I think Langer is wanting to set his own mark by focusing on a young. He was forced to fall back on the experienced batsman in the 4th ODI. He doesn’t have any options with the bowling.

I think Khawaja is the best option not just to vice, but to captain the test team. He is the captain of the winning Sheffield shield team, and has captained both the Australia A and U19 teams. He is the highest ICC ranked Australian test batsman (since Smith and Warner are out). A man who has an Aeronautical Engineering degree, a commercial pilots license and play cricket for Australia at the age of 26 is a guy made of the right stuff!

The whole rationale for day night tests, is financial based. Leave that aside, and none of the other key aspects that differentiate test cricket from the other forms are fulfilled in day night tests. Conditions best for visibility, conditions players are most accustomed to, balls that are suitable for 80 overs etc. There is little point not being able to watch the best batsman in action, because the conditions prevent them from seeing the ball well. The conditions are so different, that I would suspect most countries would have a separate team for the day night test form, than for the day test.

I would argue that where test cricket is concerned, there is no need for the key driver to be financial, instead pure exhibition of gritty cricket excellence should prevail. It is considered the ultimate test. When looking at cricket as a whole, the white ball cricket fulfils the high excitement and financial objectives, and there is no need to look at each form in isolation. Day night test is a sub-standard thought bubble with no clear winning drivers.

The change I would like to see is, specialised batting and fielding teams for T20 (i.e. batting 11 could be different to fielding 11).

Bill, it seems the timing of this article is rather unfortunate. Surely you’d have to find CA cancelling the Bangladesh tour with 3 months notice and no communication with Bangladesh or ICC, far more disturbing than the points you raise.

Kohli is considered the best batsman in the world, and yet he has failed consistently in England. The only way he can improve his game is by playing in England and this is the most appropriate time for it. It was Kohli’s request, agreed to by the BCCI. You will find that Steve Smith and Ponting were rested from many internationals (in SriLanka etc) while captaining the team.

It is time for Sutherland to exit. His hasn’t handled a single matter with any success. The MOU debacle, the animosity between the cricketers association and CA, the disastrous South African tour, the illegal TV rights agreement and now the cancellation of the Bangladesh tour, have all been failures. Surely it is time for some new blood leading CA in a new direction.

I think Australia now has the best T20 team, and will be the number one team shortly mainly due to the dynamic batting line up. Short, Carey, Lynn, Warner, Maxwell. I am not sure we are quite there in the ODI form. The selectors will need to forget politics.

I feel Carey is a far better keeping choice than Payne for both T20 and ODI. If he is not now, he will certainly be next year. Paine can barely make it to any team and is an appalling decision for captaincy.

Sledging is unacceptable. We should not assume that other countries sledge because they do it against Australia, and we only follow Australian matches. Other countries specifically prepare their team to deal with sledging when they play Australia. Unlike Australia, where sledging is prevalent from U12 matches, there is no sledging in their domestic cricket, and youngsters are first exposed to it when playing Australia at test level (and more recently at age group internationals). It is not acceptable.

Get a bunch of cricketers who are exponents of the culture and expect them to come up with the solution! Sums up Peevers and Sutherland perfectly.

This deal is clearly against the anti-siphoning laws of Australia. Based on the law, it is the right of the Australian public to have specifically all 3 forms of cricket played by the senior Australian team, available on free to air, and precludes an exclusive agreement. 75% of the Australian public are affected by this, as they do not subscribe to foxtel. It is fine for foxtel to have exclusive pay tv rights, but the free to air legal right of the public must be upheld.

The Minister of Communication Mr Fifield, is responsible for ensuring the laws of the nation are upheld. If for what ever reason, he feel he cannot do so, he should resign.

If you feel strongly about this, now is the time to ROAR!! You should email him on Minister@communications.gov.au and let him know, as I have done.

This deal is clearly against the anti-siphoning laws of Australia. Based on the law, it is the specific right of the Australian public to have all 3 forms of cricket played by the elite Australian team, available on free to air, and precludes an exclusive agreement. 75% of the Australian public are affected by this.

The Minister of Communication Mr Fifield, is responsible for ensuring the laws of the nation are upheld. If for what ever reason, he feel he cannot do so, he should resign.

If you feel strongly about this, you should email him on Minister@communications.gov.au and let him know, as I have done.

Great read!

I suspect we may be missing quality batting coaching. From our top batsman, Smith, Hanscomb and to a lesser extent, Warner, are batsman with raw talent, but questionable technique when compared to Indian bats such as Koli, Sharma, Pujara etc. However, we have exceptional ability to produce great pace bowlers, with perfect technique, such as Stark, Hasselwood and Cummings.

While Sheffield shield is one of the best 1st class cricket arenas, there is still a significant gap between 1st class and test cricket. For a batsman, it can take significant time to grow into the test arena. It took Steve Waugh 4 years to make his first test century. The main arena for this growth is actually playing tests.

So if the selectors cannot have a medium term view of a player and persist with them, this growth does not occur. khawaja is a classic example of a player that stands out at Shefield shield level, but has had a disrupted path in test cricket rarely given 3 tests in a row in his early years, and continuously under the threat of being dropped.

This brings the dilemma of selections based on actual performance vs investing in potential (which is highly subjective).

The team is under severe trauma. It is divided and dislocated. It may well be that the inquiry strategy was to limit the impact and severely sanction those implicated. It is highly likely that the bowling group and coach were involved. They have been protected as there is no incriminating evidence available to the public. This will weigh heavily on the team. Lehmann has succumbed to it, and so will others.

CA has a duty of care towards the team. The situation in South Africa is volatile. The team should not be exposed to any further trauma. They should be protected from the fierce South African public and media. The tour should be cancelled. Bring them home. No public shaming!

How symbolic that it is during Easter.

Agree!

The strategy to handle this issue seems to be working, but was probably thought out on the flight to Africa. Define a clear but minimal boundary of bad apples, based on only what was already know by the public; give them harsh punishment, and withhold any further implicating information until things subside. The idea that the coach and no bowler is involved, will hold, unless some clear visual or sound evidence out of their control appears. No bowling group would ever let a batsman touch a ball, without knowing exactly what they were doing!

The truth will become evident once they return home! It will be Warners bargaining chip.

Thanks for your well thought out response, and I apologies for the delay in responding.

You are absolutely right in saying the SA public behavior was unacceptable. However, it may turn out to be the reason for a cultural change in our team, for which I am thankful. I think their behavior was a response and targeted very specifically at reputed offenders. We are the root cause for it.

The point I was making was that in the test arena (unlike shorter formats), captaincy should be a specialized skill, such as batting and bowling. So similar to a batting allrounder, or bowling allrounder, the captain should be a captain bat, or captain bowler, instead of vise versa. I am not suggesting a dead weight captain like Brearley.

As you say, there is no clear successor. I haven’t gone in to the facets of captaincy skills, but facts suggest Khawaja has them, having been selected to captain the Sheffield shield winners, Australia A and I believe the Australia U19s. He is now the ICC no 1 ranked Australian batsman available to us (pretty average bunch). In my view Paine is light weight for test captaining.

A search on Nationals Cricket will take you to the Cricket Australia page for this. U15 Nationals is the 2nd news item, where you find the pool of 14, and under player statistics you can find the batting and bowling performances. You will find that a person ranked 37 on bowling and 42 on the batting, and another 29 and 31 made it in. Out of the top 12 bowlers, only one (ranked 6 who was also the no 1 bat), was selected. Also the 3rd ranked bat did not get in. How would kids have confidence in the integrity of CA! The politics still prevail, despite all the objective information now being readily available to the public. By the way, I am not Victorian and not affected by this decision.

Good point. However I feel it is quite amazing what people will do under the influence of a culture. Particularly rookies who are trying their hardest to belong. In this case there may have been an abuse of power, where the VC makes the request.

From a team perspective, I believe the whole team is under severe stress in a most volatile situation for which they are not capable of dealing with. Therefore the whole team needs to be supported. I wouldn’t expose them to the South African public or media, and would bring them home now.

The culture of an organisation is the responsibility of the CEO. Generally implemented through the mission statement. CA has both “Spirit of Cricket” and “Integrity” in its mission statement. However it has nothing about our opponents view of us. James has not been successful in implementing either. Just as the CBA CEO was released because the view was that there was an unacceptable culture immerging within the bank, it is time for a change at CA.

I agree with you, a culture change is called for.

You seem to feel that it should not be Australia alone. I can assure you that there is no other nation that is loathed and despised for its behaviour on the field. It is singularly Australia.

While some minor sledging prevails outside of Australia, most sledging done by other nations is towards Australia as a reponse. Bredan McCallum took New Zealand to the next level of showing us the other cheek.

Khawaja is currently ranked 3rd best Australian Test bat by ICC. He should be in the team based on that alone. However the points I was making is that for test cricket a specialised captain with the smarts was required and that at this point we need someone who would subscribe to cultural change.

Khawaja is by far the smartest on the field and would deal with temptations to cheat appropriately; He has a great experience and success in captaining, including the Sheffield shield winning team this year and Australia A teams. I see him as a Greame Smith type captain. His cultural background, I feel would enable him to subscribe to culture change more readily.

The article is somewhat humorous optimism to open the mind of the reader. I am sorry I have failed.

Thanks for your comments.

Khawaja is the 3rd highest ranked Australian test batsmen in the ICC rankings (16), next to Smith and Warner. This may come as a surprise to you. He has the mental fortitude for test cricket, and has captained Australia at pretty much every level, U19, Australia A and Sheffield shield winners. Bye the way I do not believe he should necessarily captain the shorter forms of the game. We need a person with great brain power, maturity and a clean reputation to lead the team through the next phase.