Australia's test side for the Ashes in Australia

[Johann]

It is fun to watch the Australian team become the England team from the 90's

 

[Spark]

It's pretty incredible, they consistently manage to perform miles below the sum of their parts.

Like they're suffering from a certain malignant and often fatal illness

 

[Uppercut]

Would seem harsh on Smith to bracket him with Hughes, Khawaja and Watson.

Smith's kind of gotten away with it because he's likable, he has potential and he's never quite the worst Australian batsman. Honestly he's been pretty **** this series. Certainly not any better than Watson.

 

[burr]

I don't buy this argument that there's more pressure on these players because they haven't had time to develop in a good team and they're always having to play for their careers. If I was one of them, I'd see it as less pressure. No one is expecting much, they know the talent pool's dry so there are not many demanding a place ahead of them, and they mostly have youth on their side. In the early 2000s it felt like the middling players (Lehmann, Martyn etc.) were constantly in the firing line. If they didn't perform there was a production line of run machines waiting to take their place. That was pressure.

As such, these players may be underdeveloped but they should be relishing the opportunity to have a go when they have so little to lose. It may just be they're not good enough of course. Khawaja certainly never will be.

Clarke, on the other hand, the pressure of captaining and having to score big for any remote chance of a win must be beyond exhausting. It will knock two years off his career I reckon.

 

[Biryani Pillow]

It is fun to watch the Australian team become the England team from the 90's

That's very unfair to the England team of the 90s.

They were far better than this rabble, and not nearly as confusing - despite the best effort of Ray Illingworth.

 

[Furball]

I don't buy this argument that there's more pressure on these players because they haven't had time to develop in a good team and they're always having to play for their careers. If I was one of them, I'd see it as less pressure. No one is expecting much, they know the talent pool's dry so there are not many demanding a place ahead of them, and they mostly have youth on their side. In the early 2000s it felt like the middling players (Lehmann, Martyn etc.) were constantly in the firing line. If they didn't perform there was a production line of run machines waiting to take their place. That was pressure.

As such, these players may be underdeveloped but they should be relishing the opportunity to have a go when they have so little to lose. It may just be they're not good enough of course. Khawaja certainly never will be.

Clarke, on the other hand, the pressure of captaining and having to score big for any remote chance of a win must be beyond exhausting. It will knock two years off his career I reckon.

Nah there is less pressure. 4 years ago England binned Ravi Bopara because he'd been crap in the first 4 Tests and they couldn't risk him being **** in the series decider. I'd be surprised if Bairstow, as rubbish as he's been, doesn't get the 5th Test because there's not as much pressure to change a winning side.

There's also more pressure in a losing side because there's always pressure on the selectors to DO SOMETHING. Regardless of who's behind you in domestic cricket, if you come into a successful side you'll always get more time to prove yourself than if you come into a poor, losing side.

 

[Jamee999]

 

[Uppercut]

Has Adam Voges been considered at all for tests? Just remembered he existed and thought it seemed strange that he was never mentioned. He has a few things going for him, good ODI record, plenty of experience in England etc etc

 

[Tangles]

Some of the Sky commentators mentioned him when I was watching the games from the India but I don't think he's been considered by anyone else.

 

[Dan]

If we're cycling through not-quite-young-but-not-ancient-either batting prospects with decent-but-not-exceptional career records who are likeable guys, how about Ben Rohrer?

 

[Spikey]

fails the rohrer test iirc

 

[NUFAN]

Has Adam Voges been considered at all for tests? Just remembered he existed and thought it seemed strange that he was never mentioned. He has a few things going for him, good ODI record, plenty of experience in England etc etc

Not really. Its strange though that he hasn't given the alternatives. All the way back in the 2006 Ashes, Voges was named 12th man after Martyn's retirement and Symonds got the nod in the XI, so you would think that with him averaging 54,38 and 54 from 2009/2010 to 2011/2012 in Shield Cricket and good ODI performances would have been enough to get him a game. I would have definitely picked one of Voges or Bailey in the initial squad.

 

[LongHopCassidy]

I was an avid reader of Steve Waugh's tour diaries, and the recurring theme in all of them - at least the one that sticks in my mind - is his commentary on the Poms creating a losing culture by constantly chopping and changing their side and having everyone look over their shoulders. Now that the boot's firmly on the other foot, it's a great deal easier to empathise with the 90's English mindset of selection - we have to persist with someone, but what if that someone is the next Ramprakash or Hick, constantly in the frame by weight of FC runs but never making the step up in temperament for Test matches? That's our only obstacle to a pick-and-stick policy, otherwise we'd have confirmed it by now. Will Hughes go down the same path by the scars of three droppings giving him mental blocks? Is Khawaja just not Test class? Will the People's Champ ever get his breakthrough ton? Hard to see when their Test averages are being challenged by Mitchell Starc.

If we persist with them, they may never deliver. But if we don't persist with them, we'll be forever haunted with the spectre of what if. That's not a traditionally English mindset, it's one of any struggling team of neophytes who don't believe in themselves. When Waugh's team went from losing to winning, he forgot the **** decision that the selectors faced each Test before 1989.

Honestly, I don't envy Invers at the moment. He's on a hiding to nothing whoever he puts in the top 6, and even the spinner and third seamer. Do we want to hop back on the twenty Test merry-go-round of blooding the next big thing and pray they become the proverbial duck to water?

 

[91Jmay]

The difference I can see between the situations is that in the 90s England had people scoring runs in CC, probably because of the low quality, so there was normally a few other realistic options for us to chop and change to. In some ways the fact that you don't appear to have many other candidates in SS who are scoring runs, could mean you just stay with the incumbents. Khawaja aside, he looks totally out of his depth and the hold Swann has over him now is akin to Warne/Cullinan level, that might be something of a blessing in disguise as at least one of them (my bet would be Smith) has to come good at some stage.

 

[Furball]

I was an avid reader of Steve Waugh's tour diaries, and the recurring theme in all of them - at least the one that sticks in my mind - is his commentary on the Poms creating a losing culture by constantly chopping and changing their side and having everyone look over their shoulders. Now that the boot's firmly on the other foot, it's a great deal easier to empathise with the 90's English mindset of selection - we have to persist with someone, but what if that someone is the next Ramprakash or Hick, constantly in the frame by weight of FC runs but never making the step up in temperament for Test matches? That's our only obstacle to a pick-and-stick policy, otherwise we'd have confirmed it by now. Will Hughes go down the same path by the scars of three droppings giving him mental blocks? Is Khawaja just not Test class? Will the People's Champ ever get his breakthrough ton? Hard to see when their Test averages are being challenged by Mitchell Starc.

If we persist with them, they may never deliver. But if we don't persist with them, we'll be forever haunted with the spectre of what if. That's not a traditionally English mindset, it's one of any struggling team of neophytes who don't believe in themselves. When Waugh's team went from losing to winning, he forgot the **** decision that the selectors faced each Test before 1989.

Honestly, I don't envy Invers at the moment. He's on a hiding to nothing whoever he puts in the top 6, and even the spinner and third seamer. Do we want to hop back on the twenty Test merry-go-round of blooding the next big thing and pray they become the proverbial duck to water?

The biggest obstacle to a pick and stick policy is losing. No selection panel, journalist or fan from Australia (or England for that matter) is going to say "well do you know what, the 11 blokes we picked are the best 11 for the job, and the brutal truth is that we're not good enough to beat England."

 

[Furball]

I've started re-reading Gideon Haigh's review of the 2010/11 Ashes and some of his articles from before that series make for interesting retrospective reading.

One of the criticisms levelled at the selection panel prior to the last Ashes was that the top 6 became a closed shop - between Hayden's retirement and the start of the Ashes only 7 players had been selected for the top 6 - Hughes, Katich, Ponting, Hussey, Clarke, North and Watson.

Now, Australia have gone completely the other way. Since the start of the 2010/11 Ashes Australia have had 9 players play in the number 3 position alone, and excluding nightwatchmen, have picked 17 different players in their top 6.

 

[straw man]

One of the criticisms levelled at the selection panel prior to the last Ashes was that the top 6 became a closed shop - between Hayden's retirement and the start of the Ashes only 7 players had been selected for the top 6 - Hughes, Katich, Ponting, Hussey, Clarke, North and Watson.

I can see the logic in that approach - it's pick-and-stick in miniature with the idea that when the three older guys are gone the remaining four have had every opportunity to prove themselves and make up the new core of the top 6. After that you can bring two or three new guys into the side and they have the benefit of batting with established players and the succession plan rolls on. Given this approach (which ofc is not the only one possible) the failure in Australia's transition rests squarely on North, Hughes and Watson in failing to make the grade. Bloodline of kings has failed etc. etc. In hindsight perhaps they chose the wrong guys to put their faith in. You/Haigh are probably right that expanding that pool just a little would have given a better chance of good results.

IMO a side needs a bare minimum of three quality established batsmen in the top 6 at any one point in time, plus a decent keeper-batsman at 7. Anything less than three consistent, experienced batsmen and the batting degenerates into a rabble. Too many inexperienced guys batting with each other, too much pressure on the 1-2 quality batsmen, too much ability for the opposition to focus just on those players, too many collapses that feed back into the side's psyche. Australia fell below that level a while ago.

If for the next 18-24 months Australia's core batting could be Clarke, Rogers, someone (Warner?) + Haddin, that would be passable, and might just be long enough for two or three younger batsmen to improve to the point where they can bear that responsibility when Rogers, Hadding and then Clarke retire.

 

[Chubb]

I was an avid reader of Steve Waugh's tour diaries, and the recurring theme in all of them - at least the one that sticks in my mind - is his commentary on the Poms creating a losing culture by constantly chopping and changing their side and having everyone look over their shoulders. Now that the boot's firmly on the other foot, it's a great deal easier to empathise with the 90's English mindset of selection - we have to persist with someone, but what if that someone is the next Ramprakash or Hick, constantly in the frame by weight of FC runs but never making the step up in temperament for Test matches?

Good post. Nasser Hussain made similar points in his autobiography. Waugh's talk of consistency of selection, positive thinking etc. was based on the fact he led a golden generation. When you don't have a golden generation you simply don't have that luxury.

It's also telling I think that many people would point to how many players England had capped compared to Australia in the 90s. Look at the records of both countries since around 2007. The boot is well and truly on the other foot now.

 

[GotSpin]

Don't think its as bad tbh. Our bowling stocks are seriously good.

 

[Top_Cat]

By the same token, however, Invers was a senior player for SA who helped take a bunch of nobodies to a Shield win in the 80's. Hookesy was no great shakes as skipper at the best of times so he relied heavily on Invers who, a bit-and-pieces players himself, had won an awful lot of Shield cricket in WA as captain of a team with top players. The bloke knows how to win games of cricket without the services of out-and-out guns.

That SA team, though, was full of blokes who knew their games well, played within them and were just basic hard ****s and team men. The current Aussie side has many who could be considered the diametric opposite of that. Picking and sticking with guys is all well and good as long as they're the right guys for the team, not necessarily the 'best' players. Anyone who isn't needs to be gone and Invers would be well aware of that. So, it stands that any failure to pick the right combination of players is and should be one of the metrics by which he can and should be judged. If the wrong players keep getting picked, that's a failure on his part.