Everyone associated with Australian cricket for the last twenty years has grown fat on success - specifically, the success that the visionary Chairman of Selectors, Lawrie Sawle, created for Australia through expert planning with its accent on fast tracking youth and a mindful and patient selection policy.
All of us, so used to winning, lost the plot around the time Adam Gilchrist was controversily chosen to debut in Ian Healy's home town of Brisbane. From there, we simply burned the logs in the fire and didn't look after our re-supplies. For God's sake, we even renamed the Sheffield Shield for a while!
This summer, we began to pay the piper for real, with a resounding loss not just to a better team but a better organisation.
There were signs we might be thinking on getting back in control of our cricket destiny, such as the review of the Ashes loss with its high powered corporates and the creme de la creme of Australia's on field thinkers from that successful period. Signs, that is, until today and most likely, tomorrrow. Today, our worst captain since Graham Yallop retired with the by far the best statistical record of anyone who has occupied the job. However, with his batting average declining (Tests and ODI's), two Test hundreds in twenty four months and an average since Cardiff '09 just under 39, he plans to bat on in the side, convinced the selectors will agree he is still one of our top six.
Tomorrow, they will agree with him and place a boarding pass in his hand for Bangladesh and they will hand the most poisoned of chalices to Michael Clark. Most of Australia don't believe he can do the job, with the Sydney Morning Herald hosting a poll that is 76% against him and Metro Man is one of their own. His own words during the last Sydney Test said as much. Now, he'll have to start making decisions with Poopy Pants biting his cuticles and scratching his testicles far enough away that his dinky pinky is safe but never far enough from Clarke that his opinion will not be obvious.
Only one of the 43 men who have been Captain of Australia have voluntarily stood down and continued in the team with success. Some, like the afore mentioned Yallop, Kim Hughes and others have been dropped from the role. Hughes had a turn at both, resigning awash and then playing two more games under Border for 0, 2, 0, 0 and the being dropped for the England tour of 1985, hearing a rebell yell and never wearing the Baggy Green again. The one was Ian Chappell, who played for two seasons under his brother Greg, split by the two years he returned to captain Australia in WSC. He was younger than Ponting and in much better form.
To rebuild, new thoughts have to actioned. Looking at our stocks, both in and out of the team, captains don't jump out at you, save but for one possibility. Shane Watson has the cricketing skill and has shown enough nous, that he might make a fine leader ... but not yet. So, if Lango was asked to joyously move into the Chairman of Selectors role, this is what I'd do.
Appoint Simon Katich as skipper. He has a fine record in state cricket and is good enough to hold his spot. He understands spinners and for the Australian ship to be sailing on blue water, we need at least one good 'un. Preferably a legspinner. Tell Katich he has two Australian summers in the job and then his deputy will assume the role. Appoint Watson as vice captain and give him things to do ... real on the job training.
Remove the dead wood (Ponting & Johnson would be two). Bring in young players with talent and stick with a squad of 16. Put importance back on the Shield and have the Test men playing, not resting from state duties. Reduce the one day games to short series. Make the the domestic one day and Twenty20 games knockout, not rounds. Less games will mean bigger crowds, not smaller. Make players more accountable for their actions by suspending , not fining them. Bet those indescretions won't happen twice. Reduce the emphasis from marketing to success and the marketing will take care of itself. Make the selectors roles fulltime, paid positions and make attendance by at least one of the selectors compulsory at state age carnivals and country championships so we identify talent earlier, just like Lawrie Sawle did.
As a guide to the selectors, the fiasco that is the non selection of Brad Hodge at any level for Australia in the past two seasons should never happen again. Australia has wasted his talent for absolutely zero gain. As his attitude was questioned he just continued to score runs on any paddock Victoria let him loose on, whilst Australian teams at Twenty20, ODI and Test level have gone from worse to worst.
Just for once, it would be refreshing if new ideas got the ear of the Happy Hooker and his Three Wise Men.
Like you, I hold little hope they will.
Lango, I agree with the bases of your argument. Of course it will not happen. The postion they have put Clarke in assuming he gets the nod is poor at best. Seems to me that Ponting got the tap on the shoulder but refused to go so instead of sacking him the gutless administrators came up with an ordinary compromise. Why would Ponting want to go to Bangladesh. Again I yell into the wind, "put Watson at six". Hughes in my view has the mettle to open at Test Level, he needs to keep working on shot selection, and he loves the baggy green. Bat Kawaja at 3, Hussey 4 Clarke 5 Watson 6 Haddon 7, then tell every wanabe Hussey's spot is up for grabs when the time is right. The only problem is the four lefties in a row. I am a huge fan of Cosgrove however he really needs to lose 15 kilo's, but we have a bunch of kids who have the potential.
ReplyDeleteIn my view the blooper of the summer was the treatment of Hauritz. May well have cost us as much as a spot in the World Cup final as our spinners were infertile, ( Smith is a big work in progress). He may well have added some valuable and quick runs down the order.
does clarke look like a contemporary version of kim hughes?
ReplyDeletei am sure he is in touch with himself enough to cry on national tv...
Kim Hughes was a conflicted personality and a scapegoat set up by WSC players, officials and the media. He had suffered bullying within his own team for West Australia when the WSC players returned, mostly because they wanted their man as skipper of Australia. He wore his Baggy Green with enormous pride and after finally captaining Greg Chappell in a succesful home series, the West Indies devastated his teams home and away in successive series with Hughes at the helm. His breakdown had much to do with the bullying and intimidation the West Indies and the WSC player bought to bear on him. He was a better captain than many who have done the job, including Yallop, Ponting and Simpson. The reason most blokes ridicule Hughes for his tears is because they know, under similiar circumstances they might do the same. If we mock, we convince ourselves we are not as vulnerable.
ReplyDeleteAs for Clarke, he's a tad too cool and laid back but all men have breaking points. He got close in Adelaide when he played a bad shot on stumps after battling all day. The modern cricketer has a lot more support than Hughes, who suffered greatly from swings in mood made far worse by the years of pressure following WSC's end. Today, players are largely shielded after bad days.
I have always found Kim Hughes a tragic figure, not a comic one. There but for the grace of God go I ...
i just like to go on record & state that kim hughes was a childhood hero of mine & i am aware of the pressure he was under at the time, as well as concur with peter that it does take more of a man too express emotions openly & honestly.
ReplyDeletei see the similarities between huges & clarke as such: young, blonde, talented & taking control of a team after one of australias' most successful cricketer's with senior players/'legends' retired & retiring... i also think clarke fits the mould of the modern day 'metrosexual' & is bound to shed a tear or two (possibly on the advice of celebrity agent max markson too enhance his public image...) @ somepoint in the next few years in what i forsee as a difficult & frustrating time for australian cricket