Unappealing personality? What an utter load of horse ■■■■. Have you met this bloke? From what I’ve seen he seems like a nice, quiet and top bloke that I’d love to have a beer with if he’d have me. Not that his personality should have any bearing on anything, but Blitz comes up with some sh*t sometimes.
And secondly that leave was funny and a silly mistake, but he’s said he was in a dark place at the time and that caused him to go deeper into a downward spiral and depression.
I’d also say he has good skills and good technique, he just has poor shot selection. He’s a very good 20/20 player and ODI player, I don’t know why people hold that against him. We’ll never know for sure how good a Test player he’d have been.
The shield schedule was sacrificed well before T20 came along. How many shield games did McGrath play over his career and he was finished before the Big Bash started
Obviously team mates and numerous coaches don’t share the same sentiment as you in regards to his personality.
Like it or not he has rubbed people the wrong way
I agree with that. There needs to be a solution that allows shield games to be played leading up to all test matches.
I know they want to play BBL over the holidays as you suggested.
To me the solution is:
only play shield up to Christmas.
make the test schedule so the last test of the summer is sydney at New Year’s.
start BBL maybe on Boxing Day, and aim to finish it by end of January.
pretty much ■■■■ off the 50 over international one day tours I reckon, except for maybe a token one in the lead up to world cups.
get rid of (or really scale back) the 50 over domestic comp too.
restart the shield as soon as the BBL is over.
Essentially sacrifice the 50 over games as much as possible I reckon. And shorten the BBL season a bit. This season has already proven the longer season is not a success.
If it’s only shield cricket up until Christmas basically all players are spending the first few months of every season playing proper cricket and bedding down their techniques. This should also improve the standard of BBL imo
Watching the 3rd RSA v Pakistan Test match. Markram has played a gem of an innings so far, currently 78* and has dominated a century partnership with Amla after losing Elgar early on. Elgar stand-in skipper after du Plessis was suspended for a Test due to slow over rates.
50 over tournament designed to replicate the world Cup should be held after the BBL, when the majority of player are in hitngiggle mode. It could be wrapped up in a few weeks. And should be capped of with an Australian XI vs Challenger XI which would generate some cash for c7 and CA.
If CA were serious about improving public interest in the shield then they would schedule everything to allow the aussie players play in every game. This would force all the “up-and-comers” and all the “not-quite-good-enoughs” to play at the lower levels, improving the quality of both comps and providing a genuine pathway for young players.
State squads should be treated as a genuine representative team and a finishing school and the brunt of junior development should be at club level.
The big bash should be condensed to the last month of school holidays and teams should be allowed to bring in more internationals so they can field the best teams possible.
I think the only way to make the Shield work, without having a silly break in the middle, is to start and finish the season earlier.
Obviously this brings the season in line with winter and the wetter months, which could be solved if the first few rounds are played up in Northern Australia where cricket has always been neglected by the higher ups. It would be nice to see some outreach to rural and Indigenous communities too.
It wouldn’t be fair to this person if I outed him but he has stated there was friction between a couple of team mates and Maxwell aswell as members of the coaching staff who haven’t seen eye to eye with him.
Wade is in a similar boat with a couple of senior players going to the coaches and asking for him to be omitted
It’s happened for eons in most sports.
If the skipper or other power brokers in the team don’t like you there is a fair chance you will find yourself on the outer.
We have had several coaching changes and both Maxwell and Wade are out of favour so what is that telling you?
Oh, I’m completely aware that’s how a lot of terrible, self-destructive hierarchies work.
It tells me they’ve all been terrible at team-building. And that’s admin’s First job. Not swinging your ■■■■ around and doing favours for favourites.
It’s great when you’re spoiled for choice, but when things go bad then you look a bit stupid.
Whether that’s cricket, tennis, basketball, or any other workplace.
Over my lifetime I’ve always found cricket to be one of the more clique sports I’ve been involved in. At District and Premier junior level it’s usually more about who’s mate with who or who’s dad contributes the most time/money as to whether sonny boy gets a game