This season, Tasmanian wicketkeeper Matthew Wade has become the emblematic hard-luck selection story. But is he actually lucky instead?
There’s never any shortage of criticism of selectors, but after a particularly muddled and incoherent few years, it’s at its peak.
Given the weakness of all three Australian men’s teams, the cases of a few players who continue to be overlooked stand out.
Wade has been one. After a lean year saw him booted from the Test team before the start of the Ashes in November 2017, he’s gone on a domestic run-scoring spree across all formats.
He started that Sheffield Shield season slowly but came home with a wet sail, racking up scores including 72 not out, 139, 108 not out, 68, 49 and 108.
(AAP Image/Daniel Munoz)
Three hundreds, two fifties, and a season worth 654 runs. Marnus Labuschagne made 140 more from five more innings and is now apparently a lock in the Test side.
In the first half of the current season, Wade played a dozen innings for one big hundred and five more scores over 50, as well as a couple of 40s. That followed on from a century in the domestic 50-over competition.
So naturally enough, there were questions about why he wasn’t in the ailing Test team when so many batsmen were struggling.
Chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns said Wade should bat higher up the order. Apparently, when you’re short a Test batsman at number six, you don’t want to replace him with a domestic player who bats at six.
That’s the wisdom of experience.
Wade added an extra twist by having a balltearer of a Big Bash season, joining his Hurricanes opening partner D’Arcy Short in cruising past the previous highest tally in a season. Wade belted 592 at a strike rate of 147.
(AAP Image/Rob Blakers)
So the next question was, why isn’t he back in the Australian one-day team? He’s the form white-ball batsman in the country with plenty of experience and a World Cup coming up.
Some around the top of the game seem to think he’s a relic of the past with new boy Alex Carey getting the backing, but Wade is only 31, and Carey hasn’t yet done much to impress.
In 28 limited-overs games for Australia, the South Australian gloveman has yet to make a fifty, and when he’s been boosted as an attacking player to open the batting, he’s plodded and pottered and been dismissed for slow scores.
Wade, then, was the obvious option to come into the one-day side for the upcoming tours to play India and Pakistan. Plenty of people think he’s hard done by to be left out. But here’s the thing.
So far, Wade’s job application isn’t quite complete. He’s made a strong case but hasn’t kicked down a wall. He’s got several pieces but not a full picture.
Being in the one-day team tends to cripple your first-class career. Just ask Glenn Maxwell, who has played fewer first-class matches than colleagues many years his junior.
By missing the India tour, Wade gets the back half of the Shield season and possibly a final. He gets eight or ten more innings to add to his existing work.
In the current season, Wade tops the Shield runs list with 571 at 63.44. If he can carry on his good form, he could crack a thousand-run season, or at least go close.
What Maxwell would give for a chance to play 11 first-class matches in a season and bury the questioning of his suitability once and for all.
Currently, he has useful runs that would get him in the conversation. But the chance to finish his body of work for 2018-19, rather than end up with the bits and pieces of half a Shield season plus an ODI tour, Wade could take his case from compelling to undeniable.
(Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
There’s no way he could displace Test captain Tim Paine behind the stumps, but it would get him into an Ashes squad with a genuine claim as a specialist bat. And in the meantime, he would have his Big Bash credits already in the bank.
Unless Carey can nitro-boost his career over the upcoming Asian tours, Wade is probably already best placed to keep at the World Cup and be a savage attacking option at number seven.
The mixture of runs across formats would seal that.
Wade could certainly be at home feeling hard done by at not being on that plane to India. But taking a longer view, he has a chance to build something more substantial than anyone going away, and to get himself back into national colours across all formats.
Perhaps it was a great stroke of luck to have missed out. Now it’s up to him to make the most of it.
Peter Warrington
Guest
Sorry, my ardour for Max, and my palpitations, blurred my mind... "Praise in public and criticise in private etc etc."
Peter Warrington
Guest
Yes but I tend to align with the former Australian captains that thought the Australian captain shouldn't be criticising a peer in public. Praise in public and praise in private etc etc. It's confirmation bias but that footage of Smith choosing "that leave" as his impersonation of Maxwell resonated with me. as for Kat and Pup, I thought the Brettig book did a real good job of showing just how many people were to blame for a run of incidents at that stage - and thus I blame almost none of them, and not much at that.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
We weren’t in the conversations they must have had and it is certain it was nothing elite sports people talk about all the time. We need ever to expect to be privvy to those conversations. They belong to the boys who have made it to that level. We can go find our own stories. Even club cricketers have those conversations as the 2nd grader seeks selection in the ones. Reporters, or more particularly, gossip columnists that intrude upon sport, would have you believe that only one thing was said and it was as the result of team disharmony. You only have to watch Maxi and all his team mates in any level of cricket to see that he is enjoyed and respected. If you understand team sport, you would never give any consideration to rumours of schoolyard/training tiffs. Katich/Clarke? Kat was drunk and apologised for spoiling McDonald and Bollingers debuts with his scene.
Peter Warrington
Guest
Did that include striking at 70 or something? Yes i want to touch him. I want to squeeze the dis-generosity out of him.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
If Maxi works on his areas of need, he'd accelerate his selection. "Palpable?" Are you sure?
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
Care to explain? You'd be agreeing with me that you lie.
Peter Warrington
Guest
i remain palpable at Smith for those comments. what's your take on it (the rest of the comment etc)?
dungerBob
Roar Rookie
Hmm, maybe so. I guess I just don't like that it's squeezed into such a short time, all the games are played on Sydney suburban grounds and most of the players are still as rusty as hell because the grade season has barely started. .. Other than that it's fine I suppose. What's wrong with having a proper comp that's not just lip service to the format. Knock a month off the excruciatingly long BBL and turn it over to the one day stuff. It won't fill CA's coffers as much but at least we might have a better idea of who our best 50 over players are. At the moment it's little more that a wild guess imo.
Peter
Roar Rookie
They should be picking players in form for this ODI World Cup, especially when you look at the qualities of some of the teams competing. Right now Wade has that in spades. Wade and Handscomb can play in the same team.
anon
Roar Pro
Pot meet kettle.
badmanners
Roar Rookie
No, I was following on D P Schaefer's comment re letting down a boss, selector etc. If Hohns thought that way he had a blind spot re Marsh's. On topic this thread, formatting here doesn't always follow the post you want it to when you reply.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
You continue to misqupte that and refuse to acknowledge the rest of Smith's comment there...as always, you are economical with truth.
Gee
Roar Rookie
For the WC what Carey does in the upcoming white ball tours will decide Wades prospects no matter what he does in the SS. They are looking for excuses to keep Carey in so even one good innings and he will be penciled in for a spot with Hanscomb as the keeping back up. I don't mind Carey as a middle order accumulator type but as a opening or lower order big hitter I am doubtful he is up to it.
Dexter The Hamster
Roar Rookie
KP did text the opposition players and told them what he thought of his own captain. Not exactly great team building. But he didn't convince a junior team member to take sandpaper onto the field....
Adam Bagnall
Roar Guru
I was talking about the last 20 years. NSW has produced by far the most mainstay players like Smith, Warner, Starc, Cummins, Hazelwood, Lyon, McGrath, Slater, the Waughs. In that time Vic really only have Warne, QLD have Hayden for a few years, Langer and Martyn from WA. Gilly is from NSW too. SA? Gillespie but not much else, Lehman on occasions but he was never a Test regular. Tassie? Outside of Ponting you have Hilfenhaus, Bird, Cowan, none of which really established themselves at Test level.
anon
Roar Pro
So did Smith telling everyone Maxwell was lazy.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
Different topic. Re-read the thread.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
Carey's batting is very promising. He'll prove to be every bit as good as the other two.
Nick
Roar Guru
Pretty much yeah. I'd like to see Australia take a leaf out of the ECB book and red-line Warner in the same manner as KP was red-lined. The man got a county triple century and the ECB still wouldn't pick him again. And KP arguably had no reason to be excluded to begin with!
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
One argument would be that he seems to have reached a new level in ball striking and shot selection in both Shield and BBL, which when put together gives some ground for optimism at ODI level. And Carey has yet to reach the level that he has. Although Handscomb might be a better bet for ODIs.