Aussie Test cricket fans might be hurting but plenty have shown the heart to keep the turnstiles spinning. If only Justin Langer could say the same about his fragile top order.
When Australian cricket is standing at its tallest, more often than not it’s with an iron backbone forged through rejection and redemption.
For the much-maligned selectors, if they have perfected one thing in recent times, it’s a falling axe.
At some point more than half the country’s current Shield players have worn the baggy green – there are 35 still on the books. Of those, 20 have played fewer than ten Tests and have since been brushed aside like a pimply teenager at the school dance.
It wasn’t that long ago that wielding the selection axe inspired long-term success.
Back in the 1990s Justin Langer ground out eight Tests in six years. An errant drive cost Damien Martyn six years in the wilderness and Matthew Hayden was a nobody until five years after his debut Test.
Even Ricky Ponting lost his place one Test after making 88 against a rampant West Indies.
Lesser names came and went but among the pool of rejects several always knuckled down, shaped their game and returned to bear fruit.
The blame for Australia’s diluted batting skills in recent years often falls at the feet of T20 cricket, the same format many say propelled India up the Test rankings.
Regardless of the problem, the fear accompanying the suspensions of Steve Smith and David Warner was that it would reveal an empty cupboard.
It did that and more. Put simply, it has shined a beacon on each long-term Shield golden boy who hasn’t utilised the circuit to make a success at the next level.
(Daniel Kalisz – CA/Cricket Australia/Getty Images)
George Bailey is symptomatic of the problem. He’s riddled with self-doubt despite more than a decade on the first-class scene. Already an Ashes winner, surely by now the former limited-overs captain would have settled on a batting stance to smooth the absence of Smith.
Cameron White and Callum Ferguson are others. Arguably both were overlooked at the peak of their powers.
Years before, Mike Hussey probably felt the same. The West Australian could easily have walked away head bowed after a decade. Instead he crafted a technique that smashed the lights out of scoreboards when the selectors needed it most.
Australia’s ability to reincarnate sacked Test cricketers has slipped through the cracks, replaced by foggy heads and sheepish over-the-shoulder glances.
Test century-makers currently on the outer are Peter Handscomb, Glenn Maxwell, Matt Renshaw and Joe Burns. Throw in former keeper and now frontline batsman Matthew Wade and you have the current generation of rejects who should be desperate for another taste and primed to master their skills in time for another tilt.
If it were my choice, Aaron Finch and Mitchell Marsh would be on the above list too.
In a developing team short on form, Burns’s top order experience deserves precedence over Finch’s lazy elbow and angled bat. Similarly, Maxwell’s confidence outscores Marsh’s uncertainty.
Whatever the current line-up, future positions of strength will be better for hardened rejects equipped to score on the rebound.
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