Short Pitch: Lessons from World Series Cricket

The following excerpt is taken from page 81 of Gideon Haigh's wonderful book The Cricket War, and describes the Australian tour to England in 1977.

Generational problems in the team had been some time coming... nine players [in the back row of the team photograph] had a combined eighteen Tests between them.  Among the team's nominal seniors ... only the captain and vice-captain Chappell and Marsh were genuinely risk-averse selections: Walters had never succeeded in England, McCosker's jaw might not have healed, Thomson was a medical miracle, and none of Walker, O'Keeffe or Davis had been first-choice players a year earlier.  Premature Australian retirements in the preceding two years had divided the team before Packer's intercession.  As Ian Davis remembers: "There was literally no middle age in that side.  You had me and Hooksey, and Serj and Kim Hughes in our early twenties, and then all these other guys round thirty.  Unless you were a very strong personality, you were just in awe of them". 

A page later, Haigh continues regarding Greg Chappell's captaincy:

The captain pined for the do-it-yourself ethos of his brother's time: cricketers who didn't need to be told ... As his virtuoso skill proved insufficient to inspire, Chappell withdrew.  The senior players closed ranks around him, instinctively protective but inadvertently widening their distance from the ranks.  Everyone felt aggrieved, nobody felt responsible, individual isolation was universal.

Sound familiar?

It's fair to say that in the dozen years following the Centenary Test, Australian cricket struggled to reclaim anywhere near its best form.  The hard-bitten culture instilled by Chappell or Allan Border has been minimised by subsequent captains who - while the logical or best choice - didn't have either the same horses to choose from, nor the psychological skills to maximise their performance.

A case in point - would any Australian dare disappoint Chappell or Border?  Recently, we saw players "try" their captain and face the ramifications.  With the most effective Australian captains of old, expectations were communicated through personal relationship, rather than rules.  It is within this environment that players like Lillee, Thomson, Warne and McGrath flourished and under which Australians traditionally perform best.

Australian cricket took a decade to recover from such a fractured dressing room.  Similar stories abound of the 1989 Englishmen and the post-Richards West Indians; one wonders whether it will take Cricket Australia another decade to understand the value of powerful and incisive leadership - on and off the field.

Cricket Australia: Sitting on the Fence

"The time is coming where you have to choose between what is easy, and what is right"

Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

It didn't take a rocket scientist - or a banking executive - to figure out that Australian cricket has both structural and talent issues. A 4-1 thumping in our last Ashes series, mediocre World Cup campaign and a captain with a positively Reiffel-esque batting average over the past three series (21.5) is proof enough for anyone with even half an eye and a tenth of a brain that Australian cricket has reached its lowest point since 1985.

While Ricky Ponting's tetchy leadership, Mitchell Johnson's latent outswinger, Greg Chappell's insistence on youth and Andrew Hilditch's residence in a fantasy world have contributed to this state of affairs, the root cause lies with James Sutherland and Cricket Australia. For too long they have tried to have their cake and eat it too by chasing the financial gains of Twenty20 and also lauding a the benefits of a competitive Australian Test squad.

By chasing both, they will achieve neither.

On one hand, commissioning Don Argus to report on their cricket management structures sounds good, even curative. But doing so while the other hand throws so many resources into the nascent Bigh Bash League (BBL), Cricket Australia is endorsing two policy decisions which negate the other. It is another curious leadership decision from CA whose actions indicate they are chasing the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs while paying only lip service to Test standards.

For much of the past twenty years as pitches become more standardised worldwide, cricket has degenerated into two groups: the "haves" and "have-nots". The "haves", fuelled by television revenue, good attendances and growth economies include the regular suspects: South Africa, England, India , Australia and perhaps even Sri Lanka. The second tier includes fallen powers West Indies and Pakistan, as well as New Zealand, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

More accurately, these two groups could now be defined by the cricketers they produce. The West Indies' best now favour the shortest form, while the best of New Zealand, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe often eschew their nations to tour the world as T20 guns-for-hire. The fundamentals of creating world-class players in both formats require player pathway systems so different that only the mega-wealthy institutions in world cricket can afford the time it takes to do so.

courtesy: telegraph.com.au

World cricket hasn't so much been divided along lines of Test quality, but on the type of cricket on whcih each nation has focused. If kids are developed where T20 is prioritised, it results in a bunch of individual talents and a poor Test team. Where a Test technique can occasioanlly benefit T20, the reverse is rarely, if ever, true. To acknowledge any speculation David Warner has what it takes to play Test cricket exists is to question the value of life itself - the man bears as much resemblance to a Test opener as my 94-year old grandmother.

By dividing it's attention between a Big Bash league with privately owned franchises (eeeugh - I hate that word in relation to cricket) and an Argus report recommending that the best 66 players play Sheffield Shield cricket at any one time, Cricket Australia is, dividing it's resources in an attempt to promote the game. By doing so, they've ignored the great rule: punters love success, and in Australia that means a strong Test team.

If Divide and Conquer still applies on the battlefield, so too is it effective in the marketplace. CA has already done the dividing, leaving it now open for conquest by a crowded Australian sports market which asks supporters to invest more than ever.

Let's not forget that private ownership as a model has only worked in Rugby League and never in the long term for any other sport. In fact, News Limited, after pioneering SuperLeague, now still owns the entirety of the Melbourne Storm and North Queensland Cowboys, as well as 69% of the powerhouse Brisbane Broncos. Rupert Murdoch, like Packer before him, got what he wanted out of setting up a rival competition. The hideous failures far outweigh that partial success as the names Christopher Skase, Dr. Geoffrey Edelsten, Eddie Palmer and his beloved Brisbane Bullets and the Victoria Titans weigh heavily on Aussie fans' consciousness.

courtesy: news4u.co.in

The heavily-publicised BBL, intent on chasing dollars, imports the likes of Kieron Pollard and new fans will involve suspending first-class cricket during December, Australia's busiest Test month. How can Australia rebuild with the best First Class talent they have when that talent is not receiving games?

Cricket Australia has been forced into a position that all cricketing countries now must face: chase dollars, or what you feel is important. It's a nice coincidence when those options are one and the same. In Australia's case, that is unfortunately not the case. While paying lip service to the importance of Tests, CA has done everything but say "we're here for the dollars" by instituting a flawed BBL model at the expense of First Class cricket.

courtesy: zimbio.com

Only four years ago Austrlaian domestic cricket was the strongest on the planet - now no more, as players chase the dollars (and no-one's blaming them). Australia simply can't follow the Indian model (IPL) because there isn't enough support - or money - to go around. That Australian domestic cricket - or more crucially, given how many eggs are in it's basket, the new BBL - can't get a look-in on free-to-air television is a damning indictment of what Australians think about the grass-roots. Cricket captures the imagination in the backyard, when Australia plays and never through the likes of Gary Putland and the Melbourne Stars.

CA, to use the most cliche of cliches, is trying to have it's cake and eat it, too. Rather than committing - by dint of playing talent (like England has with Tests) or financial need (as the West Indians have done with T20), Australia continues not to choose its battles and try to succeed at everything.

The smaller countries of the world faced this challenge first, as New Zealand and Bangladesh have all but admitted for years that their best chance of attaining any success has been in the One-Day arena. Why else would players like Scott Styris choose to retire from Test cricket but not from the short format? Pakistan and the West Indies are already producing more guns for hire than good quality Test players. It's saddening to realise that the same is true of Australia.

As India wrestles with the impending doom brought about by Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag and Laxman's respective entries into Valhalla, even that powerful nation will, in time, face the same challenge. While England will not remain immune forever, the structures in place around the game in it's birthplace may allow a defence against the irrepressible schism that threatens to divide cricket.

It's true of any business struggling in a crowded economy that you should choose either to expand your services, or focus on doing what you do best. For 125 years, Australia has produced the best Test cricketers in the world. Over the past decade, that trend has been reversed as players are seduced by the quick runs and quicker bucks available.

In a recent revealing podcast on Test Match Sofa, Australian cricket writer Gideon Haigh revealed that the first priority of the Australian cricket team wasn't to win matches but to publicise the sport in Australia. When it comes to branding - the honeypot into which Cricket Australia has fallen - it is a simple fact that Starbucks produces coffee, Asics produces quality running shoes, Sri Lanka will deliver turning pitches - and Test cricket has been elevated to its highest form by teams from the Great South Land.

For Cricket Australia to forget that would be shameful.

Australian Cricket: Pay selectors, Pay the Devil

Simon Katich is right: Australian selection policy has been remarkably inconsistent during his tenure at the top of the order. He may, however, be overstepping the mark somewhat as he campaigns for paid, full-time selectors. While the sentiment behind his recent outburst is justified - everyone in the country aside from the selection panel thought him worthy of at least a further year around the Australian side - and his forthright media conference was admirable, it's worth noting that there are several flaws in his argument.

When Defence Minister Stephen Smith entered the fray, the saga turned from interesting to ludicrous, especially when Smith lambasted the selectors for bias against Western Australians. Katich has played in New South Wales for nearly a decade. A Labour "powerbroker" very pleased with such a reputation, by speaking out of turn here he has plunged Australian cricket perilously close to the credibility line and gave those of us who still care wholeheartedly for the sport horrible visions of Ijaz Butt.

Employing selectors in a full-time role is perhaps an workable idea. Though much more cricket is played now than, say, even twenty years ago, offering a selector a full-time role would be a lavish expense - for men of the game such as David Boon, The Unspeakable One (Andrew Hilditch) and Jamie Cox would command far greater than a "living wage". Employing full-time selectors could cost Cricket Australia anywhere between (very conservatively) of a quarter or half a million dollars per annum, money the board simply doesn't have.

Also, while employing selectors on a full-time basis demands their accountability, it should by no means ensure it. Cricket Australia has every right to dismiss the selection panel as it stands, yet has chosen not to. The selectors are at fault for many of Australian Cricket's ills, but by no means all of them. Had Michael Beer been selected earlier in the Ashes series or Xavier Doherty not appeared at all, Australia likely would not have triumphed over the Old Enemy. Selection inconsistency (or is it Consistent backing of the selectors) has hurt the Australians badly, but not nearly as much as the current dearth of top-tier talent.

The third flaw in Simon Katich's notion is a simple one: Would he (or indeed anyone) wish to reward the current Australian selectors - probably handsomely - for the quality of work they've been performing? The thought of Andrew Hilditch walking home with $100,000+ per year from Cricket Australia brings me out in a frigid perspiration: he - nor David Boon or Jamie Cox - deserve that kind of money. It would be tantamount to throwing fistfuls of cash out the window of a skyscraper. Such an act would probably be a more efficient waste of money than pay the current panel.

The Argus review currently underway may suggest ways in which full-time selectors could be employed. One suggestion (this one's free, James Sutherland) would be to add further tasks to certain key roles: perhaps increase the responsibility and remuneration of the head of the Australian Cricket Academy, Bowling and Batting coaches? Neither Troy Cooley nor Justin Langer are employed full-time - use the cricket analysts already working within the system as they have done by bringing in Greg Chappell (for better or worse). Or, in a relatively even First Class Competition, expand the panel to seven and include one representative from each state, paid a bonus on top of their State salary. Perhaps both options are unworkable. It may even be that the best alternative is the one already employed.

Paying the selection panel more money would certainly command their attention and entice the best-qualified cricket judges into a position with Cricket Australia. But by doing so, the central board would be required to give them time to settle, develop a policy and then see rewards. Should this period be one year, suddenly there's a sizeable hole in CA's revenues, unlikely to be made up through attendances or prize money through improved performance.

It could simply be that the selectors have judged that Australia should no longer field their best XI, preferring more to develop players with a long term future, guided by Ponting, Clarke and Mike Hussey. Foolish, perhaps, but understandable given the age of recent Australian outfits. Katich would then not be seen as a leader and his position handed to Phil Hughes, a side effect of moving from "transition" to "full scale rebuilding". Make no mistake, that is what Australia now faces and the prospects of mid-term success are not welcoming. Messrs Hilditch, Boon, Cox and Chappell would be best served by simply declaring their policy to the nation, allowing everyone to understand; this would both enlighten the nation and allow for accountability.

While Simon Katich's record suggested he warranted a new deal (as did his partner in this media session, Stuart Clark), in order to make wholesale changes, unpopular decisions must be made and by dint of age - and availability of suitable replacements, for Shaun Marsh and Hughes await - they were amongst the first to be cut. Both have every right to be insulted by their treatment by Hilditch, Greg Chappell, Boon and Cox - and by extension, Cricket Australia. Katich, particularly, had both the form and runs to back up his claim.

Once a board run by domineering fools (c.f. the reasons behind World Series Cricket, among many other examples), Cricket Australia has regained such a a stature by becoming unwieldy and awash with self-interest. By paying large fees to selectors, that self-interest would become more than an exercise in conceit and begin to include large financial components. The way forward for Australian selection is unclear - but please, let's not pay for incompetence.

Image courtesy: livecricketmag.blogspot.com

Ponting Punted?

Perhaps it all came about as a result of his run-in with Steve Smith. Maybe three Ashes defeats from four have finally taken their toll. It could be that his recent form - stunningly unresembling his best - may have marked his cards. But the Sydney Morning Herald has reported that Ricky Ponting's captaincy career could be in for its most stern boardroom test when the team returns from their World Cup campaign. The current tour could be his last as Australian captain.

It's fair that Ponting's reign is thrown into question both for his recent results and on-field attitude. His ascension to the captaincy seemed a case of "right place, right time": he was the standout candidate of a middling field when selectors last deemed generational change necessary. For the first time since Ian Johnson's departure, Australia lacks a clear successor. Of course the plan was for Michael Clarke to follow in his footsteps as the best choice available, but his performances in late 2010 and charisma (that of a moose) haven't endeared him to either public or selectors. In the SMH article which brought this issue to light it is suggested his stock has recovered somewhat.

There's nothing wrong with change for its own sake. Indeed given the recent re-emergence of his always-prominent petulant streak, it could be his teammates support him because of what he was, rather than what he now is. This is an admirable position and his achievements as batsman and leader demand that acknowledgement, but the stance is quite possibly flawed. It's eminently possible that Ricky Ponting is no longer the best man to lead Australia; it may even be that he's only kept the position recently due to a dearth of suitable successors.

What Ponting must remember is that stepping aside now would not be a sign of weakness, nor a commentary on his his success as captain. Context in sport, in life, is all-important. He was charged with the difficult task of maintaining supremacy with a deteriorating team; his record reflects the challenges he has faced. He started his reign as one of a half-dozen World Class players in the Australian team and ended it the only one. In twenty years, we will not look back and say "Ricky Ponting lost the Ashes three times", though it will be true. We will say he did a good - but not outstanding - job in trying circumstances and wanted to better his record right up until the end.

He's always been honest and open, yet it could be that his tenure should end for no other reason than it's just time to go. After leading his country for nine years in the most high-stress job in the country outside Prime Minister, perhaps it is time Ponting surrendered the position. He first led the Australian Test team on 8th March 2004, meaning he could well be facing cricket's equivalent of the seven-year itch - and feels it's time to move on to new challenges but is yet to recognise and submit to those desires. His outward stance is that he's not finished. The inward position could be very different.

In the excellent ABC cricket documentary "Cricket in the 70s", Greg Chappell recounts being told by his brother Ian that he was resigning the captaincy. Ian Chappell, one of perhaps a handful of the most influential figures in Australian cricket ever, was only captain of his country for eight series over just five years; on telling his brother - and heir apparent - he was retiring he just said "Mate, when you know, you'll know". Chappelli had burned out, just as Greg would do in the early 1980s. Kim Hughes would suffer the same affliction in 1985. All three - and Border and Ponting, too - had been subjected to stresses never experienced by Steve Waugh or Mark Taylor.

Ponting's reign is beginning to resemble that of Greg Chappell: great batsmen weighed down by expectation as captain. Chappell rose above it to finish on a high, but captained Australia only in forty-eight Tests. Ponting nearly doubles that total with eighty. He's also slightly older, with a slightly more ropey technique and has nearly 360 ODIs to his name. It is fair and understandable that he is tired, tetchy and irritable.

The physical signs of stress are obvious to outsiders. Barack Obama has vast quantities more silver hair than he did only two years ago and, back home, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd have both aged markedly while leading Australian politics. The US system of government allows a President to serve only two consecutive terms for two reasons - to share power and for the health of the President. Ponting looks old and tired.

These may be the last days of Ricky Ponting. If he goes, he won't be the first or last player to be "nudged" by the powers-that-be. It's a sad way for a star to go out, but the results of him hanging on may colour his captaincy even further in gloomy shades of blue.

It's not you, it's me.

Greg Chappell's job title is Australian cricket's "High Performance Manager". Even though the Chairman of Selectors is Andrew Hilditch, Chappell's moniker may as well be "de facto Head of Selection". After a series of bewildering selections and speedy discards, Chappell was brought in recently to head up the team designed to make Australian cricket a world power again. His presence on the selection committee meant no more space for Merv Hughes, the only bowler on the panel. His appointment was met with joy and expectation by Aussie fans dismayed at the performances of their team - very much the hero striding back to our aid in an hour of need.

It's Chappell's second stint on the Australian selection panel after being one of the boffins behind the youth movement of the mid 1980s. In fact, between 1985 and 1989 Australia debuted twenty new players. Since regaining the Ashes loss in 2007 where Australia the search its ranks for heirs to the thrones of Warne, McGrath, Langer and Martyn began in earnest, Australia has doled out twenty-one new Baggy Greens, with Michael Beer expected to receive the twenty-second on Thursday.

It's obvious to the outside eye that change is needed in Australian cricket and is needed as soon as possible. By selecting Beer instead of the tried and true Nathan Hauritz - who still has almost insurmountable claims to being Australia's premier spin bowler - the selection panel has sent a strong message, intended or not. By first discarding him for Doherty and then scouring every possible option rather than recall him despite career-best form recently, Chappell and his cohort have essentially told Hauritz one of two things - his Australian career is over or hangs by the slimmest of threads. The same message has not, however, been delivered to Mitchell Johnson whose recall to the Test team looks assured.

Chappell has a great cricketing brain. He speaks lucidly, giving thought to his words and had perhaps the greatest mental preparedness for batting that the game has seen. He's long been thought to impart his remarkable knowledge well to younger players, even if he does it in a very business-like way. He now also may be our best hope for a quick return to the top. However, his early gambits in this role seem to mirror slightly his stint in charge of Indian cricket, where as coach he fell foul of the whims of then-captain Sourav Ganguly. Behind the dispute was Chappell's desire to replenish the One-Day team in particular with younger players, specifically guys like Suresh Raina and Sreesanth. When told he could be included in the players who would make way, Ganguly led a near full-scale revolt against the coach and the player-coach relationship, probably fraught in that case to start with, was irreparably damaged. Chappell's tenure was undermined to such an extent that his position was untenable. The ill-feeling that persisted from that fallout has been fingered by a number of Indian cricketers as the chief reason for their underperformance in the 2007 World Cup.

With several of their stars ageing, Chappell saw a real need for change in the team and set about making those changes. Not being privy to how he delivered his message to those senior team members it's impossible to know how tactful he was; but one of Chappell's most obvious (and endearing) qualities has always been his honesty and frankness. It's quite possible that he was simply too honest for renowned prima-donna Ganguly; it's also possible that need for change could have been either postponed until after the 2007 World Cup or administered in a graduated manner rather than the "making space in the squad to add youth" method purported by "Guru Greg".

Of course this is all theory, but it does sit well: with Chappell now chief among them, the selectors have acted similarly with Hauritz, a player thought behind the scenes to be overly sensitive. It seems the mindset behind the team is now "Change is needed, so make that change as soon as possible". Sometimes sensitive players appreciate frankness and other times not. In a time where cricket has demanded so many sacrifices of the current players, how could an incumbent player not take brick-wall honesty concerning their future prospects as reproof?

As further testament to Chappell's ability to call a spade a bloody-great-shovel, Dean Jones remarked in his 1994 autobiography "Deano" that at the beginning of the 1984-85 season, newly minted selector Chappell approached him at Victorian training with the news that he had no chance of playing for Australia in the foreseeable future. At the time, the Test debutant was gutted and reflected in print that it was a harsh thing to say so frankly. Always a businessman on the cricket field, Chappell had his poker face on and Jones says he didn't elucidate further.

Australian cricket is a business, and has been for players since Gregory Stephen Chappell was amongst the first players to sign with Packer in 1977. But it's a business that operates unlike any other business in the world, so traditional business methods - poker faces, "step into my office" and water cooler discussion - don't work like they do in the outside world. Suddenly the business depends on the headspace of his men who often haven't worked in that outside world and who have been treated differently ever since they were acne-spotted early teens. If Chappell does deal with players playing his "CEO game" then he risks alienating any Ganguly-types in the dressing room.

There's no question he's a bonus to have in the Australian camp however and forthrightness is something that lacks in pro sports so in some ways it is very refreshing. Chappell's reputed unorthodox cricket coaching methods have a large role to play in the development of the next World Beaters from Down Under and as many other nations have adopted the analysis techniques made famous by John Buchanan an amount of the maverick could serve Australian cricket well as it searches for a new personality after the outgoing Warne, the taciturn Ponting and the redoubtable McGrath. An asset sure, but it appears we're witnessing a synchronisation where his style takes time to mesh fluidly with the players he's going to be managing.