Cricket fans are an anxious bunch; they are constantly
looking at their game & wondering what is wrong with it and what needs to
be changed. For an example, just look at
the title of this article.
For another example, look at One Day Cricket.
The format was originally invented to make the game more
interesting and bring more fans to the game.
That certainly worked and the format was going well…going well until
another, shorter, format turned up and made it the weird relative who
mysteriously turns up to all family outings without ever being invited.
Since the introduction of T20 cricket, and particularly
international T20 cricket, One-Day cricket has struggled for relevance,
grounds, players and recognition.
Once used as a means of acclimatising players to Test
cricket, it suddenly became the social smoker of the cricket world; it was
something that people did sometimes, though without a clear reason why.
Cricket Australia recognised the issues with One Day cricket
a few years ago and changed its domestic tournament to run over the period of a
month, rather than the whole summer, freeing up grounds and players for Test
and T20 competitions.
The lack investment in the format has seemingly resulted in
a smaller talent pool of players & lower interest from Coaches and
Administrators, with the Australian ODI team recently losing a series 5-0
against South Africa, the first time they’ve ever faced the broom and been
cleanly swept.
There are some mitigating factors in play, including
significant injuries to key players, but the abject defeat suggests wider
issues are at play. Unless you’re
Fremantle FC, you don't go from playing in a World Cup final to easy-beats
within 12 months.
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| Sorry Pav |
Even when considering injuries, the Australian team was
outplayed in every department, particularly with the ball. It was such a bad overall showing that
Matthew Wade was one of the better performers.
Of the bowlers, Chris Tremain, Joe Mennie, Dan Worrall and
Scott Boland seem to be pretty good State cricketers, but they took a combined
15 wickets in the 5 games for the cost of 685 runs at an average of 46 at 6.6
runs per over.
This is hardly frightening stuff & contributed to the
pressure put on the rest of the bowlers and the batsmen to chase or
create big totals.
Adam Zampa (3 wickets at 72) seems like a leg spinner with
promise, but he too took more of a battering than the Montague Street Bridge,
which is hardly the sort of thing that will help his development.
Mitch Marsh seems to have taken over his brothers’ job of
claiming a spot in the team to ensure someone named ‘Marsh’ is in it, with
little other justification. He averaged 27 with the bat and 67 with the ball.
Of the batsmen, only David Warner (386 runs at 77) had a
better than average series, following on from the success he had in Sri Lanka
where he also captained the side.
Aaron Finch (108 runs at 21) and George Bailey (114 runs at
22) remind me of overweight middle-aged businessmen who are still at the bar
after 11pm, their best is behind them and the night isn’t getting any
better. I only know this from my own
experience.
Travis Head (139 runs at 27) is in a similar
queue-appreciating boat to his South Australian comrade Zampa, young and worth
persevering with.
So what is to be done?
A good start may be to select a better mix of experience and
youth in the bowling squad. JasonBehrendorff is not only using a lot of consonants in his last name, but he’s
also bowling extremely well for Western Australia in the compact Domestic
Tournament (4 wickets at 27 for 5.4 runs per over).
At 26 years of age, he has had plenty of experience, swings
the white ball early and shouldn't be written off as a future prospect.
Cameron Boyce seemingly stepped into a vortex, which
resulted in him dropping from the National selectors view & landing in
Tasmania. That's a worse vortex result than
nearly everything that dude from Quantum Leap experienced.
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| No competition |
Still, he has a decent international T20 record (8 wickets
at 19) and is also performing well in the Domestic One Day competition (8
wickets at 16).
Marcus Stoinis isn’t the quickest bowler going around, but
he may be the best looking and has taken 5 wickets at 19 for Victoria in the
Domestic Competition. He also comes in at
3 with the bat and averages 36 with a strike rate of 110. I bet he even dances
well. What a bastard.
For the batsmen, it would seem that rather than banishing
last summers Test Centurions; Joe Burns and Usman Khawaja from all forms of
international cricket, it might be worth letting them find form in the shorter
format.
Failing that, Stoinis’ teammate Cameron White is once again
dominating the Domestic One Day competition (198 runs at 66) and would certainly
provide more of a heavy anchor to any innings than the current featherweight
performers.
But perhaps the greatest change of all needs to be the
approach to the game. Cricket Australia
needs to stop being a social smoker, get to the local shop and start smashing Winfield’s
properly, or just quit altogether.
