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Scott Boland faces the prospect of missing the next Test with Josh Hazlewood looking likely to be available but surely the selectors can’t leave the Victorian cult hero out at the MCG.
The Melbourne sporting fans would be up in arms about that one, hopefully they wouldn’t invade the pitch to protest. Too soon for that reference?
If ever you want to get under the skin of a Victorian cricket fan, ask them if they think Brad Hodge was unfairly treated by Test selectors.
For those of you who do not carry a Victorian passport, Hodge was dropped in early 2006 despite averaging 58.42 from his first five Tests. He had smashed an unbeaten 203 two Tests earlier in Perth against a South African attack of Shaun Pollock, Makhaya Ntini, Charl Langeveldt and Andre Nel.
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Hodge was shafted when the selectors brought Damien Martyn back into the Test team (who ended up quitting abruptly later that year midway through the Ashes series) despite only scoring 142 runs at 23.67 in three Sheffield Shield matches that season.
(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
If you ask any Victorian then or now, it was all part of a NSW conspiracy although the selectors back then were Andrew Hilditch (a South Australian), David Boon (the unofficial/official monarch of Tasmania) and the MCG’s people’s champion, Merv Hughes.
Hodge hit a half-century when he played the only other match of his career in the baggy green on the 2008 West Indies tour when Michael Clarke was out for a Test on personal leave. He finished with the very impressive average of 55.88 from his six Tests but was never selected again.
Boland’s first five Tests have been even more statistically astonishing than Hodge’s brief stint. The 33-year-old seamer has taken 25 wickets at the scarcely believable average of 10.35 after taking a combined 3-45 against the West Indies in Adelaide and 4-42 in the win over South Africa at the Gabba while Hazlewood has been nursing a side strain.
The accepted benchmark to be on the honour roll for best bowling average of all-time is 2000 balls and Boland is only up to 757. If he maintains his remarkable average for the next 1143 deliveries of his career, he will rank No.1 in the history of the sport, knocking off English medium-pacer George Lohmann, who took 112 wickets at 10.75 from 1886-1896.
Lohmann and a bunch of bowlers from the 19th century and the pre-World War II era hold the best 10 averages in Test history when pitches were not covered and batters often had to traverse pitches of similar standard to last week’s Gabba monstrosity.
Brad Hodge acknowledges the crowd as he leaves the field 203 not out in Perth in 2005. (Photo by Hamish Blair/Getty Images)
With Pat Cummins coming off a five-wicket haul in the second innings of the first Test and Mitchell Starc bathing in the afterglow of his entry to the 300 Club, the selectors are likely to face a four into three won’t go dilemma on Boxing Day.
Chief selector George Bailey joked that state allegiances could come into play. Boland is the only Victorian in the team and with the MCG expected to host at least 60,000 fans on Monday, they won’t be happy if the fan favourite is carrying the drinks.
“It’s very important to have two Victorian selectors on the panel. Tony Dodemaide and Andrew McDonald will be in charge of that,” he told reporters on Monday with a liberal dose of levity.
“I don’t want to make light of the A-League game there with that riot but I was thinking gee that could be happening Boxing Day when the team list goes out if we leave Scotty out.”
Boland was a surprise inclusion in the first XI this time last year during the Ashes series when Hazlewood was out for a few weeks with a similar injury. Labelled an MCG specialist, he more than lived up to the pre-match billing by bagging 6-7 to destroy England in their second innings rout of 68.
“I’d have to retract that [description] because I think he’s become a specialist everywhere,” Bailey added. “He was on the radar for the MCG last year because of exactly what we’ve seen him do. He bashes a length. I think his ability to take multiple wickets in the same over speaks to how consistent he is and the questions he asks of the batter right from ball one. He’s going fantastically well.”
Hazlewood, who has had to sit out nine of the past 12 Tests due to injuries and spin-friendly surfaces, is eager to get back in the line-up and Bailey said he was “recovering really well”.
“He had another really good hit-out and is close to 90%, I reckon. We’re seven days out from the Test. He’ll keep building and clearly we’ve got a decision to make, but it’s a good problem to have. I’m really glad that it is a tough decision to make.
“A really important part of what this team is at the moment, (is) that when that opportunity is there you grab it, you come in. Barrel (Boland) is doing it, he’s been fantastic. Hoff (Hazlewood) has obviously done it for a very long time as well.”
Hazlewood was interviewed on Seven during what turned out to be the last day’s play on Sunday in Brisbane after going through his paces in the nets and said he would be available if he got through his next couple of sessions without a hitch.
“If I’m ticking a box (on December 24) and bowling probably two spells of four or five overs with a break in between that’s the final tick that we’re looking for.
“Then I’ll be available for selection hopefully.”
Selectors should look at the option of giving Starc a breather. The NSW left-armer has played in each of Australia’s past 22 Tests stretching back to home series against Pakistan after the 2019 Ashes tour when he last wasn’t in the side.
There has been plenty of talk about Australia needing to manage the workload of their fast bowlers amid a tight home schedule of five matches over six weeks before tours of India and England next year with a World Test Championship final almost certain to be thrown into the mix as well in June, immediately before the Ashes.
Cummins missed the stroll in the Adelaide park over the Windies while Boland was not selected for the first Test of the home summer in Perth.
Unless anyone gets injured at the MCG, the selectors will have the same embarrassment of riches problem with their pacemen for the third Test against South Africa in the new year in Sydney.
(Photo by James Worsfold/Getty Images)
Boland has potentially done enough to justify a chance in policy. Instead of a big three, Australia should realise they have a fab four and Boland is no Ringo.
Unless injuries get in the way, perhaps the way forward is to rotate the quartet of quicks into the three seamers positions over the cycle of every four Tests.
It would be the souped-up version of what England have done with Stuart Broad and James Anderson to prolong their Test careers.
Cummins, at 29, is the youngest of Australia’s four world-class fast bowlers but by sharing the load, these four could continue terrorising opposition batters for the rest of this decade.
That’s a scary thought and a much better way to treat a Test player after a handful of Tests. Anything is an improvement on the way Hodge was treated.