing then returning" it is has connotations of a squad, unity, teamwork and process. It's all in the language.
The Bush
Roar Guru
Yeah it was a bit more common in the past. The difference of course was there wasn't a BBL season put in the middle of that and we didn't do things like play T20 internationals at the end of the season on the same day we're in India starting a test match. The players back in the day used to play more domestic cricket to keep them in touch with it as well, so while we might have jumped between the versions, the calendar didn't seem to cluttered.
josh
Roar Rookie
remember when the Australian summer would have Test and ODI intermingled? The Adelaide test was January 26 and the SCG January 2nd.
Brett McKay
Expert
he's a long way from being set, BHT, but we can't keep picking and ditching blokes. They've gone with youth, they need to back them for the rest of the summer now..
Brett McKay
Expert
On the surface, I agree with you IHP, but this one's a little unavoidable. Australia and New Zealand are committed to playing 6-game (3 home, 3 away) ODI Chappell-Hadlee series for the next three summers, and they head over the ditch for the NZ leg straight after the Jan ODIs v Pakistan. And with the Test schedule as it is, it really only left this coming week to play the three C-H games in Australia...
Brett McKay
Expert
There was some over the weekend Lancey, as I suggested..
I hate pies
Guest
Why the hell would we be playing a mickey mouse one day series in between two test series? The scheduling of cricket at the moment is just daft. CA are determined to shoot themselves in the foot in the pursuit of money. Here's a tip; more people will watch on TV and go to the ground if we are winning, and we won't win if we're not properly prepared.
Billary Swamper
Guest
If Maddinson was not from NSW he would not even be mentioned in regards to playing for Australia. Weird this obsession with NSW people, and they are largely crap. When did they actually last win a Shield?
Lancey5times
Guest
Has there actually been talk of them not playing the Shield round?
Perry Bridge
Guest
I wonder whether Maddinson is a PONI (player of national interest) such that he'll have a preferred selection status - or - whether we don't use the test team as a player development school (leave that for shield and Aust A) and pick the best available (in which case Cam White should slot in at #6. Renshaw to me is a question of how many tests do we expect him to play at present because he was thrown in early and his game I think is not quite there - doubtless it will evolve and develop even more - I just worry that he was a fraction out of his depth and they need to not damage him. I guess a home track test v Pak should be safe enough?
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Definitely need to be playing more cricket, not less. If the shield matches finished 2 days before the test that might be another story, but the best thing for a batsman is to bat. So definitely need to be sending them to play for their states. I agree that all three need to be given until the end of the Pakistan series. Shaun Marsh has shown some form of late, and he played in the first test in Perth before being injured. But you can hardly use the word "incumbent" on a batsman when the last match they played was only the second of 2 consecutive tests they'd been selected in, and he was actually selected to replace a different player each time. The first being selected to replace Khawaja at 3 who just looked all out of sorts against Sri Lanka's spinners, and then coming back to Australia picked to open the batting, then gets injured. An incumbent player is someone who's solidly in the side, not someone who's been in and out and happened to be back in for a match or two before getting injured. Shaun Marsh has been picked on "potential" despite not deserving selection through his performances his entire career up to the last couple of years. So yes, it might be a bit ironic that when he's finally reached a point where he's warranting selection for his performances that he might instead be overlooked for a younger player with promise who hasn't necessarily earned his spot with performances. But that's life. Having made the youth selection they should stick with them through the Pakistan series, and Marsh needs to just be batting well and scoring runs and if any of them fail miserably he can be the one to come in, and even if they don't, he will almost certainly find himself in the touring team to India.