The Australian cricket selectors caught between a rock and a hard place

Warner was on track to equal if not eclipse Mathew Hayden’s batting record. I rate Hayden as the best opener of my lifetime. Warner was certainly a flat track Bully for many years. That turned in the year before his suspension though. His batting against India and Bangladesh improved markedly.

Wow great reply.

One problem with that line up. Wade can’t keep.

My God man, do you have no understanding of what was going on? Are you so bereft of any level of compassion? Do you understand that while he was playing a test match for his country, thousands of scum bags were publicly humiliating his wife, inferring that she was a slut and slag, on national television, in front of his children? Do you know that the cricket officials of said country joined in the fun and games, displaying the picture of one face I can assure you his wife doesn't want to be reminded of. Do you think those pictures only affected Dave Warner and not his wife and kids? Do you know that his own country officials deserted him, didn't stand up against the shaming, and gave him no support when he lashed out - and threw him under the bus to be punished. Sure he made a wrong and very poor decision, but lets see you maintain rational thought when your misses is being treated like that and you have to be explaining to your kids what is going on AND your country - which you are in battle for - gives you no back up. Let's see you maintain ethics and not (with so much anger at the unfairness of it all and your impotency/teams inability [because you aren't winning out in the middle] to answer back on the field) embark on some brainless stunt to try and pay-back or seek some justice with a win - at whatever cost-. Ever had a loved one humiliated by a bully and someone you lost to when you fought back to defend them? Weren't considering blindsiding or taking a cheap shot with a metal pole when they weren't looking as payback? Or something else equally illegal and damaging? Of course you wouldn't. Because you would be so calm and rational under those circumstances. Before you send someone out to the firing squad, walk a mile in their shoes....

I still think Burns/Ferguson and despite his apparent curse when it comes to baggy green selection.. Maxwell, are the next in. Renshaw still struggling to get scores even though he shoud've played a test in UAE. If Stoinis was scoring more runs in shield they may put him above Mitch Marsh due to his wickets in recent ODI's and T20s'. You also have Alex Carey fresh off his 2nd First Class ton waiting in the wings to replace Pullshot Paine.

Here is a list of possible test batsman Joe Burns, Mathew Wade, Alex Doolan, Jordan Silk, Mathew Renshaw, Callem Ferguson

It's not the fault of the selectors. They have very little in the way of really high quality, smashing-the-door-down batsmen to pick.

Remember it took approx 4 years for Steve Waugh to repay the selectors (89 Ashes) with centuries. Identify a good young player and give him some time (like the mid/late 1980s)

Personally I have very little sympathy for these selectors. The tale of the tape for well over a decade has been "we pick players based on form" when the reality is they only pick their favourite players or someone with "potential/talent" and are reluctant to drop players who've played between 20-50 tests because they're the incumbent. They then like to take the easy option and drop players that have only just come into the side i.e. Callum Ferguson, Joe Mennie, Matt Renshaw, Glenn Maxwell, Joe Burns. They also love to pick & choose stats to push this same agenda for certain players but not others.

Yer we also used to look a chance of winning a test match.

how can u say warner isnt a class up? do you even watch cricket? Yes he made a huge mistake but doesent mean we exclude or 2nd best batsmen (by far) from playing again. We are probably about to loose our first ever test series to india in Australia and u want to cripple us even more? do u like loosing? cause i sure as hell dont.

Stick to surfing waxhead... clueless

I disagree that a dasher is needed. Patience is needed from all the batsmen.

You can bet that he will go on to get a century on day 5 to give him a licence to fail for the remainder of the series....and then the cycle continues.

I agree. Warner is an instigator, he is poison to the team and should never be allowed back.

They've been given, and accepted, 12 month bans, despite nobody else in test history ever getting more than a match or two for similar type offenses, and they are doing everything they can to work their way back into things. How is that not accepting responsibility? On top of the time out of the game, for both Smith and Warner it's cost them likely in excess of $5 million each when taking into account IPL contracts, CA contracts and sponsorships. When they've served their time they should be able to come back. That's how things work. What's showing more and more clearly in the intervening time is that they are still going to comfortably come back as Australia's two best batsmen, nobody is coming close to usurping that position in the meantime. If we'd seen other players stepping up and taking their mantle, then it may have meant they would have had to fight their way back into the team. But the more time goes on the more it seems incredibly clear that isn't going to happen. There won't be any question of them coming straight back in, because nobody will be close to challenging their quality in the team, it will just be about who's the least worst of the rest to determine who remains and who are the two to get dropped when they come back.

That's the thing with Shaun Marsh. He's not a youngster. At his age, he should be the guy you can rely on to know his game and not keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over again. Yet he seems to just keep piling up the runs at first class level while continually failing at test level. I'm sure it can't help either having the batting coach of the Australian team (the player who's job it is to help first class players step up to test players) be someone who was an awesome first class player but never managed to step up to test level and finished with a pretty poor test record.

The problem is there aren't any! There are plenty who've scored some runs here and there, but we don't have any batsmen who are piling up 1000+ runs at 70 in Shield seasons anymore. It seems that a player having a "good season" with an average of 45 is enough to get them into consideration, rather than a career average of 45+ and a good season being 60+. A lot of the hundreds scored so far this season have actually been by players who really aren't close to being at test level (yet, if ever). Most of those who have the closest to a longer term history to suggest they might be potentially test players have struggled. Renshaw being a good example of that.

Nothing is certain in any given test. But take the two best batsmen out of any team and it's going to make a difference.

Let's face it, you don't like Warner because he's a bit of a "bogan" from the wrong side of the tracks and this is a good excuse to get rid of him. Anything Warner has done is likely because he was given the backing of all the leadership to do it. They liked the idea of Warner the "attack dog", so they encouraged it. If they instead set the proper boundaries of what should and shouldn't be done and had that culture in there, it's unlikely Warner would have been this guy who just went completely against that and went out on him own and did these things anyway. So getting rid of him for life all sounds too "mission impossible". Here's your mission, but if you are caught, we will disavow you.