That’s instructive of how bad things are… They drop a bloke and guy they bring in performs so badly that they go back to the other ■■■■ option.
I very much doubt any of the proposed selections have a worse Test record than the Marshes’s from the previous ten games before they were dropped.
Maaaaybe Maxwell.
But still doubt even him.
Not sure that’s insurmountable.
You just couldn’t have all 3 be current players.
Chairman. Watches all the Tests.
One other full-time selector. Watches all shield.
And one guy still playing shield. And watches the rest of shield on tape.
Reality is they’d all have to watch a lot of tape anyway.
the base level here is the 3 who decided Brendan Doggett deserved to go on a Test tour, with about 7 FC games and 30 FC wickets to his name. “Can’t possibly change that winning formula”.
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Incorrect. They brought him back in as a 4th seamer to ease the work load of the other seamers. He offered nothing with either bat or ball so was dropped again. What they were crying out for was another batsman not another bowler. it was poor selection.
Start by changing the development pathways so we actually develop good batsman. If blokes are bashing down the selection door with 1000’s of shield runs year in year out then we aren’t even having this discussion. But they’re not. We’re actually arguing because a guy with a career 1st class average of 40 who hasn’t hit a shield ton this year isn’t getting picked for Australia. That’s how bad we are going at the moment.
No we are discussing poor selection policies and set up, not who are the best players in the country.
That’s a really terrible argument.
We’ll keep demonstrably worse players because better ones don’t hit some arbitrary standard.
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consistent excellent form over a long period of time is an arbitrary standard… right.
Consistent excellent form like the Marshes?
Again, Renshaw, Wade, Burns, Maxwell, probably others that slip my mind performed Better before they were dropped than the Marshes have been.
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Renshaw is a sad case: batting well, goes to England plays well for his county side. Then breaks his finger, then does his hammy and since then his form has fallen off a cliff.
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You’ve entirely missed the point. If we’re developing good batsman, none of them are in the discussion. The fact that we’re discussion the selection of Burns or Wade or Maxwell or Head as playing for Australia is symptomatic of a far greater problem than selection bias. We don’t have anyone in the country that’s scoring the sort of runs it once took to get you a baggy green cap. How can we expect a player to dominate, and that’s what we’re talking about here - dominating test cricket as a batsman averaging 50 and making test centuries, if they can’t dominate a lower level?
“The last 10 Tests before Maxwell got dropped”?
He’s played 7… in 4 different series… all overseas… been shunted around to 7 didferent spots in the order… only hit one ton… taken 8 wickets…
and still has a better record than SMarsh’s in his last 10 games.
14 innings, 1 not out. 339 runs, 1 ton, avg 26
vs
18 innings, 0 not outs, 344 runs, 0 tons/ 1 fifty, avg 19
Cooooooked.
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Makes me really sad, genuinely. He’s got something special. He’s a genuine class batsman who’s utterly ruined at the moment.
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I reckon George would make a great selector… when he’s completely retired from all forms of cricket.
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The lower levels are a different discussion.
You’re going to have a hard time convincing me that time is more on S Marsh’s side than the others.
And M Marsh is, quite simply, the worst Australian batsman over the longest period in the history of Test cricket.
I’m fully in favour of him having to score a thousand first class runs in a season before he’s ever considered again.
But neither can play against Sri Lanka.
It’s just complete lunacy if they do.
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Clearly there is a dearth of players making big runs in the Shield. You only have to look at the season-by-season stats and overall FC averages. But, when someone does, it’s ignored. Wade’s form couldn’t be ignored in the current situation. Don’t care if he’s a keeper, the Poms have 3 of them in their team and 2 play as batsmen only. If you’re in form, you deserve a chance. Labuschagne didn’t earn a recall by weight of runs in the Shield, yet he’s back in. You drop Handscomb and tell him he needs to make technical adjustments before he gets another chance, he’s back next game. Then to top it off, a guy who’s 35 and averaged 18 over his last 19 Test innings with one score above 50 is retained. It’s just sheer incompetence.
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Changing tack from selection, to batting:
What is being missed in how badly the batting is going is the wickets they play on. Watching the BBL last night one of the players on the mike (forget who) was asked about the Adelaide pitch. He said it was the best followed by Brisbane, all the rest are pretty bad and hard to bat on. You can’t score and the bounce is either so low or so erratic that it makes batting normally very difficult. He said drop in pitches are not working in Aus atm and haven’t been at their best for a few years.
The Melbourne curator identified that the moment he came over from Perth and has started developing new drop in pitches because the old ones are so bad they cannot be fixed (he did try). They will take some time though.
Different but intrinsically linked. As I said, if blokes are dominating at Shield level, proper dominating not averaging 40 and not making tons, then they pick themselves and we don’t have this problem.
We have this problem because selectors are ignoring the form of challengers And incumbents.
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I agree with this, although SMarsh probably will.
Hope they pick Stoinis. His numbers aren’t amazing but we obsess over all rounders and his shield form this season has been good. Easy intro against the Lankans to give him some confidence ahead of the WC and Ashes tour. Enter the Stoin.