A truly fatal four-way

If the Australian selectors are starting to consider playing four pacemen for the third Test against India in Perth, they’re just as muddle-headed as the team they replaced. 

Let’s not go into the ramifications of kicking another promising young spinner in the teeth (cf. Beau Casson, Dan Cullen, Nathan Hauritz and Michael Beer), it belies common sense and, eventually, come back to bite Australia fairly and squarely on the bum.

Since 1990, Australia has played 21 times at Perth.  In those games, their Win/Loss ratio stands at thirteen wins, three draws and four losses.  Australia has played an all-pace attack in three of those games: in the Ashes last year, versus India in 2007-08 and in the 1998-99 Ashes series, where “Funky” Miller got the nod while Shane Warne was injured. 

Although they won the WACA match last year – and against the Old Enemy a dozen years before – they were absolutely pillaged in 2007-08 against the Indians.  This 2-in-3 success rate seems about right for what amounts to a gamble.

There are four iron-clad reasons why an all-pace attack should be vetoed with as much haste as possible.

First, Australia seems to have a great wealth of fast bowling talent at present.  Unfortunately however, the nation seems to be injuring that talent as quickly as it arrives.  With James Pattinson, like Pat Cummins, succumbing to the dread foot stress reaction, Australia are likely to head into Perth dressing the indefatigable Peter Siddle, the injury-prone Ryan Harris and the revitalised Ben Hilfenhaus.  Add a fourth to that lot (Peter George?  Mitch Starc?) and suddenly Australia’s attack, should/when Harris break down again, looks quite thin when compared to a batting lineup boasting near enough to 50000 Test runs. 

Peter George, courtesy: perthnow.com.au

This doesn’t even begin to answer the questions as to whether Starc, who looked game but perhaps overwhelmed against New Zealand, or indeed George, are polished enough for Test level at present.

Secondly, the effects of dropping Lyon would be tantamount to a slap from a wet fish.  Sure, he has cumulative figures of 2/180 so far this series, but he’s played on pitches hardly amenable to spin (Indian compatriot Ravi Ashwin has 4/298).  He’s also on track to be the best off-spinner Australia’s had since arguably since Ian Johnson, who retired in 1956.  He is worth persisting with and needs his captain, coach and even the ball-boys to tell him his place is secure.  Nathan Hauritz, though captained by a man who thinks spin is something that dryers do, was never told this.  And it showed.

This dovetails nicely into the third reason – Australia should play Lyon because he’s better-suited to the Perth pitch than to almost any other strip in the country.  While a bigger turner of the ball than Hauritz (as are many), he still doesn’t rip the ball or have quite the grip and turn of the likes of Saqlain Mushtaq, Harbhajan Singh or Graeme Swann.  What this means is that he’s a thinking bowler, and could – should? – become the Anil Kumble to Swann’s Warne, a player reliant on subtle variations … and aided enormously by bounce. 

Finally, while Australia has opted for a four-pronged pace attack in the past, it has done so when conditions merit.  Those conditions are best defined by the following questions:

           

            Does the pitch take spin - at all? 

            Will the strip break up?

            Can variety be provided by bowlers whose name isn’t Mike Hussey?

            Are the four best available bowlers pacemen? 

            If so, how far ahead of the competition/spinner are they?

            Are any of the four liable to collapse in a screaming heap?

           

Unfortunately for those advocating a fatal four-way, even the most ignorant of cricket fans knows the answer to all the above questions without even needing to think.  Australia would take a retrograde step in taking four speedsters to Perth, a step with both long and short-term implications.

#freeLyon

How good can Australia be?

The cricket world waits on a strong Australia. In dark times for the masses, hope is required and, for the first time since 2009, Australians wait expectantly on youth. At that time, that promise rested on Peter Siddle, Mitchell Johnson and the slightly rounded shoulders and plate-sized eyes of Phil Hughes. Now, two years hence, w are intrigued by Michael Beer and happy about Usman Khawaja's Test debut. His bright 30 at the Sydney Test wasn't outstanding, but a fillip for youth development in the country.

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.

Why they weren't picked

With the Australian side whittled down to thirteen as the first Test approaches, suddenly Callum Ferguson and (probably) Usman Khawaja have been left on the sidelines. The selectors have opted to stay with the same six batsmen who have led Australia to their current World ranking of fourth. The reason is simple: although the middle order has struggled mightily and watching Mike Hussey now reminds us all of David Boon's last, tedious, eyeball-stripping innings, neither the South Australian nor his younger New South Welsh counterpart have really made that final spot their own.

To look at Australia's last Test XI is to see mediocrity at several positions, namely in the middle order and the spin-bowling department. The team defeated in India will change, with Tasmanian Xavier Doherty replacing Nathan Hauritz on the strength of one good Sheffield Shield match and one outstanding ODI: his First Class figures aren't particularly impressive but he's performed well at the right time and thus has received the call.

The batsmen, however, are a different matter. Both Ferguson and Khawaja have had several chances recently to write their names in ink across the Aussie middle order yet have failed to do so; last week's paltry Australia A showings were the final nail in their collective coffins. Gone are the days of 1994-95 where Australia A were perhaps the second-best side in the World and this was proved emphatically at Bellerive as both "Next Best Things" surrendered their wickets to the English attack.

Khawaja or Ferguson would do well to heed the exploits of a young Damien Martyn. During the 1990s, an Australian had to force the selectors collective hands both with mountains of runs and with scores at the right time. The most striking example of this was in the early days of the West Indies 1992-93 tour. West Australian tyro Martyn was making runs for fun in the-then Mercantile Mutual Cup, in Shield matches and against a full-strength Windies pace battery in three separate matches. His front-foot slashes of Ambrose and Bishop to the extra cover boundary on a pacy WACA pitch were indelibly marked on my thirteen year-old brain as the most exciting cricket shots I'd ever seen. When the squad lists were submitted for the first Test at the 'Gabba, Martyn was there alongside an in-form Australian top six each of whom has claim to being an all-time great of the game. Martyn kept making runs and both popular and selector opinion was swayed immutably in his favour with a quickfire 36 against the tourists at Bellerive for the Australian XI. He made the team at the expense of Dean Jones.

It wasn't so much the weight of Martyn's runs that ensured his spot, nor the manner in which he scored them although his four-day Strike Rate nearing 100 was undoubtedly impressive. Damien Martyn was selected because he'd showed his readiness for the big time by making crucial runs in the right spots. When needing runs to cement his position, that one innings for Australian XI made not picking him a popular impossibility. The same stories apply with Matthew Elliott in 1997, Adam Gilchrist in 1999 and even Phil Hughes' 2008-09 domestic season: they made so many runs at the right time that Michael Slater, Ian Healy and Matthew Hayden were dumped so that Australia could progress. With mediocre recent form, neither Khawaja nor Ferguson have shown their mettle, posing the question: are they really ready? Are they ready to make the step up to Test match level?

As it happens, Usman Khawaja has been called up as an emergency replacement for a struggling Michael Clarke so we may well find out if he is ready anyway. Should Mike Hussey fail in Brisbane, we may find out how good a training-ground the Sheffield Shield really is. With many puzzling selections (and non-selections) over the past two years, it appears that Australia's selection panel has decided to award caps to guys they hope can do the job rather than to players they know can do the job. That's not their fault as there are more question marks over the strength of the Australian domestic competition than at any time since Packer - there isn't the same quality that inspires complete confidence in their delivering, so the next best thing is to plump for hope and call it development. What they can be pilloried for is the inconsistency with which they've applied this policy.

Neither Khawaja, Ferguson, Cameron White, Peter George, Mitch Starc or even Golden Child Steve Smith has forced the selection panel's to pick them even though Australia cries out for young talent to replace their ageing and tired top guns, now less howitzers and more derringers. Perhaps now we see more clearly why throughout the noughties so many Australian debutants have been aged in their late-20s and early-30s - the younger players just haven't had the responsibility that creates personal growth from an early age and so haven't taken it upon themselves to ensure their selection.