If timing is everything in cricket – and it is – then this week of Australian selection guesswork and speculation has reminded us all that it remains a black and white issue.
There’s just no grey area to this. You either have good timing, or really bloody terrible timing.
Take Western Australian keeper-bat Josh Inglis, for example.
This time last week, he’d have been pretty happy with his lot in life. Having just returned from the UAE with a Twenty20 World Cup winners medal, the prospect of him being playing an Ashes Test this summer wouldn’t have been a particularly strong one.
Even though Tim Paine’s textual indiscretion had already cost him the Test captaincy, there was a train of thought that he might still be picked to play out the series that was always going to his international swansong. Nathan Lyon couldn’t make the point any clearer, offering “I can’t say it any more times, Tim is the best keeper in the world” just last Thursday.
If only injury to the Tasmanian gloveman was going to stop him seeing out the summer, Inglis had the season ahead of him to start building his case for whatever timeframe a replacement for Paine would be needed.
This time last week, however, Inglis’ summer was one day away from becoming very, very different.
So too was Alex Carey’s. But he had an ace up his sleeve that would soon become very handy indeed.
No sooner had Cricket Australian announced last Friday that Paine had informed them he would be “stepping away from cricket for a period of time” were fans and pundits alike scrambling to look up which games likely candidates were about to play.
Tim Paine (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Already in Brisbane with the Australia A squad while quarantining after returning from Dubai, Inglis could only look forward to the scheduled three day intra-squad game before the First Test.
Carey, on the other hand, was still in South Australian colours back in Adelaide, not due to head to Brisbane for another few days, and now with a state one-day game of instant importance in front of him.
And we all know what he did. I tuned in around lunchtime on Sunday with Carey coasting through the seventies and looking incredibly good against the Queensland attack. So good in fact that I didn’t dare to mention how good he was batting on Twitter, not daring to be responsible for undoing his hard work.
(A point proven when he was bowled out for 101 barely even a minute after I tweeted how good his century was.)
Having compiled a string of single-figure scores in the preceding month, Carey had just reminded everyone that he was far from a spent force.
“It wasn’t a case of ‘which end do I hold the bat?’ I still felt like I knew what I was doing,” Carey said this week, now in Brisbane.
“I felt in a really good place mentally. I was hitting the ball well.”
Carey’s timing couldn’t have been much better.
Inglis wasn’t just behind the eight-ball now, he was behind several eight-balls.
Just when a Test debut was closer than it had ever been, Inglis hadn’t played a First Class game in two months and hadn’t batted in a game at all since Australia played New Zealand in a World Cup warm-up game more than a month ago.
Also, it was already so wet in Brisbane that pairs of animals were gathering in Queen Street Mall. It was proper ark-building weather in south-east Queensland. England’s own intra-squad matches this week have seen little more than one session of play over the course of five days.
Josh Inglis of Western Australia (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)
Suddenly, ‘hitting them well in the nets’ has never been so important – but even then, this first Ashes Test already looms as one where preparations could be completely confined to indoors.
And it now feels like the Australian selectors have shown their hand early.
While Carey continued his preparations, Inglis was among a handful of Western Australians who flew west to see family for a few days having completed quarantine requirements, and with the weather now impacting Australia’s planned intra-squad game as well.
The dots practically and quickly joined themselves, and if all the ‘Carey is expected to debut’ reports over the last 24 hours haven’t convinced you, the complete lack of correction of that reporting should.
It will remain debatable how much impact Carey’s one-day hundred in Adelaide last weekend had on the selectors’ thinking, but it surely can’t have hurt. His long apprenticeship, likened by his South Australian coach Jason Gillespie to that which Adam Gilchrist served for several years before succeeding Ian Healy, looks set to pay off.
Inglis’ reward for edging ahead of Carey before the Twenty20 World Cup is to have had no opportunity to push his Test credentials when he needed one the most, and through absolutely no fault of his own.
Alex Carey’s timing looks perfect, while for Josh Inglis… yep, his looks really bloody terrible.
Tom
Phillipe dropped 3 relatively straight forward catches last shield match, he is way below the level he needs to be if he is going to keep in test cricket at this stage. I can possibly see him making it as a batsman in the coming years but probably not as a keeper, unless he improves immensely.
Gharner
Roar Rookie
That Inglis would have trouble making the test team from that spot. Thought Paine should have been out of the team before the personal stuff came out.
Micko
Roar Rookie
Well said Brett...and welcome back to the cricket mate! :thumbup: :cricket:
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
No worries Brett, I was just trying to explain why I got that impression. I think most people would understand why I got that impression giving the wording I quoted - rather than imagine I was trying to read something into it. Particularly as you've made another comment elsewhere about how white ball cricket is as relevant as anything else.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
Phil, if having time in the middle was so important, Inglis would be ruled out any way. If you don't think white ball scores are relevant, as I don't, then its only good timing if the selectors are foolish enough to believe its relevant.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
White ball cricket is simply not as relevant as red ball and saying its old thinking doesn’t make it so. The question is what are the likely predictors of success. One can make judgements on this based on a vast range of experience and data, pretty much all of which points to red ball performance being a way better guide than white ball. In any case the last of Carey’s five Shield matches this season ended on 26 November, and the Marsh Cup was on the 28th. So its hardly a case the only cricket being played is with a white ball. I didn’t get the point of the second paragraph.
Christo the Daddyo
Roar Rookie
Fair enough. I've assumed for a while the gig was Carey's unless he lost form completely. As others have posted, good that we have options!
Brett McKay
Expert
Dave, it really feels like you're trying to read things into what I've written that just aren't there..
Brett McKay
Expert
Dave, respectfully, that's old thinking these days. When a position suddenly comes up and the only cricket to be played is with a white ball, it's as relevant as anything else previous. This late in the piece, bat on ball is all that will matter. Equally, if Carey wasn't a keeper, he wouldn't feature in this conversation, would he, given it's about a replacement 'keeper
Doctor Rotcod
Guest
On the basis that Paine was keeper until he was 36,that gives Carey six years in the job. Inglis will be 31. Will they retire Alex early on the premise that he was only a stopgap keeper? I don't think so. Inglis has had his papers marked. A real shame.
Steele
Roar Rookie
I think Carey was always going to be picked ahead of Inglis and it wasn’t as close as the media have made it. IMO, Inglis has timed his run better than Carey. He ran amok in his most recent FirstClass season - that’s great timing. And it’s probably shortened the gap that Carey once held. Phillipe is timing his run this season to perfection.
Phil
Guest
DaveJ,I think you are being over critical of Brett's comments on timing.Whether you rate a white ball score being relevant to a red ball one,it still comes down to hitting a ball with a bat and not getting out in comparison to someone who has not even had a chance to do that!Surely that's the point of Brett's article? Anyway,Carey is in now so the debate is irrelevant.
Rellum
Roar Guru
"and who was rated a better keeper than Healy" Yeah, that is a bit of a long tail steeped in incumbency
Ernest
Guest
There is an ease as to how Inglis goes about his work; he is to me the more natural glove man. Carey is definitely athletic, but there is just something about how comfortable Inglis makes ground to take the ball. A very smooth operator! Just an aside about circumstances around selection of keepers, where in this case playing Sheffield Shield cricket would’ve definitely helped Inglis’ cause. Remember how Ian Healy was basically plucked from obscurity with only a handful of shield games before being selected for Australia. He was only playing for Queensland because one Peter Anderson had a broken finger at the time, and who was rated a better keeper than Healy.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
Poorly might be overstating it, although one 50 in eight innings and averaging 22, batting at number 6, is certainly mediocre, especially if you are trying to polish your Test credentials. Indeed, if he wasn’t a keeper, he’d be at risk of losing his place in the Shield team if he kept that up for the whole season. But my point is simply that if people are going to put a high premium on recent scores then red ball scores are far more relevant than white ball scores. We need to take a longer time frame into account, particularly for keepers where you want someone who’ll be there for the medium to long term ……………………….…………………………………………………………………………….………… I’ll take your word that he’s keeping well, though number of dismissals isn’t relevant, only errors and number of difficult chances. Some good judges seem to think Inglis is a better keeper, but it sounds like there isn’t much between them in keeping, and batting is a bit of guesswork – Carey the safe option, Inglis potentially with more upside given his age, recent history and fast scoring ability.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
Sorry more bad syntax and stray words, but I won't edit again as I will come up again as the paragraph break will disappear into the void of the Roar's IT system, which seems impossible to avoid.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
Hi Brett the edits were mainly to fix my own poor syntax and grammar in a few places, not barbs (though I agree that the Clarke reference is a bit barbed, though hopefully not too sharp). I did remove an opening to the first sentence saying you it sounded like you were sitting on the fence whether Carey's white ball should be relevant or just it was timely for the selectors. It did sound to me like you were pumping it up as relevant e.g. "Having compiled a string of single-figure scores in the preceding month, Carey had just reminded everyone that he was far from a spent force." It's the whole apples and oranges thing. If it's good timing but we don't know whether it influenced the selectors, it does sounds a bit like it influenced you, as I put it. But no dramas, as they say. And no doubt it can't have hurt. I suspect the selectors often act like politicians and bureaucrats: if Inglis was picked and failed, people would say, why did you risk picking a guy who hadn't played any red ball cricket since June? If Carey fails, they can say, but he has played a lot of international cricket already and was the heir-in-waiting, and look he made a good hundred just before the Ashes, even if he had been having a poor Shield season. And most fans won't realise the last bit is silly - nor do most cricket journos in the mainstream media, so the selectors' bums are covered.
Brett McKay
Expert
Can you elaborate on what makes Inglis "clearly the better keeper", Ernest?
Doctor Rotcod
Guest
I thought that there was a rule against two South Australian in a Test team?
Ernest
Guest
It’s a shame that Inglis wasn’t chosen, as I personally believe that he is clearly the better keeper. Isn’t that the primary consideration here? Also being four years younger than Carey he has more upside, plus he’s batting has real x factor about it. The selectors have missed the opportunity to select a keeper that has a ten year test career written all over him.