On Sunday July 14, Eoin Morgan will hoist the glittering World Cup trophy high above his head at Lords (preferably in fading light, the enduring image is better), before Stuart Broad and James Anderson embark on one more national tour of Dukes ball wizardry to reclaim the urn from the colonials.
A few retirements may add to the pomp, too. Reminders of Nathan Lyon’s words about “ending careers” in the last Ashes series will therefore tie in nicely, and stir righteous glee as England’s quicks are chair lifted from The Oval after leading a 5-nil rout. The ball tampering jokes will no doubt be top-notch, too.
The dream is justified. This year, England boasts the No 1 ODI side in world cricket, are hosts of the World Cup, and from June to October, will welcome an Australian outfit that struggles to play the moving ball on the field, and who is still yet to fully explain the sandpaper saga off it.
It’s against that background that Cricket Australia’s four-volume selection drop on Monday needs to be understood. Not since club sides stopped publishing grades one through five in the major metro rag have we seen so many names appear in one go.
With the exception of leading Shield wicket-taker Trent Copeland, whose fans collectively shared in his Twitter-published “face palm” emoji directly after Monday’s announcement, it seems everyone is going to be in the UK, trying to stop the England onslaught.
While modern cricket thinking stresses the increasing distinction between formats, Australia’s selections across all forms still retain the common thread of conservatism.
Justin Langer’s major World Cup selection dilemma was to fit five batsmen into three spots. That he leant toward familiar accumulators over game-changing power, Ashton Turner, and flexibility, Peter Handscomb, is instructive.
The omission of Turner is especially so. While the collective average of both England and Australia’s ODI batsmen is just under 40, England’s batsmen score roughly ten runs more per hundred balls. It’s a gap that may point toward a greater bravery in approach, and back up the suspicion that scores of 280-300 might not cut it any more.
Australia has a number of hundred makers, some of whom were selected on the back of these feats. However in 2019, the run-a-ball hundred maker may not be as helpful as the player who can strike at a quicker rate, but values their wicket less.
Australia has selected one batsman that strikes over 100, in Glenn Maxwell. So has India. In contrast, England has three. If England has the fastest-scoring team, it’s fair to conclude their wickets will be prepared accordingly. If Australia is to match England’s scoring, much will rely on Maxwell, Warner, or statistically transcendent performances from Australia’s other batsmen.
On questions of philosophy, Monday’s selection release revealed the central contract system’s preference not for the twenty best cricketers in the country, but the twenty most used.
This means a versatile, fringe national player like Handscomb is rewarded, while an incumbent Test specialist like Kurtis Patterson is not. While on the subject of incumbents, not that the world needs another take on Shaun Marsh – who it must be said doesn’t award himself a contract – but if his batting output is the standard Australia accepts, then further batting patchiness can be expected. Either that, or at 35, he is the oldest player of promise in the history of world cricket.
If the list appears a little counter-intuitive, it therefore doesn’t surprise that stories linger of beguiling contracting methods. In a Maxwell-esque Catch 22, it’s understood one player was told last year that he would not receive a 2018/19 contract on the basis of playing conditions not suiting his game, but was given a verbal undertaking in the same conversation he’d receive one the following year, where playing conditions were likely to suit. Naturally, after administrative upheaval, that contract did not materialise this year.
Not that national contracts appear too great a hurdle to selection, given four of Australia’s top six in its last Test weren’t centrally contracted.
Ultimately, Monday’s mass release of squads taught us that selection in Australian cricket is about being orthodox when it matters, flexible when it otherwise matters, and more importantly, somehow decoding what matters. Also, ensuring verbal undertakings are issued in writing.
