Depending on your point of view, the current situation with the choosing of the Test sqaud for the Test series against Sri Lanka either shows that the National Selection Panel (NSP) of Trevor Hohns, Greg Chappell and Justin Langer are on the right track and are ensuring the best team possible is being selected while trying to avoid as much controversy as possible, or they are proving to be stumbling from one cock up to another. As always they will be judged by the performance on the field of the players they have chosen, but does the process itself come across as inept?
The selection of the squad for the Test series more than two weeks out from the 1st Test is the first case for conversation. On the face of it, this appears to have been done in order to stop talk in the media of the possible fate of the Marsh brothers in particular but of any number of others that you could mention (including Peter Handscomb’s omission), which no doubt would have dominated the airwaves throughout the ODI series if it hadn’t been done. It also allowed a ‘good news’ story to emerge to instead take most of the media airtime, in that Will Pucovski in particular had been chosen, and that both Joe Burns and Matt Renshaw were being given belated chances to re-establish themselves in the Test arena. Perhaps this tactic worked fine for the NSP. Given that Shaun Marsh and Handscomb both succeeded (relatively) in the ODI series, did the early call on the Test team save the selectors some pot shots from an eventual decision to exclude them from Test squad? The answer is probably yes. It also abbreviated any possible shaky thoughts they may have had with both of those players, perhaps saving them from second thoughts about their Test removal given their form in the white ball arena. In Marsh’s case at least, this is a good thing.
There was then the selection of the A team to play Sri Lanka in a warm up game in Tasmania, which looked to become a bat-off between the four batsmen chosen in the A team that were also chosen in the Test squad - i.e. Burns, Renshaw, Pucovski and Marnus Labuschagne. It may have appeared to the NSP as the perfect way to decide who would play in Brisbane and who would miss out on their form in the warm up game.
Then Kurtis Patterson scored a century in each innings of the warm up match, and Jake Doran a century in the first innings. Neither was in the Test squad. In fact, while they plundered the Sri Lankan bowling, the four batsmen trying to secure a place in the Test starting XI all struggled. It was a bad look and with foresight was the biggest problem the selectors faced in naming the Test team before the warm up game had been played. So, to counter this, they added Patterson to the already bloated Test squad using ‘form’ and ‘centuries’ as the base point they claim to have been using in selecting teams this season – something that, as has been mentioned before, they only appear to use when it is convenient for them (Renshaw’s selection for this squad is a perfect example of ignoring those two case points). Also, to any of the four new names added to the squad two weeks earlier, how do they feel when they are suddenly joined by another, one who now looks like leapfrogging all of them into a Test debut? Batting has not been Australia’s strength in recent times, but with eight now in the squad trying to squeeze into six positions it feels like overkill.
On top of this, Josh Hazlewood was then diagnosed with the beginning of stress fractures and was ruled out of all cricket for the foreseeable future, and was replaced by Jhye Richardson who was playing in the ODI team. And yet Chris Tremain, who was a most recent member of the Test squad without getting a game and was currently playing in the warm up match against Sri Lanka, was overlooked. It’s another off-track decision, even given that Richardson toured South Africa ten months ago. Using form as a guide, you could argue for either case. Yet Richardson looks to be on the NSP’s fast track while Tremain appears to be being strung along in a similar way that Chadd Sayers was for two years.
So where do you stand? Do you applaud the NSP decision to name a Test squad early in order to make clear that certain players are now out of the running, to announce that there will be new faces in the team for Brisbane, and yet are courageous enough to add to the squad when a player’s form demands it? Or do you think the NSP has a doddery look when players in the team they named then fail to fire in the warm up match and are exposed by one who wasn’t named in the original squad, meaning they have to accede and name him or look foolish... but look foolish for having to do so? There is a case for both arguments. To me it feels like they took a gamble, and it is one that didn’t pay off.
In once again passing over Tremain they are playing God with his career, and it feels eerily like what has happened to Sayers and Joe Mennie and countless others in recent years. Players that show great form for a 2-3 year period without getting a chance at the highest level, and are then gifted a one-off chance at a time that their previously excellent form has waned, and they are unable to produce enough for the selectors to ever try them again. While Richardson may well be brilliant in this series – and we all hope he is – surely the Brisbane wicket against a Sri Lankan team somewhat adverse to pace bowling would have been the perfect place for the tall and fast Tremain to debut. I can’t help but feel it is a massive missed opportunity by the NSP.
Patterson was the victim three years ago when he probably should have been the one to debut against South Africa in Adelaide, when instead Nic Maddinson was chosen, ironically when his best form too had waned. He appears to be the kind of player Australia is searching for, and if he gets his chance it will be interesting to see how he performs. But it exposes the unusual decision to bring Matt Renshaw back into the fold with no first-class form behind him and ignore those that have been making runs in the Shield this season, and again brings a cloud of uncertainty and suspicion about the way the NSP goes about selecting our national teams.
However, we are now at this point, and in two days time our revamped Test squad will take on an eminently weakened and shallow Sri Lankan team that under normal circumstances you would expect to be well and truly thrashed over the next two weeks. But this is not the Australia we have seen over the past two decades, and despite not possessing some of their best performers due to injury, Sri Lanka acquitted themselves well against a strong New Zealand team over the last month and will be looking to create some history of their own. Whether the NSP will be happy with the eventual outcome of the next two weeks may well also decide their own fate.
No comments:
Post a Comment