Even that doesn’t make sense, because financial spending by an organisation like this needs approval from certain people. This wasn’t a fuel card given to a secretary, this is millions of dollars, each transaction must have been in the thousands, that kind of money needs approval from senior management.

The implication can’t have been that it was approved by people without approval, it can only mean that those with the power to approve weren’t being properly overseen… which is therefore ultimately a failure of the upper leadership/CEO.

In this way England might actually be better than us because they actually understand how to drop players.

Do they?

That must be why Bairstow has gotten to 100 test caps despite averaging 23 this year and only averaging 31 since the start of 2023…

Or what about the captain, he’s averaging an epic 19 this year and also 31 since the start of 2023.. at least he’s scored a century in the last 18 months, unlike Bairstow.

If those blokes were Australian, all the fans on here would be calling for them to be long gone (and in Bairstow’s case, they’d be right).

So no, England don’t know how to drop players, it’s actually the opposite of their ‘back ’em 100%’ mentality.

I’ll save my response just to here Tempo, to keep the conversation trail manageable.

If we could go back in time, although most of us thought this at the time, we should never have put Smith to open. There shouldn’t have been any change if there needed to be, then Labs or Head should have made way for Green.

I have a lot of sympathy for your point that Smith has the most credits in the bank and therefore, it should be incumbent on Labs or Head to totally bat the house down to keep him out of the middle order (under my proposed line up). And to be honest, that’s probably how I’d view it; unless they both hit a few centuries and Smith stumbles around, then he’d be in and one of them would be out.

The problem is it’ll get very messy next summer, because you presume Smith will request to open for NSW, so we won’t see how he’s going in the middle order and he may stumble opening for NSW…

Your point about no one banging the door down in the Shield is something I agree with 100% and if you read my endless posts on this article, is the point I keep trying to make.

But I do very much believe that Smith shouldn’t be opening. I do also believe that Head and Labs form this summer has been modest enough that both of them should need to re-establish their credentials at the start of the summer. But even then, I’d need to see something amazing from the likes of Hardie to displace one of them (a couple of centuries to start the season by say him or another contended and a few low scores by say Head would make the case compelling).

Also, you may have misunderstood my Khawaja comment – I mean this coming summer will surely be his last (I didn’t draft that sentence particularly well and had to clarify for Gamechanger as well).

Well Anderson is 42 and opening the bowling for the Poms.

And he’s bowling fee overs, slow as hell in the field and remains terrible with the bat. In any event, I’m not sure what a single freakishly fit athlete has to do with the rest of them? There are outliers in any statistically pool.

main problem is eyesight which they are able to adjust to if aware of it.

And reflexes, it’s eyesight and reflexes. Again, a fast bowler doesn’t need ‘reflexes’ like a batsman does, they just need to keep fit and strong.

Warner could still play tests but can earn much more

Surely we all agree that Warner’s returns at test level had become so poor, it was well and truly time to go. He was averaging under 30. If we can’t find an opener to average above 30, let’s just shut the Shield won.

So who are you planning to bring in to replace Khawaja and Head/Smith/Labuschagne?

Sorry Tempo, was this meant to be directed to me?

The only change I have suggested is bringing in a proper opener instead of Smith and then sending him back to the middle order (or at least to compete for a middle order spot).

So if I were to be the selector, the line up would be something like:

Khawaja
Opener
Labuschagne
Green
Smith
Marsh

However, if Labs has a poor Shield and Head a good one, then I’d go with:

Khawaja
Opener
Smith
Green
Head
Marsh

I’ve deliberately left the opener spot open, because I’m tired of talking about Bancroft; if he’s picked, fine, otherwise, whoever else is performing as opener.

But again, I’m not sure if your comment was direct towards me because I’m not suggesting what you seem to be implying I am.

Cameron Green’s record is the kind of record that should displace an established test batsman.

This is what keeps getting missed in this conversation. We’re not building a team from scratch. We’re talking about replacing a guys with higher test averages than these blokes first class averages, in Labs case he has more test centuries than Webster had centuries fullstop.

But the age thing is relevant. At 30, a batsman is at his peak of performance. At this point, you wants to see guys scoring out of this world, and those out of these world seasons are what lifts their career average up to the sort place that suggests they can handle test cricket. The fact that despite having had a season or two of good – not great – returns, he still averages 36 suggests that he won’t succeed at test level.

The contrast with Hussey is important – to average in the 60s and 70s across multiple seasons, show that Hussey could cut it at test level.

Geoff,

Surely you’re not comparing him to Michael Hussey? In the 2005 County Cricket seasons before he was picked, Hussey scored 1,074 runs at 76 in 18 innings. From 2001 onwards, he played five successive seasons and in four out of the five seasons, he averaged over 68. He similarly demolished the Shield (not quite to that level, because Shield is harder). At 30, he had 10,000 runs under his belt easy and was averaging about 45-50 in FC cricket.

To talk about what one guy’s selection at 30 looked like and to talk about another is simply not comparable.

I’m not really sure what the Paine thing means – he’s a wicket keeper. He’s not there for his batting. I actually think if Paine had been selected earlier, he might well have been more successful with the bat across his career, as his earlier career batting was more impressive than his later career batting.

He batted 7 in the last game, both innings, so it wasn’t due to a night watchman.

He otherwise batted 6 consistently in every other innings this season, always behind either Wade or Doran.

And this is the thing, I’m not saying he didn’t have a good season, I’m not saying he is bad or whatever. But you have to ask real questions about how he’d go batting up the order for Australia, when he hasn’t even been able to score a spot above Doran or Wade in Tassie’s batting line up…

He could be in the mix for 5 or 6 – particularly the way Head has been batting lately. Green at 4 followed by Marsh at 5, Webster at 6 and Carey at 7. I could live with that.

So in this scenario is Smith still opening?

If for some reason we have to go with Webster, then yes I do think your reshuffle is probably the best way. I’d still much prefer to return Smith to the middle order and have a new opener for next summer.

Hardie has a first class average of 41.3 and McSweeney has an average of 33.9. Are they more worthy than Webster?

Well on pure career averages, Hardie’s speaks for itself against Webster’s.

The point with McSweeney is you’ve got an eye to the future, as he’s 25 and Webster is 30. Webster might well come in an have a great series if he’s in form and if that’s all we’re looking for then I guess go for it. But I’d suggest that pretty quickly his returns we’d drop off sharply, because his career to date suggests he’s not a top order, test batsman.

In contrast, McSweeney is young enough that he might be that good. Equally he might not, that’s the risk you take with picking younger, unproven batsmen.

A lot of very astute commentators of the game have said on many occasions that you shouldn’t be considered for Australia if you don’t bat in the top 4 at Shield level (all rounders excepted).

So? You’re still talking about plucking a guy with a journeyman career record who is batting down at 6-7 and putting him up the top of the Australian batting order.

At least McSweeney bats in the top four and has a youth record to fall back on.

In any event, I’m not advocating for him either. I’ve said elsewhere that my preferred line up is only to change Smith out of opener for someone else. I’d then put Smith at either 3 or 5 if Head/Labs don’t start the summer well later this year in the Shield.

For me, I’d need to see an absolutely cracking first few rounds from someone like McSweeney to want to put him over Smith for an Indian series (and Smith not have an equally good start either).

The only reason I’ve raised McSweeney, or Hardie, is purely in response to the recent comments in the last few days that Webster should be put into the team.

jamesb,

I’m happy to take back a comment, though to explain it a bit better, I meant that in the direction of the selectors, armchair or otherwise, not at the player himself.

I still stand by the overall point though; we’re looking at a guy batting at 6-7, who only has 11 FC centuries to his name at the age of 30, to accompany his 36 career batting average and we’re talking about putting him in the top order against India?

I just can’t get behind that, it just doesn’t make any sense to me. If we’re going to go down the path of picking a more ‘left field’ option, I’d prefer Hardie or even McSweeney who are likely to have far better upsides in the long run.

Geoff,

I’m not doubting his good season. He’s batted more often and I agree that his nos don’t change much this season.

But I wasn’t talking about this season, I was responding to performances in earlier seasons, such as one in which he averaged 51 and so the eye is naturally impressed.

Even in your Silk example, as a ratio of innings, Silk has less not outs, because he batted two more times. So again, this is part of the ‘advantage’ of batting down the order (among others).

I again have to ask the question; do people really think this bloke batting down at 6 or 7, behind Matty Wade, should be coming in at either first drop or even say number 5 for Australia against India?

Webster has batted at 6 or 7 this entire season, so when you say mostly at 3, are you referring to another season?

Which opener would you have put in though.

For the 2022 summer? Assuming he was fit I’d have gone with Puc. Obviously we now know that’s a no goer, but that wasn’t the overal consensus at the time, even if concerns were there.

but you have beef with one of them

Just to be clear, for like the twentieth time, I don’t have ‘beef’ with Bancroft. I wouldn’t even have a problem if they selected him at this point (or any earlier point).

What drives me batty is people pretending like he’s been particularly hard done by or that his numbers of so incredible that a failure to pick him is some how a crime. His 2022-23 season wasn’t even as good as Marcus Harris’s breakout season, it wasn’t even the mythical 1,000 run season. It was just a good season, nothing more.

I’ll admit that I’m not recalling another player nominating a date as far out as Warner had. I recall Waugh doing it at the start of the summer and then playing the India series. I recall Healy asking for a final test in Brisbane and being denied (some average bloke was picked instead). So on that front, perhaps it was ‘unprecedented’, but so what?

It’s 2023, we live in a 24 hour news cycle where these guys are constantly hounded like never before. You do it enough and you’ll get these sort of soundbites. Was anyone asking Waugh nine months earlier what his plans were? And even if they did, I bet it wasn’t done in the confrontational style we see now.

It still doesn’t prove that the selectors were somehow ‘scared’ or ‘forced’ to keep selecting him. They continued to select him through the 2019 Ashes. They kept selecting him from 2020 to 2023, despite failing consistently. The evidence suggests that if he’d said nothing, they would have kept selecting him anyway.

If we can get an opener averaging 42, he is a success.
Bancroft, averaging over 50 over the past 2/3 Shield seasons, is ready to do that…42 at least.

I agree that averaging 42 as an opener is a success and If Bancroft can average 42 as an opener in his second coming, I’ll happily eat my humble pie and hat in one sitting and be over the moon.

He’ll be 32 by the next test is what I meant.

And I have seen the ages of our recent batsmen and honestly, it’s a problem. Warner should never have played on so long. Even with Khawaja, we’re likely seeing what happens when you keep selecting a guy past 35.

Even a guy like Rogers is a good example of how hard it is to play test cricket post-35. Rogers averaged 50 at FC level over an unbelieve period of time in Australia and England, but ‘only’ aveaged 42 at test level. I am confident that if we’d just picked him in 2008 and stuck with him, he’d have averaged close to fifty across his career.

bf to Webster, he did average 42 last season and nearly accumulated 600 runs

But so what? That’s not bad, I don’t want anyone to think I don’t think he’s playing well, but that’s not impressive. Hilton Cartwright scored 600 at 42 in 2021-22 and scored two centuries, instead of just one. I’m confident he bats up the order higher than Webster too…

The issue with lower order bat’s is they get not outs. So take the 2021-22 season; Cartwright scores 600 runs across 15 innings and only a single not out.

Webster scores 361, and then you see the 51 average and go ‘wow’, but then note he only batted nine times and had two not outs, which is to be expected as he bats down the order. In FC cricket this is a bigger problem than test cricket, as the games only go for four days. In his nine innings that season he only scored 1 century and 1 fifty.

Ultimately you need to be batting up the order to be selected because otherwise we’re looking at picking a guy to face the Indian bowlers who has only ever occupied the crease for a small amount of time. Remember, until this summer, he’d scored 8 FC centuries ever…

Tufanoo, I agree with this post.

Just to be clear, I’m not against Bancroft being selected at this point, because I don’t think Smith works as an opener. But equally, I’d be comfortable with another choice too, because I don’t think Bancroft is the second coming.

This was really the point I was trying to get across; people keep making it seem like Bancroft’s numbers make his case unimpeachable and that’s just not true.

The selectors have no issue picking players in their mid 30’s for a renaissance tour if the form dictates.

But it wouldn’t be a ‘renaissance’ for Bancroft, he’s never been a success at test level. Even a comparison with Rogers is simply not on, because Rogers FC career was a behemoth compared to Bancroft’s modest record.

I think the guy was badly treated by CA back in 2018 and I recognise that he’s scored a decent amount of runs lately. But at then end of the day, he’s not really any different to Marcus Harris or a load of other recent FC batsmen for Australia; a good, solid Shield batsman, nothing more.

That’s a good 5 years at the top.

Until he’s 37? I doubt it mate…

Feel free to offer the names of young openers coming through from your state.

There’s no way I’d select either of the Queensland openers at present.

I’d select Renshaw personally, which you’ll deride and that’s okay, because I’ve derided your preferred pick. If Renshaw doesn’t make the spot his own over whatever period, then we move on, which is of course your exact feeling about Bancroft.

Any other recent season and a person scoring 900 plus runs and taking nigh on 30 wickets would be seriously considered

My issues with Webster are:

1. The wickets are irrelevant. We’re taking 20 wickets without any problems, so only his batting is relevant, not mentioned we have enough all rounders in the side;

2. He’s 30 years old and has a batting average of 36 after nine years and 80 games of first class cricket. Last season he scored only 600 runs at 42 with a single century and only two fifties. He’s a serviceable FC batsmen enjoying a good season in his peak years. In my opinion, that’s it, he’s not some hidden Michael Hussey destroying FC cricket for half a decade;

3. He doesn’t bat in the top four, he bats down the order. So you’d be asking a guy that bats in the lower order (6-7) to come out against an Indian attack at what, first drop? If the suggestion is he take Head’s spot at five, I’d be 100% more in favour of Smith taking that spot and a new opener being selected.