Tag Archives: Cricket Australia

The Ashes: Australian Squad

April 25, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , Leave a comment

Cricket Australian named its squad for the Ashes yesterday. Much has been made in the media, both traditional and social, about the make up of the squad. Pundits seem to be screaming that CA has performed a roundabout on its “Future Planning” policy. These are the same pundits who screamed when the touring party to India was named “what ever happened to winning?”. Sadly, those pundits have missed the point of this squad which will discuss below.

Let’s be clear here: I have been a strident cricket of the policy of selection of Cricket Australia over the last 12 months. I have been extremely negative about the “Future Planning” policy and even at one point declared “the day the cricket died”.

This is an Ashes squad though that I have limited negative statements to make: why? Because I think Cricket Australia have, finally, picked a team that can win!

Why do I think Australia can win? Because the squad selected is, finally, replete with players with significant experience batting in English conditions. Cowan, Rogers, Hughes and Khawaja all have experience at the top of the order in “Blighty” and, particularly in the case of Rogers and Hughes have scored mountains of runs in the conditions that Australia will face.

The sanity that has finally prevailed and seen Cummins and Maxwell NOT selected also adds to my confidence and shows me that Cricket Australia has learned from the experience of the Indian fiasco by selecting for the here and now and not the times to come.

As a side bar I find myself feeling a little bit sorry for the position that “Big Show” Maxwell finds him in: unmentioned by Inverarity in the interview as even being close to selection (cf. Henriques and Smith), not selected in the “A” squad and in India on a $1M deal but yet to play a game. If he is a “future project” player Cricket Australia needs to ensure that it circles the wagons around him to ensure he get the support he needs as he returns to state game. If you need an example of where this has not been done and the result: I present to you D Christian.

There are other things that need to fall into line for the Australian’s to win the Ashes: R Harris needs to be fit for more than 50% of the tests, J Pattinson similarly needs to stay fit and N Lyon needs to get his mojo back as he had no support.

All things considered though, I sit here feeling more confident about Australia’s chances than I have in the preceding 12 months.

It is our urn and we want it back!

Cricket Australia and Player Contracts: some thoughts

April 5, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , Leave a comment

I have been asked a few times this week about what I thought about the 20 player contracts handed out by Cricket Australia during the week for the 2013/14 calendar year. In truth, all that happened during the week though was two retirees moved to state contracts, one almost retiree was omitted and those players who had played enough during the year just gone received confirmation of the contracts they already had.

So why all of the fuss about what was really a nothing announcement? A couple of obvious statements need to be a preliminaries to this discussion:

1. All that matters in the world of central contracts is what the CA selectors think;
2. Just because you don’t have a CA contract doesn’t mean you will not play for Australia; and
3. What I think as a fan does not matter a jot to CA when it comes to contracting or any other matter.

The foregoing is clear from the events of 2012/13 and are now in the category of immutable truths.

So why comment then? Because whilst I believe that it is CA’s irrevocable right to choose whomever they want as contracted players, it strikes me that the system of central contracts is irretrievably broken and in need of a serious rethink.

Let’s take the cases of 3 players who received contracts and consider them for the reasons why:

1. Patrick Cummins: this kid has talent and speed to burn yet has still not played more than 10 first class games despite becoming a platinum frequent flyer of the back of the number of tours he has been on. He has not picked up a cricket ball in anger (certainly a red ball) during the 2012/13 season. Why then does he receive a contract? It seems he has been contracted to protect him from the evils of a Cricket NSW rehabilitation program: Pat Howard obviously thinks he can do it better!

2. Xavier Doherty: an undoubtedly talented one day bowler but is not selected for T20 cricket and we all know what happened in India. We also all know that his first class numbers just simply do not stack up to put him in the top three or maybe ever the top five red ball spin bowlers in the country. Why does he receive a contract? Because he is one of the first picked in one form of the game and because of the number of games he has played during the year he MUST receive one.

3. Mitchell Johnson: in his pomp one of the best bowlers in the world BUT his pomp was before the last Ashes series in England. Out of form, seemingly out of favour for red ball cricket, behind M Starc and erratic when he is playing and yet still qualifies for a contract because of the number of games he has played.

The foregoing examples are not meant to be attacks on the players but on the system. How a player who has not played, one who only plays well in one form and one who is a veteran but desperately out of form retain contracts is beyond me and gets me back to considering whether the system itself is fractured. When you have a moment, run your eye back over the list and tell me how many of those 20 players you think will play all three forms of the game in 2013/14? Less than half? Therein lies the problem for mine: we have split international teams with different captains and maybe it it time for a split contracting system.

My proposed system would work this way: there would be a four tiered system of playing contracts in Australia encompassing all forms of the game. The first three tiers will cover the 3 forms of cricket Australia plays in and a player can have a contract in all three tiers depending on whether CA thinks he will play in those tiers over the course of a season. A player might be in one tier or two tiers as well but regardless that player will still be centrally contracted. This may have the flow on effect of more contract players but will also have the effect of a centrally contracted player under the current system who only plays one form of the game no longer standing in the way of a three form player on the fringe who can not get a contract.

The 4th tier of contracts would be a development list or disabled list of players whom CA still wish to have under their purview whilst they recover from their ailments or if CA considers that they are not ready for the top flight yet but wants to keep its eye on them. Currently such players, Cummins has the key example, receive a central contract which means one (or more) of the central contracts are locked up by players not likely to play!

The elephant in the room on central contracting by CA also needs to be addressed: the concept of guaranteed contracts for players who have simply played enough games of cricket during the year. To paraphrase R M Hogg (via twitter) “why are we (CA) rewarding players for averaging under 35 with the bat and over 30 with the ball?” The answer is guaranteed contracts and whilst I dip my hat to the ACA and their negotiating team for getting guaranteed contracts in the cricketers ABA surely having such contracts breeds a culture of players receiving contracts who are out of form or out of favour. M Johnson I am looking directly at you!

For all of the fuss about this week’s players contracts announcements will anything change? NO! Should it? YES! Will it? The ACA holds the key to that the next time it renegotiates with CA but I can not see the ABA changing anytime soon.

So where does that leave us: well in the same place as we were before you read (and I wrote) this blog. 20 players have been contracted by CA for 2013/14 and whether we, as fans of the game, like the list or not that is the list we are stuck with.

Countdown to the Ashes: is IPL the best preparation for the Australian team?

April 3, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks, Uncategorized Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Today marks 98 days until the 1st Ashes test starts. In those next 98 days the two combatants for the Urn will be undertaking various preparatory steps with an eye on victory in the most time honoured contest in cricket.

Also during that 98 day span the annual hit and giggle, sorry T20, tournament that is the Indian Premier League will also be fought out on the sub-continent. The English and Australian teams are contributing the following players who might play in a roll in the Ashes campaign to the IPL this season:

Australia:

Ben Hilfenhaus (Chennai Super Kings)
David Warner (Delhi Daredevils)
Ryan Harris (Kings XI Punjab)
Shaun Marsh (Kings XI Punjab)
Brad Haddin (Kolkata Knight Riders)
James Pattinson (Kolkata Knight Riders)
Glenn Maxwell (Mumbai Indians)
Mitchell Johnson (Mumbai Indians)
Phil Hughes (Mumbai Indians)
Michael Clarke (Pune Warriors)
Steve Smith (Pune Warriors)
Moises Henriques (Royal Challengers Bangalore)
James Faulkner (Rajasthan Royals)
Shane Watson (Rajasthan Royals)

England:

Kevin Pietersen (Delhi Daredevils)
Eoin Morgan (Kolkata Knight Riders)

Three problems immediately come to mind when looking at the impact of the IPL on the preparations of players for the Ashes:

1. The English are not effected indeed they are probably enhanced: Simply put the English team are not effected by the imposition of the IPL on its team because of the few players they have playing in the competition. The remainder of their players will be playing in the County Championship in England and, by my count, will have the opportunity to play in no less than 15 County Championship matches as well as a three test series against New Zealand before taking to the field on June 10 at Trent Bridge.

2. Is playing T20 cricket good preparation for a test series? The IPL runs from 3 April until 26 May. Those Australian players who are committed to IPL franchises, and it is conceded there is a whole squad of them, will be in India for the whole of that time and then will travel to England (those who are selected) to play in the ICC Champions Trophy from 8 June until the final (if Australia makes it) on 23 June. The next first class or red ball game of cricket the players playing in the IPL will actually play will commence on 26 June against Somerset at Taunton. There is one first class game after that against Worcestershire at Worcester in the week following before the first test.

If the recent results in India taught Australian cricket nothing else it is the importance of the need for a solid preparation before a series. It is incomprehensible that the Australian team could be getting anything like that given the forgoing schedule. For a start the players participating in the IPL will be expected to move from Indian conditions to those of England with very limited lead time to prepare. Further, a season of hit and giggle will not prepare anyone for the seaming decks one can surmise will be produced in England. Defence with the bat will be at a premium in England and the Australian players are preparing with a competition that is focused on scoring rate not occupation of the crease.

3. Sitting on the bench in India is not good preparation either: One of the real problems that I foresee for the Australians playing in India is not that they will be playing too much cricket but too little. The IPL is replete with stories of players who are international stars or, at the very least, developing stars getting large IPL contracts and then spending the seven weeks of the tournament mixing the cordials and sitting on the pine. I see that as a real risk for players like Steve Smith, James Faulkner, Ben Hilfenhaus, Ryan Harris and James Pattinson. Rolling the arm over in the nets in India once every couple of days for seven weeks is not the kind of intense physical training one would expect these players to need in advance of the Ashes.

I concede that I am traditionalist and I am not a fan of T20 cricket. I also concede that no matter what fans like me think domestic T20 cricket is here to stay. Frankly, I do not begrudge anyone wishing the supplement their income from playing in tournaments such as this. Equally, I want to see Australia win the Ashes back in England, preferably on or about 5 August at Old Trafford (end of the third test) but I fear that, on top of the type of squad the Australian selectors are likely to name (see my blog on that topic here: https://shumpty77.com/2013/04/01/unluckiest-players-in-the-country-who-will-miss-out-on-ashes-selection-and-why-they-ought-be-there/ ), the preparation that the Australians are going through in advance of the series is giving the English an extra advantage that they do not really need.

Unluckiest players in the country: who will miss out on Ashes selection and why they ought be there!

April 1, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , 3 Comments

Recently on twitter I named a squad for Australia’s upcoming tilt at resting the Ashes from the English and returning them to their rightful home in Australia. Everyone is writing at the moment about who would be in their squad and why. I think however it is blindingly obvious that Cricket Australia will pick a fairly predictable squad that is based around the team that played in India and is in line with Cricket Australia’s seemingly long term plan to develop players for the next World Cup (G Maxwell at the top of the list).

So this blog post will be different. I am resigned to the fact that certain players will not be selected for the coming Ashes series for whatever reason. In this blog I will name 4 players I consider should be on the Ashes tour but who will not be selected by Cricket Australia and discuss why they should be in England.

First though, this is the squad of 17 I suspect Cricket Australia will take to England:

Warner
Cowan
Hughes
Watson
Clarke
Khawaja
Smith
Maxwell
Henriques
Wade
Haddin
Pattinson
Cummins
Siddle
Lyon
Starc
Bird

For what ever reason I think Cricket Australia will not be dissuaded by the disaster in India and will want to persevere with Maxwell as the second spinner in the team. Cricket Australia seem to be blind to the obvious problems with Patrick Cummins not actually playing domestic cricket and I expect them to select him. Smith did enough in India to be on the tour and I have to say: I have no real cavil with that. I am on the record that I do not think David Warner has the technique or the temperament to succeed in English conditions and nothing I have read since India convinces me otherwise however it would cost too much money for Cricket Australia not to pick him so I think he still tours.

Having named the team I think will go, here are the 4 players I think should be on the tour and are desperately unlucky not to be there:

1. James Faulkner

The best all rounder in the country will not be picked for the Ashes series because, unfathomably, the selectors seem to have at least 3 all rounders ahead of him. That rating from the selection panel belies how good this bloke is. One only needs to have seen his performance in the Shield final to understand what value he would bring to the Australian squad in English conditions.

He bats at number 8 for Tasmania and that is where I believe the all rounder the Australia team needs should be batting. He is not a “strike rate” player rather can build an innings as his vital hands in the Shield final showed. He bowls left arm swing at a fair clip. He is solid in the field.

He is in my Ashes squad because he provides a left arm swing bowling option to supplement the bowling of Pattinson and Starc. In the perfect world Watson would also be bowling so the Australians would have 4 fast bowling options in my ideal 1st test lineup.

2. Ryan Harris

I think everyone who watches the game in Australia agrees: there is no finer fast bowler in the country, when fit, that one R Harris. For all of Cricket Australia’s focus on the management of workloads of fast bowlers the one fast bowler who probably really needed such management was Harris. He was not so managed and ended up seriously injured but now is back and on the evidence of the Shield final can now bowl a significant number of overs in long stretches.

Harris is a quality right arm fast bowler who hurls it down at over 140kms an hour, has the ability to swing the ball both ways as well as bowl cutters. Harris is a lion hearted performer who will not wilt from a challenge. He is a player much in the style of Peter Siddle without the limitations that Peter Siddle often possesses. No slouch with the willow he could easily slot into the number 9 position after Faulkner.

He will not be selected because Cricket Australia is squeamish about players being hurt. Well, players that it does not consider to be “project players of the future” (Cummins is example number one) that is. He would be in my squad because he is a genuine wicket taker and has a heart the size of Phar Lap’s.

3. Chris Rogers

Rogers was not in my original squad that I named on twitter in part because I think it is more likely that the Melbourne Demons win the flag this year than he be selected in Australian colours again. That is, in my opinion, an absolute travesty.

Forget his performance in his one test match at the WACA so long ago. Forget the fact he consistently scores buckets of runs in the Shield competition. Forget his age. The fact is that since M Hussey there has not been a better performed Australian, over a period of more than one season (P Hughes I am looking at you), in the English County Championship than Chris Rogers. Rogers is an absolute run machine in England, has a strong temperament and technique for English conditions and would be an experienced addition to a young and inexperienced change room.

Rogers will not be selected on this tour because of his age and because, it would appear, he has irritated someone on high within Cricket Australia. He should be there because he is a more complete player in English conditions that one D Warner among others.

4. Steve O’Keefe

The left arm tweaker from New South Wales was given one of the poisoned chalices of domestic cricket in Australia over recent teams, the New South Wales captaincy, and handled himself with aplomb. More to the point though he is the best performed spin bowler, of any variety, in domestic cricket in Australia this summer.

O’Keefe is a strong leader, a good tweaker of the red ball and, much like R Harris, no slouch with the willow. He delivers his left arm orthodox spin with loop and flight and not the flat trajectory preferred by the Australian selectors. He has an opinion and is prepared to espouse it at almost any opportunity which also does not endear him to Inverarity, Clarke and Co.

O’Keefe should be on the plane: one only needs to look at the results England have when Swann and Panesar bowl in tandem. Lyon and O’Keefe would be as strong a spin bowling duo to go to England in the baggy green since the famed Warne and May in 1993 in my view. He won’t be selected though because he has the temerity to have an opinion and the selectors think Maxwell actually is “the big show”.

I consider these players to be the unluckiest in the country at the moment and that it is appalling that they will not be playing in the holy grail of cricket contests, the Ashes, for reasons out of their own control. Cricket Australia has a selection agenda that focuses on “project players” and, it would seem, developing a squad for the 2015 World Cup. That mantra coupled with a focus on injury management and a couple of personality clashes will see players obviously deserving of selection spending their winter either playing T20 domestic cricket in India or the West Indies or watching their favourite football team run around each weekend.

Time for some clarity: once a fan always a fan

March 6, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , Leave a comment

On the weekend I wrote about my dismay at the selections of the Australian team for the recently completed test in Hyderabad and commented that I would not be watching the Australian cricket team play until they have a team that enters the arena that I can support. That comment has raised the hackles of many and has led to the refrain of: “if you were a real fan you would support them through good and bad”.

There are two parts to that statement that require a reply: first the concept of a “real fan” and second supporting a team through the good and the bad.

Am I a “real” fan? The facts around this are clear: I revere the game of cricket and will be a fan of the game till the day my last breath leaves my lungs. I read about the game, I talk about the game, I played the game for over a decade, I have coached the game, I have umpired the game and I write about the game. If I could find a job that allowed me to work in the game I would do it in a heart beat. I think that qualifies me as a fan of the game.

Having established my qualifications, it is obviously important to answer the second part of the challenge put to me; viz, that a fan supports his or her team through the good and the bad. To that sentiment I declare a resounding retort of “BOLLOCKS” and then in parenthesis (depending on the context). Before talking about cricket, I think it is important to traverse another example from my personal experience as a sports fan that is relevant: my ongoing fandom of the Queensland Reds.

I have been a fan of Queensland Reds and rugby for nearly as long as I have revered cricket: you can not go to a “rugby school” and not end up with a soft spot for the game. I have been a fan of the Reds since I was a teenager and have maintained my support for the team through the dark days of basically the whole of the last decade (2000-2009) when the Reds made but one final. I remember vividly waking up on 6 May 2007 to hear that the Reds had lost 92-3 to the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld and I remember sitting in Lang Park with no more than 8,000 hardy souls who loved their team.

You are probably pondering: if he is prepared to stop watching a team from a sport he reveres over a selection foible then surely he must have fallen out of love with the Reds? You may be surprised to find that I still attended Reds games during the “dark decade” and still spoke out them and, indeed, defended them to all comers. So why the difference? The answer lies in the context: the Reds, in must be said, during that period had their player stocks demolished by the raiders from the West (in the Force) and the South (in the Brumbies) that saw the talent pool diminish. That said, as a fan and a reader about the game, you always knew that the best team possible was being put on the field by the selectors and that the selectors were also looking to develop young talent. Armed with that knowledge, and whilst it was not always easy, I continued to go to the games and continued to watch the Reds.

This gets me back to the current state of play with the Australian cricket team. I repeat, in case you missed it, that I revere the game of cricket and will always do so. The fact is though that I vehemently disagree with the selection of the team and, to take it one step further, do not believe that the team that is presently gracing the fields of India is the best one Australia can put out there. Nor do I believe that Cricket Australia is looking to develop young talent for the future: there is simply too much young talent sitting on the “bench”. Conversely, the young “talent” that is being pushed through is being pushed through without semblance of form.

As a fan of the game I fear that Australian cricket and the fans of the team are being done a disservice by those who run the game and the lessons learned from the mid 80s are being lost. It must be remembered that there were dual lessons that came out of the mid 80s: the first being that planning for the retirement of great players is a must and the second that if you pick young or “project” players pick them on form not on reputation. Can you imagine a player with the record of Doherty being picked for the 1985 Ashes?

It is an interesting side bar to consider that 1985 Ashes team and the teams that were selected by the ACB (as it was then) between 1985 and 1989 (when Australian won the Ashes). The 1985 team was belted: but it consisted of the form players from around the land and saw the end of some careers and the blossoming of others. Following that tour the names of Boon, Waugh and Jones started appearing on the Australian team sheets off the back of irresistible domestic form. Before anyone retorts with: it is a worse talent pool now that person needs to stop and think … “has there been a Rebel tour this year?”

I am a fan of the game and that means that I will always support the game. It also means that I have the right to make comment about the game and the teams who play it. If Cricket Australia was fielding a team that included players in form at domestic level and they still lost by an innings and 130 odd runs I would still be commenting about it but I would also know that they were building towards something. The fact is though that this is a team that appears to be selected on an ad hoc basis with a limited plan for the future and whilst I will always be a fan of the game I will not be watching the horror show that is presently playing out in India.

And that is my right as a fan: if I chose to turn off the TV does that make me any less of a fan? The answer must be a resounding no because just because I am not watching the game does not mean I am not thinking about it and yearning for a better (or at least more consistent) team.

The day the cricket died: 2 March 2013

March 2, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , 2 Comments

I have been fairly vocal on Twitter and among friends regarding the selection of the Australian cricket team for the present tour of India and the news of today from India has not sated my negative feelings in this regard.

The first bit of news of the day was that Matthew Wade had suffered a broken cheek bone but was still going to play in the present test match in Hyderabad because there is no reserve wicket keeper on tour with the Australian team. The folly of this from the Australian selections was noted at the time the squad was selected but probably not as fullthroatedly as it might have been given the issues that arose with some of the others included in said team.

For the non-cricket fans among you, this move by the Cricket Australia National Selection Panel is akin to Manchester United travelling to Barcelona for a Champions Trophy Final with only one goal keeper in the squad that travelled over. Now imagine that that goal keeper is injured the morning of the game. Pretty impossible to believe isn’t it!

The second bit of news that, it must be confessed, is the straw that broke the camels back for me was the selection of the team for the second test match now underway. In case you missed it:

1. Mitchell Starc, the pick of Australia’s bowler in the last two test matches of the Australian summer, was dropped for a part time off spinning all-rounder in Glenn Maxwell; and

2. Nathan Lyon, who has been a mainstay of the Australian attack over the last 2 years, was dropped for Xavier Doherty who has 2 first class wickets this summer at an average of 80 runs per wicket.

I have written elsewhere in this blog about who I believed ought to have been selected for this test match and I also considered all of the options for the second spin bowling spot. My views have not changed in this regard.

It is incomprehensible to me that a player, clearly in very poor form in the long form of the game, would be selected ahead of someone who toiled manfully in trying conditions with limited assistance in the first test match. Yet that is exactly what has happened with the selection of Doherty for this test match.

It will concede that I have never been a fan of Glenn Maxwell. My principal objection has been that at all stages throughout the recent Australian summer there were a number of players in better form than him who seemingly had no chance for selection because he was in the frame and the selectors consider him to be a player of the future. I remain unconvinced that he has earned his spot in the squad let alone the team ON FORM.

It is important to note that my objections here are not because I do not like either of Maxwell or Doherty. I have no rationale basis for not liking them given that I do not know them. My objection, as it has been all summer when it has come to the selection of the Australian team, rest squarely on the basis that neither player selected has shown form in the long form of the game cognisant with that which is ordinarily necessary to be considered for selection for Australia let alone actually be selected.

The time to act and stop talking has come though in part because I am sick of the aggravation I am causing myself by worrying about Australian cricket and the team that represents it. I am not watching this current test match, save for reading comments about it on twitter, and will not looking at another test match until the team that enters the arena is one selected on form that I can follow.

I know many of you will disagree with me: that is ok because the support of sport and talking about it all about personal choice. Disagree with me as much you wish but whilst doing so please respect my right to have an opinion and express it.

Rant had. Now back to the Super 15!