Tag Archives: cricket

Cricket Australia’s National Selection Panel: what are they thinking?

July 16, 2012 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , 1 Comment

Today Cricket Australia announced the one day international and twenty 20 squads to play Afghanistan and Pakistan in the UAE in August and September.

The squads are:

ODI Squad

Michael Clarke, David Warner, George Bailey, Daniel Christian, Xavier Doherty, Callum Ferguson, David Hussey, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Glenn Maxwell, Clint McKay, James Pattinson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Matthew Wade

T20 Squad

George Bailey, Shane Watson, Daniel Christian, Patrick Cummins, Xavier Doherty, Ben Hilfenhaus, Brad Hogg, David Hussey, Michael Hussey, Glenn Maxwell, Clint McKay, Mitchell Starc, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Cameron White.

Anyone following me on twitter (@shumpty77), will have seen my concerns (or maybe rants) about some of the selections made today.  Those concerns have only grown stronger throughout the day.

That said, first it must be noted that there are some obvious positives to arise in the selections made today including:

  1. The inclusion of Callum Ferguson in the ODI squad is a reward for form in domestic cricket, particularly in the last series of the Ryobi Cup.  To come back from the injuries that he has had is a credit to him.
  2. The return of Cameron White to the Twenty20 squad is a reward for his excellent form in IPL and in the Friends Lift T20 in England
  3. Daniel Christian’s elevation to the ODI squad gives the line up flexibility from one of the form players of the Australian domestic summer.  Frankly, his inclusion is righting the selection wrong that was his non-inclusion in the squad to tour England in June.

The positives out of the way, I again find myself perplexed about some of the selections made and, possibly more to the point, not made. I will deal with each in turn.

Glenn Who?

The big news story surrounding the announcement of the squads is the inclusion of Glenn Maxwell in both.  That is a good enough place to start with my concerns.  I am absolutely prepared to concede that Maxwell has been in good form with the willow in the English T20 competition and there can be no doubt that he hits a long ball.  That having been said I am not convinced there is any need for the inclusion of another offspin bowling allrounder in the squad for either form of the game.  Both squads include the name D Hussey who projects as the off spinning allrounder that makes the side.  That being the case why do we need to blood Maxwell given that he is unlikely to play either in this series or in the World T20 Championship that follows the tour.

Further, I can not understand Maxwell’s inclusion in the ODI squad on form.  In last season’s Ryobi Cup Maxwell scored some 74 runs at an average of 15 runs per innings and took 6 wickets at an average of 42 per wicket.  That can hardly be considered the form of a player pressing for selection in his national team.

The Johnson Imposition: what does a young bowler have to do?  

The selection of Mitchell Johnson continues to cause heads to shake among the cricket fans of this country.  He was taken to England and could not fight his way into the ODI team despite P Cummins returning home injured.  In his one game he bowled 7 overs, gave up 43 runs and bowled 4 wides and 2 no balls.  He is not the force that he was even two years ago and it appears that the problems he is having remain mostly between his ears.  I would have thought he would be a player that would benefit from a full season in domestic cricket in Australia to see if he gets his form back before sending him back on tour with the national team.

The corallory of this is that there are plenty of high class bowlers who performed in the 2011/12 Ryobi Cup.  A McDermott was one of the revelations of the tournament taking 16 wickets at 18.87 in seven games.  J Faulkner took 14 wickets at 29.71 as well as scoring runs.  J Haberfield took 14 wickets at 18.50.  If the one days series’ that Australia are playing between now and the Champions Trophy in June 2013 are designed to build a team for that tournament and towards the next World Cup then surely Johnson must have been left out and one of these three young bowlers given an opportunity to perform at the top level. 

The Smith conundrum: bad for balance

The batting scapegoat for the failure of the Australian team in the series in England appears to have been Peter Forrest whilst Steve Smith inexplicably survives again.  I appreciate that Forrest had an ordinary tour but so did Smith and when it became necessary to try and fix the balance of the team it was Smith that found himself on the outer.  Additionally, I just can not see him playing in any of the ODIs because a team picked from the squad as announced presents as best balanced when Smith along with Maxwell, Johnson and Ferguson are mixing the cordials. 

If a reserve batsman needed to be picked in addition to Ferguson it is obvious that Rob Quiney should have been selected in the ODI squad in the place of Smith.  He has been the form batsman in all forms of the game in Australia and could open the batting if the selectors are looking for an alternative to the Wade / Warner combination.  Opposers of this will say that Smith’s bowling is an added string to his bow that places him ahead of Quiney but both from the perspective that the balance of side is better if Quiney is included and because Smith’s bowling has been mediocre at best that argument is without substance.  

What ever happened to T Birt?

Travis Birt was the form batsman of the KFC Big Bash last summer scoring 345 runs at an average of 43.12 and a strike rate of 168.29.  He also hit some of the biggest sixes one anyone is ever likely to see.  His batting presents as the blue print of the belligerent batsman Australia has been sorely lacking in the middle order in T20 matches.  Despite being picked up by the Dehli Daredevils for IPL5 he was not selected to play a game.  The only basis I can think of for his non-selection must be that he has not recently played the short form of the day.  That or he is injured and I have not seen a report about it.  Otherwise his non-selection seems to be inexplicable.

The selection of injured players: when will we learn?

Yet again the National Selection Panel have deigned to select players who are injured in Cummins and Watson without first testing them in domestic cricket.  I am on the record as being vehemently against this and again I can not agree with the logic of selecting, particular Cummins, for these games.  They were injured badly enough to come home from England and seem to be regularly injured.  That fact seems to me to be enough to warrant easing them back into the international game through domestic cricket in Australia.

Surely it must be better for Australian cricket noting the coming test series against the South Africans and the Ashes for Cummins and Watson to be given time to heal and to get match hardened in the longer form of the game rather than participating in the T20 hit and giggle fest to come in Sri Lanka.  It would seem to me that there is everything to lose and nothing to gain by both player’s participation in this series.

Ultimately, it is apt to note that selectors have a tough job and no doubt they consider that they have got the selection of these squads correct.  I respectfully disagree.

What do you think?

Shumpty

Cricket’s Decision Review System: a time for change?

June 26, 2012 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , , 2 Comments

The Decision Review System (DRS) is again in the press this week after the International Cricket Council’s Chief Executives Committee (CEC) meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

The CEC recommended to the Board of the ICC that the DRS system be universally applied and be mandatory for all Tests and One Day Internationals.  An important caveat was put the “mandatory” usage of this technology in that its usage is “subject to the Members’ ability to finance and obtain the required technology”.

Before wading into this debate, it is important to establish some key factual matters:

  1. The DRS is presently used when both combatants agree to its usage.
  2. The Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI) has consistently declined to agree to DRS being used in fixtures it’s team is involved in.
  3. Presently, the Sri Lankan Cricket Board can not afford to use DRS technology and thus the present Sri Lanka v Pakistan Test Series being played in Sri Lanka is going without it.
  4. The current system for referrals to DRS sees each side have the opportunity to refer an unlimited amount of decisions of the umpires until they get two referrals incorrect.

The decision of the ICC CEC is obviously a step forward for cricket and the efforts of the CEC ought be acknowledged with acclamation.  The problem is: the decision does not mean anything will change.  There are two reasons for this:

  1. The BCCI have, since the announcement of the CEC’s recommendation and consistent with their previous practice, shown significant reticence to accept the use of the DRS technology in any form.
  2. There are cricket boards of control who simply can not afford the technology which means we will still see series occur where the technology will not be used.

I should declare here that I have no cavil with the BCCI using its power in world cricket to shape the game the way they wish it to be played.  Simply put, the present state of affairs is nothing different to when the MCC ran the game from Lords and the cards were stacked heavily in favour in the anglo-saxon teams.  Whilst I would prefer that a decision was made in the interests of the game rather than one particular team, they have earned the right, through the dollars that they bring to the game, to act in their own interests.

One issue that I am not fully across is why it is the each member board that is required to go to the expense of supplying DRS technology.  I would have thought it would be a natural extension of the ICC CEC’s recommendation that the ICC would foot the bill for making the technology available.  That issue is, perhaps, a topic for further exploration in a later post.

The fact remains though that we, as cricket fans, are likely to be in the same position as we were last year when it comes to the usage or otherwise of DRS technology despite the ICC CEC’s recommendation. 

That being the case, I have had pause to consider how the technology is actually used.  It seems to me that now is a time, whilst the use of the technology can only be considered to be experimental (given it’s semi regular use), to, on the one hand to ponder whether we ought be using the technology at all and, on the other hand, whether the technology could be used in a better fashion.

A regular theme of my writing on this blog has been the question of respecting match officials. The advent of the technology that lead to the introduction of DRS has been the catalyst for cricket officials being under more scrutiny than they ever have before.  Pre-DRS for every wicket there was 10 minutes of analysis of whether the umpire had gotten the decision correct.  This fact of itself it must be said has seen a diminution of the maxim “the umpire is always right” to the point that, on the question of no balls for example, we are increasingly seeing the umpires themselves questioning their own decisions. 

When I started writing this piece, my central premise was that if we could not have DRS everywhere because of financial constraints then the ICC board should decide to ban its use.  However on reflection and as my ideas have formed on the page I think that premise and argument is mistaken.  Removing the technology on a blanket basis will not stop the scrutiny on umpires nor the questioning of their decisions.  Indeed, if the present series in Sri Lanka is anything to go by, the questioning of umpires and their decisions will only increase in a non-DRS environment. That being the case, I am of the view that DRS should be used where it is available.

The question remains then as to how DRS ought be used.  The current system, being that the captain of each team can challenge the decisions of the umpires, is the epitome of failing to respect the decision of the umpire.  Simply put, I do not like it and I do not think it is good for the game.  The use of the technology ought not be at the election of the captains of either side. 

An option oft suggested is that DRS should be engaged in a review of each decision made on the field.  I do not agree with this for two reasons:

  1. A review of every decision will already make a day of cricket longer than it needs to be.  The long form of the game is facing challenges from many angles internal and external for viewership and extending play even longer will not make the game more popular.
  2. It is a very short step from a review of every decision to there not being umpires on the field at all. 

It strikes me that the best system has to be one that rests the control of the use of DRS technology in the hands of the umpires themselves.  Much like the system used for the Television Match Official in rugby league and rugby union, in the system for using DRS that I envisage the first port of call for any decision would be with the umpire however if the umpire is not sure then he can call for assistance.  In my DRS utopia, the umpire would have three decisions available to him:

  1. Give the batsman out;
  2. Give the batsman not out; and
  3. Refer the decision to the TMO.

I consider that having the umpire make the decision and then refer it only leads to more confusion and questioning of umpires particularly if the umpire’s decision on review is reversed.  If the umpire’s decision to refer forms one of the three decisions that can be made then the prospect of an umpire being overruled fades away.  If a referral is made it would then be solely the province of the TMO going on all the evidence he has available to him to make the decision.  

For example, it is a breezy day at the Gabba for day one of the 2014 Ashes: there is a packed house as fans are desperate to see whether England can compete with Australia having been beaten 5-0 in the 2013 series.  The first ball is bowled to Alistair Cook by Pat Cummins and whilst the umpire hears no noise the ball deviates after it passes the bat and a raucous appeal follows.  The umpire’s immediate thought would be (and for anyone wondering I have been an umpire at sub-district and school level) that there is doubt because he did not hear a sound.  If the umpire has the ability to refer the decision to the TMO he does it immediately WITHOUT making a decision because that doubt means he can not be certain Cooke hit it.   The TMO then makes the decision.

This is the system that the cricket authorities should be trialing whilst DRS technology is not available in every test playing country.  It is more equitable to all concerned and does not lead to captains of cricket teams being openly in conflict with the umpires who are supposed to govern how a game is run once the players enter the arena. 

All things being considered then it is my view that there is now an opportunity for the authorities to change the way DRS is used to make it both more effective and more respectful to those officiating the matches.  I have no doubt that they will not try using the system this way but one can only continue to hope that one day the interests of all stakeholders (including the umpires whose interests are so regularly kept out of the debate) will be considered in the great DRS debate.

Cricket Australia announces 2012/13 contract list: an emphasis on test cricket apparently

June 22, 2012 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

Today Cricket Australia announced the list of centrally contracted players for the coming summber (2012/13).  The following are those who received contracts:

Michael Clarke, Patrick Cummins, Xavier Doherty, Brad Haddin, Ryan Harris, Ben Hilfenhaus, David Hussey, Mike Hussey, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Johnson, James Pattinson, Ricky Ponting, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Shane Watson.

The move to reduce the contracted player numbers to 17 players and to, based on the Argus Report, focus on test cricket is something I wholeheartedly support.  I am not sure however that the new contract list does that though.

The glaring inclusion in the list is that of Mitchell Johnson.  Based on form over at least the last 12 months of test cricket he has played and in his return to first class cricket after his toe injury he surely can not be Australia’s top 17 players available for test match selection.  On the assumption that our test team will only ever include 3 fast bowlers, I can not imagine that he is ahead of any of Cummins, Harris, Hilfenhaus, Pattinson, Siddle or Starc on form and, indeed, recent reputation.

I am also surprised that Doherty has received a contract.  Based on recent selections he is behind both Lyon and Beer in the spin bowling pecking order.  Indeed he has a bowler ahead of him based on test squad selections, in the form of Beer, who bowls in precisely the same fashion as he does.  This is a strange inclusion if test cricket is your focus.

I have made much on twitter about Cowan’s exclusion however I confess that I can see the logic in not including him based on his form to date.  Equally, I would have though that if Cricket Australia considers him important enough to the Australian set up to make him captain of the Australian A team touring England this winter, they really should have thought him within the core of Australian players who received a contract.   Could it be that the plan is for Watson to open with Warner in the Ashes?

I will be interested to see if David Hussey’s inclusion in the contract list means he is the next in line for a test match spot.  I would find it surprising if that is the case with calibre of young batsmen waiting in the wings.  Shaun Marsh seems to have done himself out of the running after his troubles in the Border-Gavasker Trophy.  That said, Peter Forrest has done everything asked of him and was in the squad for the Frank Worrell Trophy whilst Liam Davis, Tom Cooper and Bob Quiney set the Sheffield Shield alight last summer.  If our next test batsmen is supposed to come from the contract list then the selectors have missed the mark.

I should say here that I do not dispute that players in other forms of the game ought also be recognised and receive recompense for their services.  In the context however of an alleged focus on test cricket from Cricket Australia in these contracts then players who are specialist short form players seem out of place.

A final comment: the Sheffield Shield champions from last year have only managed to have one player considered in the top 17 players in the country.  If nothing else that much show that the days of the Sheffield Shield and form shown in domestic cricket being the principal basis for selection in Australia’s national squad are fast disappearing.

Shumpty Punts: the weekend sport’s multi

June 22, 2012 By in Shumpty's Punt Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Another exciting weekend of sport awaits us and for something different this week I am going to try and pick for readers a multi bet that should lead to a handsome return.  Earlier editions of Shumpty’s Punt have been met with some comment about the inappropriateness of glorifying gambling.  I do not write this blog to specifically offend people and I apologise if I do.  Equally if you not a punting fan, I suggest you exercise your right to choose and decline to read any further into this post.

That now said, onto this weekends action and the weekend multi.  All prices quoted are from sportsbet.com.au.

We will start with tonight’s AFL fixture between the Swans and Cats at the SCG.  This game is the match of the round for mine and features two sides coming off a bye.  The Swans have the best percentage in the AFL whilst the Cats have struggled for peak form all year.  I am leaning towards the Swans in this one in front of their home fans in what presents as a tight tussle.

Swans by 1-39 ($2.25)

Later on Friday evening England host the West Indies in the third one day match of their ongoing series.  Whilst I am often loath to bet on the shorter forms of cricket for obvious reasons, I like England here to continue their domination of the West Indies despite the return of that man Gayle.

England to win ($1.70)

For the third leg of the multi attention turns to the Australia v Wales Rugby Union clash at the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday afternoon.  So far this series has involved some excellent and tight rugby from both sides with the Wallabies stealing a victory in Melbourne last week.  With the Welsh coming to the end of a longish tour and the Wallabies injecting new blood in the form of Kurtley Beale I expect the Wallabies to prevail again here in what again could end up a close score line.

Australia by 1-12 ($2.60)

In the interests of not getting too greedy I will limit the multi this week to four legs and for this the fourth and last leg I have found a little bit of value in the Formula 1 race from Valencia.  This F1 year has been a nightmare for tipsters with seven different winners from seven races.  That being the case I am going to avoid tipping a winner and tip Sergio Perez from the Sauber team to finish in the points (Top 10).  Aside from one DNF in Spain Perez has been one of the most consistent drivers in the paddock and I expect him to again pilot his Sauber machine into the points.

Perez in the Top 10 ($1.72)

All up this multi if it gets up will pay $17.11 for each dollar you place on it.  I have gone with $25 for my investment.

Outside of the multi, I have decided to round out my bets this weekend with a bet on the Sonoma Toyota/Save Mart 350 (NASCAR).  This is a road circuit and Australian Marcus Ambrose is the raging favourite to win his first race of the year in this race.  Anything can happen in these races but at $4.50 I consider Ambrose excellent value and will be placing some of my hard earned on him.

Good luck for anyone having a punt this weekend and as always if you don’t have the cash to spare don’t bet: it is simple really.

What ever happened to “the umpire’s always right”? A sports fan’s lament

June 4, 2012 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , , , , 5 Comments

The question of the treatment of match officials is one that has been firmly on the lips of many in recent weeks given the seemingly many and regular displays of petulance we have seen from the stars of many sports. It seems, based on the evidence before me, that respect for match officials in sport in general is at an all time low.

Pondering this issue over the last couple of days the thought that kept coming back to me was the question “what happened to the umpire is always right?”. As I recall childhood spent trundling medium pacers and standing at fine leg / second base in summer and kicking balls of various shapes in winter, the only rule that as young participants in sport that was drummed into us other than “have fun”: was that the umpire / referee was always right.

Indeed, as I, and a sampler of friends from those many moons ago, recall it the rule went something like “even when the umpire is wrong he is always right” and it had a punishment for breaking it that involved a clip over the ear from a parent and a sit on the sidelines the next game.

On the premise of what sports fans have all witnessed over the last couple of weeks across many codes either the rule that we all played by as kids in my generation was not pressed on professional sportsmen when they were kids OR something has happened that has changed the kids running around the local sports grounds into the petulant performers that grace our screens on a regular basis.

It is important to stop at this juncture and briefly examine what I am complaining about here. Obviously I watch a lot of sport and these are the things that I have seen that have concerned me in just the last month:

1. The regular habit of dummy halfs in rugby league throwing their hands up in disgust at seemingly every play of the ball that takes one second longer than they think is appropriate.

2. The regular habit of rugby league and rugby union teams who are waiting for a decision by the television match official to walk back to their own half in anticipation of a try being awarded.

3. The claiming of catches by fielders in the slips in test matches were the fielder could not possibly think they have caught the catch.

4. The captains of teams in both rugby codes regularly and vociferously questioning any call that they consider to have gone against their team. Such questioning now seems to, as par for the course, include swearing.

5. Tennis players questioning every call in an attempt to keep themselves in the game during an obvious losing cause.

Such behaviour appeared to reach its epoch in the first State of Origin game where the captain of the New South Wales team had a running battle with referees and was heard to quip “this is your first State of Origin isn’t it? You can tell” among other choice lines.

Put simply: there is not a game of sport that one watches these days in which such questioning of the match officials is not seen.

Now I acknowledge that the business of sport is big business these days and I also acknowledge that never have players whilst they are on the field been under more scrutiny with the advent of microphones on referees lapels and cameras focused on every facial expression of the players. These competing interests mean that on the one hand it might be said that a wrong decision can have a bigger effect on the team that the decision goes against and on the other hand we as fans get to hear and see more of the interactions between players and officials.

That said, I actually do not care what excuses players and codes might roll out to defend player behaviour in this regard because it is clear to me that changes need to be made. This was really sheeted home to me when my father told me anecdotally about running the line in my nephews under 7 rugby league recently. He (my dad) was shocked when one of the combatants quipped to him after one call “you aren’t doing us any favours are you”. The kid was seven.

If this is what our future stars think is appropriate conduct (and I know my sample size is small) then now is the time to do something about it.

Trying to get back to the rule that the match official is always right seems to me to be an appropriate starting point for the codes that are presently in the news on this issue and the only way that it seems to me that that “golden” rule is going to return to the games we love is for there to be strict punishments for breaching the rule.

Some sports deal with this well. In baseball, if you show dissent you are thrown out of the game; regardless of the state of the game and the position the player / coach holds. In cricket, players who dissent (and this includes the simple act of lingering after a decision is made and looking at the umpire) are punished on a sliding scale that runs from fines through to bans.

Conversely, other sports such as rugby league seem to treat the problem by resting the blame with the match officials themselves. This is simply not good enough.

Whilst I do not advocate a baseball style removal from the game for dissenters in all sport, it seems to me that that is nearly the point we have reached in order to bring the players back into line.

Sport is already playing a losing battle with video games, tablets and junk food and does not need the future generations (and their parents) to be put off by the poor conduct of the stars of the game. Sport also does not sports fans to turn off their TVs and stop watching because they simply can not stomach the whinging any more. Perhaps now is the time for serious action to be taken.

Until such action is taken (and I doubt it ever will), sports fans such as I are left with the continuing lament about the decline of the rule “the umpire is alway right” and our fingers lingering over the off buttons of our remote controls.