Selection Insanity

It's 3:07am, and I am unable to sleep as my mind is thinking of the Australian summer so far, and as an Australian cricket fan I find myself asking the same question as everyone else; what should be the side for Sydney?

As with all sporting sides when things are not going well, the public thinks who do we drop to ensure this run of form reverses? Is it that simple as changing one to two players and boom we win again? Well, the answer put merely is we need to find a combination of 11 players that can win a test at the venue we are playing at next.

As a kid growing up in the late 80s and 90s, we were spoilt for talent in this country just like previous eras before like the 40s that had Don Bradman, Neil Harvey, Keith Miller, Arthur Morris and more the 90s I watched a side that would dominate world cricket for over 15 years.

Mike Hussey is just one of examples of a strong Sheffield Shield system.

We were blessed with players like Michael Slater, and Mark Taylor who I thought was the best opening combination I’d seen only to be replaced later on by Hayden and Langer, David Boon batting at 3 was arguably the best player Tasmania had produced; until a plucky young bloke by the name of Ricky Ponting debuted at the WACA in 1995. Middle orders of Mark Waugh, Steve Waugh, Allan Border (Australia’s two highest run scorers) replaced by Michael Clarke, Damien Martin and Michael Hussey, all players who averaged 50 at test level or thereabouts.

Wicket Keepers like my idol as a kid growing up Ian Healy! Man, what a keeper he was, wasn’t he? Who replaced him again? Oh yeah, that bloke by the name of Gilchrist who not only took over 400 test dismissals but single-handedly rewrote the blueprint of what an international keeper was, as now averaging 25 with the bat is not acceptable. Throw in Brad Haddin, who, let’s be frank wasn’t a bad keeper/batsmen himself.

Bowlers of Warne and McGrath who just seemed to play for the entirety of my younger years, Stuart MacGill who in my opinion would have taken 500 - 600 test wickets had he been in any other era then Warne or any other nationality besides Australian. Damien Fleming, Brett Lee, Jason Gillespie, even Andy Bichel carried the drinks for how many tests? Pretty handy 12th man don’t you think? And look at the shield players who never got a look in Jamie Cox, Jamie Siddons, Martin Love, Jimmy Maher and Brad Hodge... gee, we could really use those blokes right now.

Queensland celebrate their first Sheffield Shield win in 1995.

What I’m getting at is what made those players great was a robust Sheffield Shield competition. Limited overs was not the pinnacle of the Australian summer it was test cricket and what made a strong side was the Sheffield Shield. During break periods of test cricket players would go back to their states and I can remember contest of Warne V Waugh or McGrath V Hayden, and it made our shield cricketers better.... these days having a shield average in the 30s batting 6 for your state gets you picked in the test side to open and why? Because you open in one day cricket! Sorry, but two of our most successful ODI openers in Mark Waugh and Adam Gilchrist didn’t open in a test because it wasn’t their best spot to bat IN TEST CRICKET.

Our BBL season runs from 19th December 2018 to 17th February 2019 almost the entire summer of test cricket and during that time how much shield cricket is played? Zero!!! That’s right zero red ball cricket gets played while our national side is playing test cricket and you wonder why we are struggling!!!! Peter Handscomb was dropped for a poor technique and how is he suppose to fix it in long for cricket? Here Pete go back and play T20 cricket on wickets that are overly batsman friendly and don’t worry about technique just swing the willow as hard as you can. It doesn’t work, what he needs is Sheffield Shield and time to work out what does and doesn’t work.

Shield cricket has fallen so far it is now played on suburban grounds.

There is zero reward for fringe players to chase red ball cricket and makes more sense to pursue mediocre T20 contracts around the world I mean we have the BBL, IPL, CPL, Pakistan Premier league, the T20 blast in England, Bangladesh premier league, I mean heck even Canada held a series in 2018. No wonder our players are chasing these leagues as it’s all about the money, and I can’t blame them if the money was there I would take it too. I mean if it weren’t for T20 would have we really heard of D’arcy Short and Chris Lynn? Maybe but maybe not. For me runs in shield cricket means everything, Michael Hussey churned our run after run before making his test debut Chris Rogers played a single test before being dropped then had to churn out a mountain of runs before returning for what was a successful career. And this brings me to the side I would consider for Sydney, it’s a mixture of current players and players knocking on the door with current and past form. It’s just one bloke's opinion at 3.45am, and I’m not saying it’s right, but we are in a rebuilding phase and need to change how we are picking our sides. As Einstein once said, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity.”

So having said that here is my side for Sydney.

Joe Burns

Marcus Harris

Usman Khawaja

Callum Ferguson

Travis Head

Tom Cooper

Tim Paine

Pat Cummins

Mitchell Starc

Nathan Lyon

Josh Hazlewood

12th Man: Peter Siddle

Win, lose or draw I will always support the Australian cricket side. Why? Because I'm a cricket nuffie and if I didn't love the game I wouldn't care what happens to Test cricket. I grew up watching, enjoying and playing the game and I want the same chance for my young girls growing up to do the same.