Published: Jul 29, 2011, 11:12 AM (IST)
Edited: Apr 22, 2014, 06:32 PM (IST)
Steve Smith had an unremarkable Ashes series both with the bat and ball. He failed to pick even a single wicket in three Test matches that he played and scored a solitary half-century © AFP
By Gavin Maslen
Steve Smith has a $ 1 million a year contract from Cricket Australia, yet wasn’t even picked in a 15-man squad to tour Sri Lanka, a tour that will be heavily reliant on spin. Strange! In fact, it boggles the mind.
Michael Beer, Nathan Lyon and Trent Copeland are without contracts, yet all have been selected! Lyon finds a place in the side after just four first-class games. In fact, Lyon wasn’t even selected for the four-day games in Zimbabwe, a tour that has just finished.
These contracts were just handed out in the last month or so, so what’s changed? A tour to Zimbabwe? Surely not!
Since Warne’s retirement, Australia have played no less than 12 different spinners. Some have been tried for one or two Tests and then shafted with the old line, ‘They’re just not ready yet.’ How would anyone really know after just two Tests anyway? Doesn’t Sheffield Shield form give us some indication? And if so, how come we have to wait one or two Tests before working out if a player’s not up to it?
Come on. If they weren’t ready, surely the art of selecting is to identify this prior to picking them. I wonder whether the Australian selectors realise how intimidating it is for a young mind to know they have one or at best two games to prove themselves before they get discarded. And what type of effect ripples through the confidence of the team knowing the group is chopping and changing at the drop of a hat.
Today, former South Australian and Victorian wicket-keeper Darren Berry said the selectors now owe Nathan Lyon an extended run – the opportunity to develop at the top level. According to Berry, it’s the ‘responsibility’ of the selectors now that they’ve picked him. I agree with that.
But the selection table, led by Andrew Hilditch, remains a dog’s breakfast. So much so, it’s hard to work out the direction Australian Cricket is heading, especially in the all- important spin department.
This is the lowest ebb of Australian Cricket I’ve seen since the mid 80’s, probably worse. Back then, players such as Steve Waugh were identified as a “work in progress” and it was believed that an investment in time into these players would pay handsome dividends in the future, and that it certainly did. In fact, it was a selection decision which formed the backbone of Australia’s dominance over the rest of the world between1995 to 2007.
I cannot see, for the life of me, any form of improvement in the Australian set up until they wipe the slate clean and start again. The first point of call is with the selectors.
(Gavin Maslen is a former teammate of Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden’s at the Australian Cricket Academy. Gavin was a Queensland top order bat who retired only recently from Grade Cricket with an average of above 110. A cricketing nomad, he also flirted briefly with the idea of representing Scotland in his dotage, and played a season or two, but found it difficult to adjust his abdomen guard without being arrested for indecent exposure! He thus packed his cricketing kilts and returned to Oz to set up one of Australia’s leading mortgage companies. Though he isn’t playing actively, he still packs a punch in his opinions and insights into the game. Not for him the ‘Dil-scoops’ and ‘reverse sweeps’; he prefers playing in the ‘V’, even while commenting on the state of his beloved game. He has now taken guard for CricketCountry as the voice from Down Under)
