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We wrote about how Australia’s selectors don’t know what they’re doing last week. Nowhere is this more apparent than when it comes to spin bowlers.
Spoilt by Warne and MacGill for so long, there seems to be a ‘grass is greener’ philosophy, even when the grass in manifestly not greener, it’s actually just the odd yellowing blade poking up through mud and cat shit.
Nathan Hauritz averages 35 in Test cricket. Xavier Doherty averages 48 in first-class cricket. So Hauritz had a tough time bowling to Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman in India – if that’s a capital offence then Dale Steyn’s going to find himself in his own version of The Road, wandering the world, vainly looking for someone to talk to.
Hauritz is no great shakes, but he’s done a decent job. He got a go because Jason Krejza was a bit hit and miss. Krejza took 12 wickets on his debut, but has only played one Test since then. We thought he might get more of a go.
Other than that, Beau Casson and Bryce McGain have each played a single Test. If you were going to make your mind up about a player on the basis of a single match, McGain’s Test debut was fairly persuasive, but one match is still one match and how Beau Casson got even that many is a question that demands an answer.
The overall impression is of a bunch of people desperately searching for something that manifestly does not exist. Or maybe it does exist. Maybe it’s Xavier Doherty? Here’s a hint: it isn’t Xavier Doherty.
You can say it all with a Venn:
http://v4admin.sportnetwork.net/upload/66/66_0_1290343357.jpg
As Venn diagrams go, Ged, that is without a doubt the finest example in the history of the world.
Maybe Doherty’s name is on the long list as a sabre being rattled to unsettle KP. They would be so much better off with Smith, Katich and Watson doing the spinning job that I hope they do pick him for the test.
But, on the other had, your list does support your theory: as you said the other day this time of hope and speculation is the best part of an Ashes tour. I was at the Oval on the last day of the 2005 series and could not enjoy a moment until all the Australians round us had given up and gone home. I can’t help hoping we have won before Sydney when we next have tickets.
Maybe the King could get some of his t-shirts made up with one of his or Ged’s Venn’s?
Does this development render the hauritz < warne t-shirts redundant?
If so will you be offering them at a discount rate?
Watson spinning, Jill? I’d like to get pedantic about that.