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Opinion
If Australia stand by David Warner despite the mountain of evidence suggesting he should have lost his Test spot a long time ago, they will have no one to blame but themselves when it curtails their chances of holding onto the Ashes urn.
With a World Test Championship final and an Ashes tour on the horizon, there is no time for sentiment but Australia seem hellbent on being loyal to a fault, literally, with their veteran opener.
Warner was retained on the national contract list when it was announced last week – as a three-format player, that was not unexpected.
And while selection chief George Bailey sounded words of warning about Warner’s three-year stretch of mediocre form, there was nothing to suggest that he and his cohorts Andrew McDonald and Tony Dodemaide are about to make the call to tap the 36-year-old NSW left-hander on the shoulder over his spot at the top of the order for the Test team.
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That decision may be seen as cold-hearted, cut-throat and controversial but it would ultimately be correct.
Matthew Renshaw. (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
Queensland opener Matt Renshaw was snubbed on Cricket Australia’s contract list despite scoring 112 and a quick-fire 78 to set up a declaration against their New Zealand counterparts last week.
He backed that up with 140 in the second innings of the second match on Monday, after being out for two on day one. While he had a miserable three-innings stint while miscast as a middle-order batter on the Indian tour, Renshaw is back thriving as an opener at first-class level for his state and the A team.
West Australian Cameron Bancroft was also not handed a contract despite bashing down the door for a recall by amassing 945 runs, including four tons, at 59.06 to easily top the Sheffield Shield runscorers’ list.
Bancroft kicked off his English county campaign with 44 for division-one side Somerset while Victoria’s Marcus Harris, who surprisingly remained on CA’s contract list despite a modest first-class season of 601 runs at 37.56, peeled off 59 and 148 for Gloucestershire in division two.
Warner has averaged a mere 29.48 from the 914 runs he’s cobbled together in the past three years with only one triple-figure score – his MCG 200 against the Proteas last summer.
And the next six Tests are on English soil, which has been kryptonite under his feet in 13 Tests since 2013 where he has failed to register a ton while averaging 26.04 from 25 trips to the crease, including a pitiful 9.5 from nine failures and a solitary decent innings of 61 on the 2019 Ashes tour.
“I think Dave, like any player, is at the mercy of selection,” Bailey said in his media conference after the contracts were announced.
This tells us little to nothing as Bailey is basically saying no contracted player is guaranteed a start.
“The Ashes is a huge series. And we’ll be looking to pick our best team.”
You would hope so but again it doesn’t mean they won’t consider Warner as being in their best XI even if it flies in the face of stats, history and public opinion.
“I think we’re going to have to have our best team playing incredibly well too, to challenge England over there the way they’re playing at the moment.”
David Warner walks off after he was dismissed by Mohammed Shami. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Again, this is spot on but like a politician spinning rhetoric, he’s shedding no light on the selection panel’s intentions.
They’re gonna pick Warner. Just like with Aaron Finch in the T20 squad last year, the selectors seem to prefer to hold out hope that a fading star will suddenly shine bright again rather than face the reality that they are no longer the same player.
Loyalty is admirable but when a struggling veteran has used up all their credits, they need to be jettisoned otherwise they will drag the team down with them.
Jofra Archer celebrates dismissing Usman Khawaja. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
England are a team transformed from the shambles that were lucky to only lose the last Ashes “contest” 4-0 in Australia a couple of summers ago when Sydney’s unwanted tradition of starting the year with rain spared the tourists a series whitewash.
The Bazball revolution under coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes, coupled with the return of pace spearhead Jofra Archer from injury, means England will be at their most formidable since Andrew Strauss’ squad vanquished Australia 3-1 Down Under in 2010-11.
All Test cricket is tough but this six-match stretch is the pinnacle.
There is no time to be monkeying about with the line-up for the winner takes all trophy clash with India or the five-match rekindling of cricket’s oldest rivalry that follows.
The Aussies are set to announce a squad in the next couple of weeks for the WTC final and the first two Ashes Tests and then narrow it down to a 15-man squad at the end of May for the June 7 “ultimate Test” against India at The Oval. They’ll review the Ashes squad after the first two Tests before seeing who is needed for the rest of the series.
Cameron Bancroft. (Photo by Steve Bell/Getty Images)
Whether they stick with Warner and hope he reverses his lengthy run of form and poor English record or if they go with a new option like Harris, Renshaw or Bancroft, their opening duo will be an Achilles heel even though Usman Khawaja is in career-best form.
Australia have the rare luxury of having four players – Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith and Travis Head – in the top seven in the ICC Test batting rankings.
But as was shown in the 2-1 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series loss in India, a brittle opening partnership can have a cascading effect on the middle order.
Australia haven’t won an Ashes series in the UK since 2001 and managed to retain the urn last time around on the back of Smith’s career-best series haul of 774 runs at 110.57, from three hundreds – including a double ton – and another trio of half-centuries.
The selectors need to be doing everything possible to shield him from the new ball, particularly if his nemesis Archer has a hard Dukes six-stitcher in hand.
It all starts at the top.