Australian spinners - graphicalized!

Man, Nathan Lyon can get hit. But comparisons to Tim May don't do him any justice, as the chart above demonstrates.

You know who Nathan Lyon does compare to? His near-immediate predecessor in the Australian team, Nathan Hauritz. In fact, it's so similar, it's disconcerting...

Relative merits, great Australian Test bowlers

Following on from our chart yesterday, here's one about Australia. It effectively demonstrates the quality of Dennis Lillee and Glenn McGrath as world-beaters while also establishing Mitchell Johnson as the wicket-taking phenom he has been over the past two years.

Given the different era in which he played, Ray Lindwall fared very well while the dearly departed Richie Benaud's (a strike-rate nearly 10% worse than any other Aussie bowler to take 200 wickets) perhaps comes out worst, despite his outstanding record.

The curious case of world cricket, perspective and Sir Curtly Ambrose

Perspective is a funny thing. A respected older friend once told me “Your perspective is your reality”; it’s an adage I’ve often tried to fault without ever managing to do so.

While listening to Subash Jayaraman’s excellent interview with Sir Curtly Ambrose, I was struck by one of Sir Curtly’s remarks about his series mirabilis, the 1992-93 five-Test stoush away against the upstart Australians.

“We were a young team; we were not expected to win”.

Sir Curtly’s reasoning is logical, in a way: the Undisputed Champs had a new captain in Richie Richardson and the team’s middle order had played in a combined 43 Tests, with Carl Hooper having the vast majority of those (33).

That doesn’t make his statement any less stunning to much of his audience, because while Australia had some victories under their belts against India at home and, with the first glimpses of Warne-spun mastery, away in Sri Lanka, this hardly gave them a claim to the title of World’s Best.

While Viv Richards and Gordon Greenidge had retired, the West Indies of 1992 had last lost a series in 1980 and had conceded only 7 of 34 Tests – never more than one in a series – since Ambrose’s debut in April 1988. But Sir Curtly’s interview tells of an interior perception of a team not expected to win.

This is somewhat odd, because the Australian crowd expected nothing else. The locals were talented and might put up a fight, but victory for the home side was nestled in next to a Geelong Premiership and dating Elizabeth Berkley in the most teen of dreams. Our perception of the West Indies was of an implacable machine, a viewpoint reinforced when Keith Arthurton made the highest score of his career in the first innings of the first Test.

Local perceptions formed our reality – the West Indies were coming and they would almost certainly win. How could two viewpoints on the same series be at such crossed purposes? The answer is relatively straighforward: a unique perspective narrows the visual field, for better and worse. What is gained in the detail is lost in the scope.

As heralded best (amongst others) by the documentary Fire in Babylon, the West Indies began life as a handful of colonies who existed almost solely to be taken advantage of. It took independence for these colonies to really coalesce around an oval and some of the best players of all time waged private battles against against racism and imperialism, not just intimidating their cricketing opponents but demoralizing them. While the forefathers of that revolution had moved on, their progeny – Richardson, Ambrose, Walsh, Bishop, Haynes and Lara – remained.

The West Indies of 1992 thought of themselves as underdogs because forty years of being enjoyable non-threats (to 1975-76) had taught them how to be exactly not that.

To outsiders, in no way should the West Indians have been anything other than favourites – if only due to the mental barriers faced by Aussies still scarred from years of Marshall, Garner, Colin Croft, Holding, Walsh, Roberts, Ambrose and Patrick Patterson. The tourists were still a generation influenced heavily by revolutionaries like Sir Frank Worrell, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Clive Lloyd and Sir Vivian Richards; their self-perception was of a team that would continue fighting because otherwise they once again risked being marginalized by the actions of cricket’s off-field establishment.

Australians knew nothing of the financial climate in the West Indies. Nor were we aware of the difficulties faced by many – or most – of our vanquishers, such that cricket was only a route to a comfortable lifestyle for those who managed to secure major sponsors or County deals.

Our perception – bouncers fired in at 155 clicks and Viv swatting Tony Dodemaide for six (again) – meant antipodean audiences could see only a small fraction of the macroeconomic picture. For generations, the West Indies knew nothing but being entertainers. For nearly twenty years, the Australians could only couple this particular set of opponents with impending defeat.

Twenty-one years later, and we can begin to reconcile these opposing perspectives. Both viewpoints are still absolutely valid; if swayed a little by the Kenobi principle (“What I told you was true. From a certain point of view”). Even though world cricket is still plagued by nepotism and self-interest that threatens to further marginalize boards such as the West Indies, the accessibility of information has never been greater and as such we have more facility to appreciate the situations of our rivals. Unfortunately cricket’s never been really good at that.

More reading: My Favourite Cricketer: Curtly Ambrose

Sam Robson - Australia's "What If"

At first glance, Sam Robson has the pedigree for international success: he was raised in New South Wales and monstered county attacks for years before getting a Test call-up.

Only it was for England.

In his second Test – the deciding match of the series against Sri Lanka that concluded dramatically today – Robson made his maiden Test ton, an unspectacular but very interesting 127.

The ECB deploying cricketers born overseas is hardly new*. The ranks of proxy Englishmen have swelled even recently as players from five countries turned out for the Three Lions in the series defeat by the Sri Lankans. Even poaching Aussies isn’t a new one; however, the biggest difference between Sam Robson and Martin McCague (or Alan Mullally, ad infinitum) is that Australia desperately wanted him in a Baggy Green.

Reflecting on the Socceroos' 30-man squad

Most suspected that Australia manager Ange Postecoglou would select a young side for the upcoming World Cup, but few perhaps were able to envisage the aspect of the 2014 Socceroos.

There are only a few readily recognizable faces in the squad, with Postecoglou true to his word in selecting ten players of his initial 30 from the A-League. As expected, there was no room for longstanding captain and lightning rod Lucas Neill, while the recent international exiles of Emerton, Holman, Schwarzer and Ognenovski mean the Aussies will fill their gold kits with an almost patriotically green squad.

Five Socceroos survive from Australia’s watershed 2006 campaign – Luke Wilkshire, Joshua Kennedy, Tim Cahill, Mark Milligan and Mark Bresciano – and they will be expected to provide most of the veteran professionalism required to extract the best from a group described best as youthful and perhaps even naïve.

Asia’s brotherhood of ageing bruisers are now no more than a bolded entry in gilt-edged history books. Australia is looking to the future with a special focus not on the 2014 World Cup but on success at next year’s home Asian Cup.

Bresciano, resident Old Man
courtesy: en.wikipedia.org

Pete Smith suggests this squad is nothing if not fresh and links to the Golden era of Socceroo football all but gone. Postecoglou has opted for dynamism and exuberance – especially in defensive positions – and a squad unjaded by long exposure commuting globally to represent a nation with only a passing interest in local football.

This is probably the best squad Postecoglou could select. The team also accurately represents Australia’s standing in the football world – there are big gaps between some numbers in FIFA’s rankings. Locals also seem happier with this lineup of exciting question marks than one highlighting staid veterans.

Featuring only two players from Europe’s big four leagues, whoever comprises the final 23-man roster will hardly be hampered by expectations. These Socceroos are also unscarred by past unrealistic hopes engendered by a wonderful run under Guus Hiddink, the ravages of age on bigger bodies or more recently, thumpings against quality opposition. What they have is pace, a new identity based around Postecoglou’s preferred passing game and a typical Australian passion for the contest.

While mandated by his superiors (and common sense) to empower a new youthful team, Postecoglou’s quick revamp may have hastened the departure of players like Schwarzer and Holman who may have played a key role in Brazil. Without these battle-scarred troops, the coach risks marking another band of younger, more impressionable players in the toughest slate of matches any team will play. With the Asian Cup (and the 2018 World Cup) more realistic targets for Aussie success, failure at the upcoming tournament might have longstanding consequences.

The flip side of callowness is a youthful confidence that serves sportsmen well. While there are only weeks to go until the tournament, Postecoglou must use that time to make sure the coin comes down on the right side for his young Socceroos.

Australian Olympic success rates, 1956-2012

Thorpe and Hackett signal need for Australians to move on

Homebush stadium, via Wikipedia

The Sydney Olympic Games has been for over a decade held as that event’s paragon. Those two weeks in the early Southern spring brought together a truly elite swarm of athletes across all quadrennial disciplines; Australia’s organization combined the pageantry of Brazil with the efficiency of Germany. It has set the standard by which subsequent events will be measured.

Every Games since has been dominated by individuals, or more correctly, by Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt. Phelps’ aquatic omnipresence has him at 18 gold medals, while Bolt has taken a grand total of twelve races to utterly captivate nearly seven billion people.

Australia’s Olympics, however, had stars who promoted their sports without completely dominating them. This egalitarianism spurred Cathy Freeman’s defining moment amidst several images lasered into her nation’s sporting consciousness. Also, the Australians owned the pool to such an extent that their record medals count of 58 seems unlikely to be bettered.

The pool hasn’t seen such a worldwide depth and spread of quality. The medals leaders include swimmers from the Netherlands, Russia, the US and Australia – while the largest cheer of the tournament came for Eric the Eel of Equatorial Guinea. The green and gold also boasted two national icons – Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett.

Life has not been kind to this pair, nor to Australian swimming, in the years since their retirement. Hackett has led a highly-publicised life that may or may not involve drinking regularly to excess; in his recent autobiography, Thorpe has admitted as such. Before today, the most recent news concerning both saw them publicly tired and emotional. The news filtering through today that Thorpe is in intensive care and likely will never swim competitively again must be heartbreaking for him and his fans.

They are two more former elite athletes who have struggled without the structure provided by their training. Like so many, they have defined themselves by their sport – not necessarily by results, but by the process that helped them make the most of their natural ability. That process has been found wanting because despite both men completing tertiary education, in the years after fading glories they have been found relatively unprepared for life as celebrities.

And Australia must take some of the responsibility for their post-pool failure to thrive as well.

Farewell, Harry Kewell, and thanks

Harry Kewell is soon gone and Australian football will be the poorer for it. His precocious incision single-handedly brought about many of the supreme highlights the sport has offered the Great Southern Land, and he was in 2012 voted the greatest ever Australian player.

He was his nation’s great football enigma: the most talented, technical player his land has produced, yet so different from his peers in both aspect and attitude. No other Australian has won both the UEFA Champions League and the FA Cup; in an era in which Australia’s best players all performed in top leagues, Harry Kewell at Leeds United and then Liverpool was the world’s focus point – it was he who boasted to the world that Skippies could play this game.

As Bonita Mersiades tracks excellently in The Guardian, Kewell began his career revered by the Australian common man, a true underdog story that youngster capable of bedazzling older, more cynical men. Then followed something of a symbiotic disdain between him and the nation of his birth – he felt the nation’s expectations too great, we (often unfairly) thought him something of a drama queen.

Australians had never had a player like Harry Kewell before. We’d been involved with several wonderful players – Christian Vieri, Mark Bosnich and Craig Johnston spring to mind – but never a truly elite Socceroo who could win World Cup qualifiers from his own left peg. And an Australia less familiar with the particulars of soccer didn’t exactly know what to expect from a gift completely unlike the blunt but effective objects we were used to.

Sporting a slight British twang that noticeably increased the longer he was in England, Harry played for Australia, but for so long was not truly of Australia. This verisimilitude defined Kewell as a Socceroo – an otherworldly weapon, a blade of valyrian steel available only at great cost. Even repatriated to the antipodean fold in his waning years, Kewell remained easily identifiable by virtue of his talent, temperament and attitude. He remains the best player his country has produced by some margin.

Despite spending his peak years rarely suiting up in gold (13 Australia appearances between 1998 and 2005) the Socceroos have never looked better than when boasting Kewell on the left and Brett Emerton on the right of midfield. Injury permitting – always the caveat with Harry – when the games mattered, he played. And invariably contributed.

The pairing of Kewell and Emerton is not coincidental. The duo were reared within earshot, left Australia to play in England at about the same time and were two of the first picked for any Socceroo manager for over a decade. They are mirror versions of one another – one less talented but hardworking and utterly dependable; the other more fragile yet eminently capable of ripping open any game.

This is the defining Harry Kewell paradox, and his legacy: Emerton, a technically inferior but hardworking player who embraced Australia wholeheartedly wouldn’t lose you a match, is remembered more fondly than Kewell, who would win those games for you amidst hubbub often of his own manufacture.

Thank you, Harry Kewell, for those intricate memories that stretch from Iran to the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium. Your body has earned this break.

Socceroo @HarryKewell announces his retirement from football! #ThanksHarry pic.twitter.com/2SueCftN8P
— The Socceroos (@Socceroos) March 26, 2014

Darren Lehmann, and the decisions he faced

Australia’s cricketing revival has been both stunning and comprehensive. A 3-0 defeat in the Ashes during the Northern Summer was turned into a 5-0 retribution at home; this was quickly followed by a 2-1 win against the no. 1-ranked South Africans on their soil, the first Australian Test series win overseas since 2012 and a team featuring new-age linchpins Matthew Wade, Ed Cowan and Ben Hilfenhaus.

All three players have been cast to the winds in the past twelve months as Cricket Australia chose to replace incumbent visionary Micky Arthur seventeen days before the Ashes and replace him with throwback-in-residence, Darren Lehmann.

Even as far back as Lehmann’s first Test helmed in July, changes were evident. Ed Cowan was repositioned at first drop, David Warner was sent to mend his ways in South Africa – with mixed results – and Ashton Agar’s name appeared when the Australian hierarchy ran their random-spinner-generator. Since that rather eclectic group took the field at Trent Bridge, much has turned around at the top of Australian cricket as 

Lehmann has displayed an almost-prescient ability to make key decisions.

In his eight-month spell at the top, Lehmann has faced seven major decisions with regards the Australian Test cricket team. Which of those has he swatted to the boundary, and which has he edged to the keeper?

More answers than questions for Socceroos

Usually, surrendering a 4-3 loss to opposition of a similar caliber to yourself throws up more questions than answers. Any answers that prove self-evident are also generally detrimental: player X can’t be trusted in a two-man midfield, tactics Y are ineffective against good teams or striker Z has no business even being considered for competitive international football.

Australia’s 4-3 loss to Ecuador in London on Wednesday actually saw the opposite occur. The three biggest questions facing the Socceroos concerned one of Mat Ryan or Mitch Langerak succeeding Mark Schwarzer, how would the defence would cope without the presence (or spectre) of Lucas Neill, and whether new coach Ange Postecoglu’s rejigged midfield and forward corps could produce goals relying on players so recently of the 99^th-ranked A-League.

Ninety minutes and seven goals revealed enough about Australia’s progress under Postecoglou for football fans in the Antipodes to be excited by the upcoming challenge of Chile, Spain and the Netherlands. Most of this good humour follows the success of players disdained by previous regimes (including Ivan Franjic and Matthew Spiranovic), the faith shown in youngsters Curtis Good and Massimo Luongo, and a gameplan that’s more than “don’t screw up”.

A few extra days of preparation and more game time for the likes of Rogic and Leckie means the also-rans of the late Osieck days may be a thing of the past.

More obviously, the Socceroos appear to have a vision for the future under a long-term coach, rather than the aspect of a team managed purely to embellish a resume.

The talent gap between Australian and their groupmates means that World Cup progression will be almost impossible. However, using that tournament to prepare for more accessible fish to fry – specifically, the Asian Cup at home in 2015. A result for Postecoglou in Brazil would be a return to the Australian teams of the past that were tough to beat and an inspired showing against class opponents.

The team are unquestionably in better shape than at the time of Holger Osieck’s departure late last year. The team now plays with a vision for future success rather than a fear of current failure.

Shaun Marsh - Ducks and Tons

It has come to some people’s attention that Shaun Marsh has an unenviable record in Test cricket.

Should Shane Watson re-enter the Australian team for the third Test at Cape Town at his expense, Marsh will have one foot in each of two curious history books. Were he never to play another Test – an eminently possible proposition – he would join such luminaries as Barry Richards*, Clive Radley and Tom Moody to have scored two tons in less fifteen or fewer innings. (*No one doubts Richards would have played many more innings and scored many more hundreds had South Africa been able to play Test cricket in the 1970s and 1980s).

Less appealingly, Marsh also be the star feature in another tome detailing batsmen with the highest percentage of failed innings.

On a good day, Shaun Marsh is splendid to watch. On bad days – of which there are far more – you barely get a look at him. This is because for any Test batsman (i.e. not specialist wicketkeeper or bowler) who has played at least 15 innings, Marsh has the highest rate of ducks per innings. He records one zero every 2.5 times he strolls to the crease (40%), a truly remarkable rate that makes him a true outlier. The only other true batsman with at least 15 innings’ experience to record even one duck in every four innings is the immortal Saleem Elahi, who made six gozzers in twenty-four.

The following is a chart that plots the frequency of a player’s ducks against the frequency of their scores above 50. To qualify, a player must have been selected as a batsman or all-rounder, played a minimum of fifteen Test innings and had a duck frequency rate (DFR) over 10% (i.e. one duck every ten innings).

Notable outliers have been named and highlighted.

A table containing these players can be found at the conclusion of this post. 

Kruse and Williams to miss World Cup; Socceroos further taunted by Satan

Australians are used to the heat, but even those enduring eternal damnation in the fires of Hades might posit that this January has been atypically warm. While the Australian wilderness bakes, new Socceroos manager Ange Postecoglu must be sadly regarding his kitchen’s increasing temperature: first, he was dealt a truly petrifying group and in the past ten days, he has lost two key players for the onrushing World Cup.

en.wikipedia.org

Striker Robbie Kruse and midfielder/defender Rhys Williams have both suffered with season-ending injuries, blows which may perhaps define the World Cup for their countrymen.

The pair, Australia’s most eligible leaders, were the fresh faces of Postecoglu’s new Socceroos. The manager’s initial remit was to overhaul a staid national setup, with the two players most liable to benefit most from a divestment of “leadership” were Kruse and Williams. Mainstream Australia could identify with the pair – good players in excellent competitions, with the bonus of representing the Socceroos for long enough to be recognizable while not being members of the burnished Golden Generation.

The enforced withdrawals remove a vast element of class from any potential World Cup squad. While the A-League – and, indeed, most Asian football leagues – are improving in quality, there’s little question that the cream of Australian footballers ply their trade in Europe, and are regarded by Skippies with a certain amount of expectation. With Kruse and Williams sidelined, more of that responsibility sits awkwardly on the shoulders of unproven midfielders Tommy Oar, Tom Rogic and James Holland.

There is likely one silver lining from a dark week in Australian football: the squad that Postecoglu will select for Brazil will likely be comprised of very familiar names – old ones yukking up proto-retirement in the Emirati leagues (you’re excluded, Mark Bresciano), and younger players who appear in local competitions. That group includes interesting names such as left-back Ivan Franjic, Robbie Cornthwaite, Aaron Mooy and “Viduka-lite” Tomi Juric.

The post-World Cup boost Australian soccer received in 2006 was palpable around the then-nascent A-League, even though only one local made the squad. With half the squad in the general vicinity and a more unified outlook brought about by Postecoglu’s share-the-wealth game plan, Australian football can look upon the past week’s terror as an opportunity – albeit a sad one – to expand its brand and showcase the talent on display at home.

Postecoglou must be new Socceroo manager

Holger Osieck ended his association with Australian soccer an unpopular coach whose side capitulated 6-0 twice in succession.  If anything is liable to have a manager fired, it is a pitiful loss against reasonable opposition and the German was dismissed in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s match against France.

According to the normal chain of events, speculation is gathering as to the identity of his successor with the most high-profile names being Socceroo Swami Guus Hiddink, ex-Chile and Athletic Bilbao boss Marcelo Bielsa and – for some unknown reason – Roberto Di Matteo.  Were Australia focusing solely on the World and Asian Cups of 2014 and 15, an “impact signing” excelling at tournament football – and hopefully at pulling strings at European clubs – would seem a wise investment.

However, none of the three “names” above would be inclined to hang around to create a platform for future development; to an ambitious non-Aussie, the most appealing aspect of the Australia job is almost certainly its potential for a quick profit. 

Australia has lacked footballing identity since the 2010 World Cup. Until that time, the boys in Gold were a lineup of predictably loveable maulers: their backline boasted Craig Moore, Lucas Neill and Scott Chipperfield while the midfield was manned by uncompromising sorts Brett Emerton and Vince Grella.  The team’s only lightweight, Harry Kewell, flitted about behind man-mountain Mark Viduka and his unsettlingly-physical Boy Wonder, Tim Cahill. 

With the Green and Gold army clamouring for generational change and the press conferences of some of the Socceroo elite seemingly endorsing such claims, Football Federation of Australia Chairman and all-around-Daddy-Warbucks-figure Frank Lowy has narrowed the association’s focus and suggested the biggest hire in Australian soccer is likely to be from the FFA’s back room, the A-League. 

The Australian national team needs to be the pinnacle for any Australian footballer. While the A-League has strengthened, the player pathways that produced the Golden Generation that peaked in 2006 have become overgrown.  A strong Socceroo side with structures based around player development both at home and abroad is an absolute necessity for football to become more deeply rooted in the antipodean sporting consciousness.  The coach best able to implement such a program must be employed.

For the first time in a generation, an Australian is almost certainly the best person for the position.

Lowy has effectively narrowed the field to three candidates – Tony Popovic of nascent Western Sydney Wanderers; former interim Socceroo manager Graham Arnold, now of the Central Coast Mariners; and Melbourne Victory kingpin Ange Postecoglou.

All the candidates present convincing resumés despite high-profile failures.  Of the three, Arnold probably comes with the most baggage due to his underwhelming Asian Cup leadership of 2007; however, he has developed a consistently good Mariners outfit despite a tight budget even by A-League standards.  His appointment may be seen as a reward to a company man. Popovic has a jaw-dropping level of natural talent for management and served an impressive apprenticeship before taking a journeyman bunch of Wanderers into the league finals in their first season.  Questions remain, however, as to his experience.

Even with these negative aspects, were Arnold or Popovic to earn the position, Australia could feel confident about the Socceroos’ future. 

However, the most compelling choice is Ange Postecoglou.  After turning the Brisbane Roar from also-rans into dominant Premiers, he is currently re-shaping the A-League’s biggest club into a younger, more vital side; his modus operandi is to turn young footballers into disciplined and productive units.

This is based in part about his coaching philosophy: his teams hold the ball and use it rather than Osieck’s haphazard, “needs-must” approach.  In an age where Australian youngsters have struggled to claim positions for the National side, pragmatism has few uses even focusing solely upon next year’s Cup.  If a player – especially a youngster – knows ahead of time what is expected of a Socceroo, he is in far better position to prepare.

Despite the short lead-in to the World Cup, the FFA is in an enviable position.  They can finally choose a manager to mould a team with the future in mind rather than employing someone they hope is able to bring about short-term results.  The Round of Sixteen would of course be nice, but the Socceroos can no longer afford to focus on the twilights Schwarzer, Neill and Cahill.  The outlook must now be on the retirements of James Holland, Tom Rogic and Matthew Spiranovic.

Osieck not long for Socceroos' top job

With Australian football trying to regain its feet after a 6-0 pasting against Brazil last month, speculation has intensified over the future of Socceroo coach Holger Osieck. The German manager has appeared a man unable to take forward steps in the past twelve months, with his players effectively playing according to inconsistent tactics; even his greatest moment in 2013 was tarnished by a poorly-timed sexist joke. The only thing Osieck has definitively delivered for Australia has been PR calamity: perfunctory football run by a quasi-unlikable boss.

The only things in Osieck's favor - significant though they may be - include a truncated lead-in time for any new manager and the $1 million he's still owed by the Football Federation of Australia Frank Lowy. Although he remains unpopular, it still remains more likely than not that the manager incumbent will lead the likes of Brett Holman, Tommy Oar and Archie Thompson (!) to South America and, ultimately, disappointment.

Strangely, the single greatest reason for the appointment of a new boss might be a limited talent pool. With Australia's best 20 players almost set in stone, the only way a new gaffer might impact the side during the year-til-Brazil would be to engage players and encourage tactical buy-in. This is an aspect of management Osieck has found difficult, because his iteration of Australia simply hasn't had the identity of past sides. For years, Australia was a burly, physical outfit capable of controlling games through brute strength. As players like Oar and Tom Rogic replaced the Mark Vidukas and Scott Chipperfields of the world, the Socceroos lost some of that identity and therefore Osieck has settled for an inconsistent style.

A new manager - Leo Beenhakker, perhaps? Or Johan Neeskens? - might help develop a national team with an identity and a definite idea of how to play to type. However, with Lowy burnt twice by international bosses (neither Osieck nor his predecessor Pim Verbeek have been a real success), the inclination is that Osieck will retain his post for the Fiesta World Cup, but only that long.

FFA optimistic to a fault, wants World Cup refund from FIFA

Since missing out on the 2022 World Cup in December 2010, the Football Federation of Australia and has remained almost piously silent.  Despite changing chief executives, boasting one of Asia’s best teams, a domestic league that continues to grow and the impending rollout of the new FFA Cup, a knockout competition involving clubs from the A-League and various lower-tier leagues across the country, the Federation’s mantra since late 2010 has been “don’t mention the war”.

Today the war got mentioned like Basil Fawlty. 

This morning, via major benefactor and Chairman Frank Lowy, the FFA requested FIFA pay back the the $43 million spent by the nation on their failed 2022 World Cup bid.  The move results from FIFA tacitly acknowledging that the tournament to be staged in Qatar will almost certainly be played in the northern winter to avoid local temperatures in excess of 40° Celsius.  This understanding is also a significant backtrack on prior statements made by executives both from FIFA and the Qatari bid commission.

With a  new Cup tournament beginning in 2014 and hopes of replacing coach Holger Osieck with someone more personable/charismatic/nurturing – and therefore more expensive – either before or after next year’s Big Dance, that $43 million would really help Australian football.  That half-a-latte chipped in by every Australian constitutes more ready cash than the FFA could ever hope to see again and so would be very handy – especially if Guus Hiddink’s back in the frame (which he’s not).

The reparation request suggests that the FFA wouldn’t have placed the bid had they known that changing tournament dates was possible.  The request is also framed by a particularly murky bid process which is still being “investigated” by FIFA’s ethics committee. 

Even with the obtuse and confused selection method, Chairman Frank Lowy’s position is both optimistic and curious.  Despite – because of? – widespread misgivings as to the integrity behind the bid process, some of the blame for the loss must be placed at the callow nature of Australian football administration.  The FFA entered a competitive bid situation against powers like USA, Qatar and Japan administered by a body with only one hard and fast guiding tenet – money usually talks.  And the Australians’ $43 million is a whisper when compared with what Gulf States are able to bawl.

In retrospect, it’s tough to work out why the FFA ever thought they were anywhere near pole position.

FIFA will not grant the request – why should they?  If they were to recompense their irritated Aussies, then they open themselves up to the lawyer’s best frenemy, precedent.  Any club who felt irked by a hosting decision (and Australia had reasons to be very annoyed indeed) could then expect to request – or sue – the governing body and pocket all or part of what they spent.  This puts the Australian party line on a par with the Ireland requesting to be a 33^rd team at the 2010 World Cup.

It’s somewhat comforting to know that the FFA hasn’t abandoned all of its resentment towards the FIFA executive: Australia was (now, perhaps naïvely) seen as one of the frontrunners to host the tournament yet received only one vote.  But the manifestation of that resentment now makes the FFA an object of footballing derision.  While the sentiments of the FFA represent those of the greater Australian populace, they are far from realistic expectation and have only tenuous legal basis.

When Ireland requested a trip to South Africa, FIFA probably laughed privately before responding with a courteous negative.  Watch them do the same with Australia.

Drafting the 2013 Ashes

When American sports franchises begin to lose their on-field mojo, in order to remain relevant in a busy cultural and social environment, the typical executive response is to expand their interest-base.

Bring the family!  There’s gourmet food for Mum, a run-the-bases opportunity for Junior, and competitions the entire family can enjoy - like guessing which coloured craft will cross the finish line first in a simulated speedboat race (Green.  Always pick the green one).  Why do these three items spring readily to mind?  Because I live in a city which boasts one of baseball’s most futile recent enterprises, the Seattle Mariners.

Executives have tried for years to make the actual sport at a sporting event secondary to “the experience”; which to me, has always seemed akin to putting the decor before the flavour at a restaurant.  It’s no coincidence, however, that such events almost always occur when the team’s fortunes are flailing horribly (c.f. the aforementioned Mariners and their 0.300OBP) - the Boston Celtics, forever the NBA’s pater dominantis, only brought in cheerleaders and “animations” when stars like Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish moved on.

The simple and elegant philosophy of a bygone age: the sport should be enough, even if your team stinks.

But it isn’t.  Especially when your team stinks.  So, how do you make sport more exciting for the spectator?  There are three simple methods: gambling, alcohol, and fantasy sports.

With the Ashes series approaching fast and the Australian camp careening towards a whitewash defeat, fantasy might create a little more debate around the actual mechanics of this upcoming test of Australian nerve.  To whit, myself and colleague (and Englishman) Dave Siddall attempted to “fantasy draft” our own Ashes squads - at stake: pride in ourselves, if not our homespun countries.

The rules were simple: each team can pick only one “starting” wicketkeeper (Matt Prior and whoever Australia elects to use as a glorified backstop, likely Brad Haddin), and each team must select four bowlers and two batsmen who could be classified as openers.  Players could be selected by only one “manager”, with a coin flip determining who selected first.  Thirteen players would be drafted by Aussie and Pom.

We will revisit each individual player scores after each Test match, and at the end of the Northern Summer.

The first Ashes Fantasy Draft was held on Friday morning, 28th June and the results will be published sequentially over the next six days until we arrive at the first Test.

Short Pitch: On Mickey Arthur, Darren Lehmann and the Australian way of death

At least it was quick.

Mickey Arthur's eighteen month spell as Australian coach was terminated on Sunday, seventeen days before the first of ten consecutive Ashes Tests.  The South African has been almost instantly replaced by cult favourite Darren "Boof" Lehmann.  Arthur's reign was a fraught one, lowlighted by "homeworkgate" and four Australian players being dropped for failing to submit their reflections on a loss to India.

Lehmann has promised an improved team culture, based around three of his favourite things: beer, mates, and winning.  Arthur presided over an atmosphere of infighting and despair not entirely of his own design.  Changes had to be made no matter what the timing.  Parallels can be drawn with the AFL's Melbourne Football Club - a once-great organisation suffering off-field mismanagement, autocratic coaching with ambitious names eyeing his position resulting in the investiture of power in dubious positions.

Arthur's dismissal occurred slightly over two weeks before the largest date in the Aussie cricket calendar, an away Ashes series, when expectations are perhaps the lowest they've been for the Baggy Green since 1985. The series also provides a baptism of fire for the new guru as he helms an underwhelmingly-talented crew against one of the world's best lineups.

When the penny drops that a change is not only beneficial but necessary, making that change immediately and without mercy is a very pragmatic - read: Old Australian - way of doing things.  The reverse - often employed in world football - sees a manager sacked before a series of winnable games, allowing for a relatively easy transition into a new way of playing.  Such advance - and often wrong - forethought smacks of the current Cricket Australia thinking, making Arthur's instantaneous demise such a shock.

Facing the Old Enemy ten times over the next seven months, Australia didn't have such a luxury, so a sudden and brutal guillotining was seen as the best method to dispose of a lame duck.  The most comparable occasion occurred in 1970-71, when Bill Lawry absorbed the wrath of a (similarly) perpetually discombobulated executive panel.

It's the first gutsy move that Cricket Australia has made in recent memory.  It has installed a popular - and perhaps the best - candidate in a position where he might be able to create a positive change in attitude, fortunes and results quite quickly.  For this, they should be congratulated; however, it's also a tacit admission that this upcoming Ashes series is all but lost and focus must be cast upon the return series this summer: no coach can be expected to make such an immediate turnaround.

Socceroos bound for Rio despite managerial misgivings

After cutting it far too fine for comfort, the Socceroos can finally begin to prepare for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. An eighty-third minute headed goal from Joshua Kennedy sealed a 1-0 victory against old rivals Iraq and progression from the final round of Asian Qualifying. While the display against essentially a second-string side was hardly awe-inspiring, it was enough and the antipodeans now take their place alongside Japan, South Korea and Iran as AFC representatives at the Big Dance.

Uzbekistan and Jordan will compete in a two-legged playoff in early September for the final available Asian qualifying position. Whichever squad that makes it to Brazil will certainly prove a fillip to their nation, but may not impact the makeup of the second round: of the Asian clubs bound for Rio, Betfair.com has Japan the shortest of the long-odds at 126:1.

While it's taken nearly three years, Australia coach Holger Osieck seems to have finally hit upon the best makeup for his side.  Over his tenure, Osieck has dithered through an extensive playing roster without ever tipping his hand towards pragmatism (and continued appearances by the likes of Sasa Ognenovski and Alex Brosque) or an attempt at an exciting future featuring Tomas Rogic, Tommy Oar and Robbie Kruse. This has hurt the team, as players both young and old never seem to know whether they had roles to play in attaining a World Cup berth. Had the Socceroos not won last night, this lack of clear vision - and a penchant for sexist jokes - would have thrust the German onto perilously thin ice.

The lineups deployed in these past two crucial qualifiers suggest Osieck believes - as do the majority of the Green and Gold Army - that success lies not in wholesale youth or experience, but somewhere firmly betwixt. The crucial players in Tuesday evening's win were Oar, Rogic and resurrected thirtysomethings Ognenovski, Neill, Kennedy and Mark Bresciano. Had the Socceroos been without Al-Gharafa's Bresciano over the past six months, they would be - at best - face a nerve-racking playoff to cement next summer's Samba Tour.

After two years of curious selections, it may be that Osieck has happened luckily upon his best lineup at the critical time.  The alternate viewpoint states that Australia's mixed results are a function of rarely having an entire squad available due to the travel involved in representing Australia.

Educated onlookers favour the former, especially based on the teams Osieck selected during turgid losses to Jordan and a draw with Oman: the Socceroos relied too heavily upon a square, lateral gameplan that lacked in fluidity and impetus. The re-emergence of Oar and the boost Rogic and Kruse obtained from transfers has thrust a more joyful approach upon the men in gold, resulting in a 4-0 thumping of Jordan (the nation's biggest win in a match that mattered since their 6-0 thrashing of Uzbekistan in the 2011 Asian Cup) and now, ultimately, acceptance not just as the Socceroos' future, but also their present.

To paraphrase Napoleon: it's better to be lucky than good, and Osieck appears to have stumbled upon his most fruitful combination.

Despite the pressure of expectation, Osieck has recently displayed a happy recognition of when to make the correct substitutions at the most important moments. Last night, he got it right again - removing Australia's most effective forwards this decade (Tim Cahill and Brett Holman) and inserting forgotten man Kennedy - a man built to dominate Asian football - who scored only minutes after arriving on the pitch for the 'Roos for the first time since 2011

That he has finally, finally, seemingly integrated the talented youth into the cadre of hard-bitten vets and finally exemplified his once-vaunted game-management skills, the future looks brighter for Australian football than it did only a fortnight ago.

With the pressure now off and Australia hoping for an improvement from Pim Verbeek's ill-begotten 2010 World Cup.

Graphic: Selected Australian spin bowling statistics

The following chart maps selected statistics from Australian spinners.

It continues to amaze that Steve Smith is selected for Australia as a quote-unquote spin bowler, while Steve O'Keefe remains in the Test wilderness.  For more discussion, tune in to this week's Short Jabs podcast on the Cricket Couch.

Cricket Australia sits and rotates

Cricket Australia and their coaching staff have come in for criticism regarding the policy formerly known as rotation, Strategic Player Management (SPM).   With precocious – but premature - talents like Steve Smith shunted into the canary yellow as Usman Khawaja is given his leave, rotation has become another rod with which to beat the national body.

David Mutton wrote recently that the rotation policy favoured by CA isn’t so much pragmatism but an ideology – something to be sought after, an end rather than the means.  With their infatuation with newcomers, Australian administrators seek a panacea to remove them from this time of trial.

The fact that SPM has been labelled a policy doesn’t help: while governmental policy is a plan with funding attached, its corporate counterpart pure risk-management, less about governance but a get-out for those unable or afraid to make decisions.  Sounds perfect for faceless bureaucracy that is Cricket Australia.

Rather than being a long-term benefit to Australian cricket, the recent policy of haphazard squad rotation undermines team cohesion and actually does just the opposite. 

In theory, player rotation makes perfect sense.  It allows tired players the rest needed to reduce injury and fatigue, while simultaneously allowing the outstanding youth talents with opportunities to see what the top level is all about.

Easily forgotten is that the results haven’t yet been proven.  Rested players still break down (c.f. Cummins, Pat and Pattinson, James), perhaps making Strategic Player Management (SPM) the cricketing equivalent of echinacea: a commonsense medical management that gained widespread uptake on the open-market uptake but was really just bollocks.  Rotation may or may not work.

Part of confusion is that CA isn’t exactly sure why they are rotating players through the coloured clothes.  Is it to blood youth, allow player recuperation, help restore form or a happy commonstance of all?  Was Glenn Maxwell’s ODI debut an audition for a role in the lower order a la Mike Hussey or just a consequence of his form in Australia’s new, annual, December-long tee-time?  It’s injury prevention, it’s specialized coaching, it’s player wellbeing, it’s rotation it’s … just the vibe of the thing.  Such a lack of boardroom vision can’t help but bleed down to the players.

There is little evidence to back up resting as an ideology, particularly with regard to player wellbeing.  It’s hard to fault Mickey Arthur et al for resting Peter Siddle after his efforts against South Africa in Adelaide, but for Mitch Starc to suffer likewise immediately after his best Test bowling beggared both belief and common sense.  If this was done in the name of Starc’s health, we must be concerned of his durability on every tour he participates in.

Cricket Australia has obviously decided that preserving their best on-field assets is the way to happy and productive cricket.  Unfortunately, James Sutherland and his mob would be far better served deploying Strategic Player Management as part of their scheduling process rather than as an escape clause for players wedged into an overcrowded calendar.  In it’s current form, SPM is no more than damage-control.

If SPM doesn’t actually produce less injuries, then how about the youth benefits?  While players have missed games going back decades, Strategic Player Management in the twenty-first century begins and ends with Liverpool Football Club under the reign of Rafael Benitez.  The Spaniard is perhaps the greatest proselytizer of SPM there is; he is a tactically gifted coach who puts faith in young players time and again.  However, the results from his time doing so at football’s most famous club are far from convincing. Players still got injured and few of the vaunted youth allegedly inspired by opportunity have kicked on into the Liverpool first team. 

Rotation for its own sake is a flawed idiom.  It’s a luxury that mediocre teams – like the current Australians – simply can’t afford in that it places philosophy above results.  In the grating words of Marge Simpson: “We can’t afford to shop at any store that has a philosophy”.

Great teams can afford dalliances with Smith, Maxwell, Chris Lynn or Shaun Marsh because the results don’t suffer in the long term.  Anyone who thinks this iteration of Australia is anything more than functional would seem to watch too much commentary by Channel Nine.

Ed Cowan, (c) Balanced Sports

While morally virtuous, when one prefers a complex idiom to simple method, results are often sacrificed.  And by refusing to face this inherent truth, CA has perhaps missed the most important reason why casual squad rotation is detrimental: those results, no matter what they are, stimulate public interest while generating the team spirit that’s forged through shared success or failure. 

Results bring about more than revenue.  Communal trials are what builds a team from a collection of individual parts.  Australia has no narrative, no identity partly because they haven’t had the chance to share enough cricket together.  Rather than building team spirit, SPM can ramp up internal rivalries, clouding the identities that have begun to coalesce.

The fact is that rotation is here to stay.  It’s another example of Cricket Australia running the sport froma middle management point of view.  The Australians will just have to thrive in spite of its shortsightedness.