My word Australian cricket has been busy whilst I've been in the far north of Queensland, losing a series to India with consummate ease, allowing the Little Master to get so far in front of Ricky that he'll never catch him and just today, losing the common touch by telling Merv Hughes what a good boy he has been ... so good, in fact, that he can bugger off. This leaves four batsmen as the Australian selectors and as any bowler will tell you you, that's about the way things run in cricket. The bowlers raise a sweat and the batsmen raise their bat.
Merv's dumping was foretold in a previous blog Now That's A Good Selection and Blind Freddy would have told you he was for the chop ... all the blokes in the bar at Nobby had consensus that way but no one would think that it was through any lack of effort by the Big Maan, it's just that ... well ... he's not a batsman.
I hark back twenty years to when a youthful and fiery left arm quick by the name of Andrew McNeill stood looking out at a ground in Armidale, where, on a sunny Saturday, the captains had called play off before the cherry was removed from its wrapper because of a damp pitch. "That would right," fired of the Angry Man, "captains are always batsmen and won't play if the conditions aren't perfect. If I ever get the job, I'm going to refuse to allow my team to play if the track is flat and it 40C. Bloody batsmen!"
He did get the job and Waratahs never missed a Saturday that season.
Vale Merv. It's nothing personal.
as a bowler i too lament the attitudes of batsman captains.
ReplyDeletei have read thatsome don't seem to see the point of even representation at a selection level... "it is about picking a team as a whole," i hear. well bollocks to that, the best person to pick a bowler is...
my sights are firmly squared on the chairman though; a non to stimulating scorecard at test level shouldn't permit such Neddy-nobodies in the door; sorry, who did you marry?