Test call-up … Sixers' Shane Watson was commandeered. Photo: AFP
Cricket Australia has some answers to find, for the fans, the players and ultimately for themselves. CA with the newly commissioned board commands a sport that has a national audience and an international following, a limited elite player resource and a cluttered, disordered schedule composed of three varying formats.
The three formats are having family reunions like unloved in-laws rather than blood relations.
CA has to sort the jetsam and give some clear direction instead of the incessant compromises it makes with programming and players.
Just how important is the Test series with South Africa and more immediately the first Test starting on Friday? Is five-day cricket more, less or equally important than 50-over and Twenty20 matches?
Shane Watson was commandeered from the Champions League in South Africa ostensibly to better prepare for Test cricket. The clear understatement in this instance from CA is Test cricket is more important than its partially owned business the Champions League. Watson is considered a key player with his top-order batting and strike bowling relief and Sixers boss Stuart Clark was one unhappy magenta Vegemite agreeing to disagree with former Wallaby now cricket supremo Pat Howard about the veracity of Watson's confiscation.
The prize money at stake was $2.5 million (TWO POINT FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!) after all and his trump was not allowed to be played during the finals. They won anyway.
Since his premature return, Watson played not a single match, not club, not second XI, not limited overs, nothing until this week's Sheffield Shield round in which all Australian players were scheduled to participate in any case. Even though CA has tried to manage his ''work load'' (my least favourite expression next to ''playing group''), his preparation for a severe examination in Brisbane must be considered less than ideal.
Ricky Ponting, now restricted to Test and state cricket has had a very different lead-in to what will be a personally testing series. He has made runs for Tasmania in Shield and limited-overs fixtures with a couple of fifties and a ton. He has played none of the shortest form and that must be a useful advantage when facing any respectable pace attack on an early-season Gabba strip as long as the hamstring strain comes good.
Michael Clarke has played the pre-Champions Trophy Shield games in September - the schedule brought forward to accommodate the Perth and Sydney T20 franchises but not to assist in anyone's Test preparation - and he is playing against Queensland at Allan Border Field. The Test skipper has also played a single domestic one-dayer, again back in September, for the Blues and even batted in a club match for Western Suburbs. As with Ponting he has resisted the lure of the T20 cash bonanza and looks to be in a better space than those bashing white aspros and wearing pastel pyjamas in the presence of semi-naked cheer squads.
Mike Hussey has been in the T20 circus and returned early from Chennai's campaign for personal reasons after playing exclusively 20-over matches since early September, although he seems to adapt well to different formats and has even said it is easier to go from 20-over to Test match format than the other way around. Dave Warner has missed out everywhere. He hasn't played competitive cricket since October 20 and that was a T20 game in the Champions League. He failed in the first innings against Queensland and he will be hoping for a significant occupation in the second dig.
His opening partner Ed Cowan has played all the domestic cricket with middle of the road results so far. Bizarrely a Test opening batsman trying to establish his position and needing all the innings he can muster against the new ball finds himself coming in at third drop in one-day matches for Tasmania. That is not clever thinking at all in Ed's and hence Australia's best interest. Has chairman of selectors John Inverarity spoken to Tigers captain George Bailey or coach Tim Coyle about this apparent handicap to the national team's performance?
The bowlers face a more complex preparation. Mitchell Starc has been in career-best form with the Sixers. His skills are high but his endurance low. Tests are a test of skill and resilience. They have to back up, over after over, hour after hour and day after day. His four overs in a T20 game will cover the first 30 minutes of a 30-hour Test. Fast bowlers must produce stamina as well as nous, something the sports scientists appear to have dismissed as irrelevant. He is in prime position for an injury, as is Ben Hilfenhaus, who has dodged the media glare while playing for Chennai at the Champions League as Starc has blazed away for the titleholders. Similarly, he needs to conjure up some long spells in a hurry for his body to adapt. If Australia choose both for the Test match they are taking a significant risk of one or both breaking down. If the two were to falter together a burden would flow to the injury-prone and under-prepared Watson. Catch 22.
Fortunately the match preparation of Peter Siddle and James Pattinson has been smoother with plenty of overs on the turf treadmill for the Bushrangers and a steady workload ramp that has excluded four-over spells with white balls.
Is it time to have completely different squads? Stuart Clark understands all too well the physical compromises that lead to injuries coming off the Champions League (which he won with NSW in the inaugural year) and then sustained a back injury immediately after he returned to Sheffield Shield cricket, thus ending his Test career. Stuart said at the time the training program and preparation for a Test series by bowling four overs a match was ridiculous. Lessons have not been learnt. During the 2007 T20 World Cup the Pakistan team had full training and gym sessions on match days as they played a Test four days after the final.
Finally we have the farcical situation of withdrawing players from first-class cricket so they can be rested for the Test and sending in substitutes. This cheapens the 120-year-old Sheffield Shield and is disrespectful to the notion of first-class matches, displays a lack of understanding of the advantages competition brings to a player's performance. CA is in charge of its programming, surely it could have started a day or two earlier if it wanted more rest for the players potentially involved in the Test.
Dale Steyn has warmed up with solid match practice and plenty of overs at South African training with the red ball. He's ready for a Test.
No comments:
Post a Comment