Tag Archives: Handscomb

Topics for the 2022-23 summer

2022-23 Aus v W Indies, ,

I don’t mean to be unkind to the teams visiting Australia this summer, but the West Indies and South Africa are not likely to provide the level of competition that India or England might represent for Australia, so I’m not expecting a lot of excitement from either of the truncated Test series. I earnestly hope to be proved wrong and if either team kicks Australia’s admittedly entitled and somewhat smug backside, I’d be the first to cheer.

So what can we talk about?

DAVID WARNER:

The talk about possibly returning David Warner to a leadership role baffles me. Why pick this fight? Cricket Australia would be roundly criticized, especially by England fans, who loathe Warner. But as far as I can tell, there’s precious little love for Warner among Australian fans, either. So what would Cricket Australia gain from it? At 36, Warner doesn’t have much time left in any case. Don’t pick that scab. Let him play out this Test summer and let him fade away to spend his last couple of years in T20. For God’s sake, don’t pick him for the 2023 Ashes in England. Stuart Broad is already whittling his voodoo doll of Warner.

GENERATIONAL CHANGE:

As usual, Australia is blessed with quick bowlers. Michael Neser, Mark Steketee, Jhye Richardson and Scott Boland are all  excellent Test-quality bowlers and would be leading the attack in any cricketing nation if they didn’t have the misfortune to be born Australian. Shame, really. The best they can hope for is for Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood to all break down simultaneously.

There are fewer batsmen pushing for Test honours, though. Warner is 36 and Khawaja will be 36 on 18 December, so although the recent performance of both suggests they’ll keep their spots for the 2022-23 summer, surely both spots will need to be filled soon thereafter.

Still only 26, Queensland’s Matt Renshaw is pushing his way back to the front of the queue after losing his spot in the Test team after 11 Tests. Plenty of batsmen get their first chance when they’re too young, get dropped, and return when they have matured. Perhaps Renshaw will do the same. He has experimented both as an opener and in the middle order for Queensland, but if he maintains his current form, he’d have to be the leading candidate to replace Warner at the top of the order. After an underwhelming 2021-22 Sheffield Shield (410 runs at 29.29), Renshaw punched out 620 runs at 47.69 for Somerset in the 2022 English summer, scored 200 not out for Queensland in the second Shield match of the 2022-23 season, and made 81 and 101 not out for the Prime Minister’s XI against the West Indies in late November.

Peter Handscomb of Victoria (31) is probably the next candidate for a spot in the middle order if Khawaja becomes unavailable. He, too, fell from favour and lost his Test spot but racked up 697 runs at 49.79 in the 2021-22 Shield and has made 544 runs at 108.80 in the first four games of the 2022-23 Shield season, assisted with a 281 not out in Game 2. He also made 55 and 75 for the Prime Minister’s XI against the West Indies.

Beyond those two names, the pickings are slim.

Selectors Colour Blind on Finch

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One of the biggest criticisms of Australia’s Test selectors is that they are inconsistent in their selection criteria. They imply that performance in red ball cricket is of paramount importance, yet they have in recent years rolled the dice on untested youngsters (e.g. Ashton Agar) or on players who have done well in white ball cricket. (e.g. George Bailey).

The Test squad selected for the first two Tests of the 2018-19 Indian summer is a reasonably sound one. It faces an uphill battle to defeat India because there is so little batting talent in Australia to choose from, but at least it’s consistent in that most of the batsmen can justify their selection on the strength of their red ball cricket, if for no other reason that there is nobody better to take their place.

Khawaja? Yes, fine. Travis Head? Well….I suppose so. Just. He’s been unconvincing but has done just well enough to get another chance given his youth. Marcus Harris is not a ‘bolter’ as the media has said. He has averaged north of 40 for both of the past two completed Shield seasons and is averaging 86.40 so far this season. He deserves his shot, and 26 is a good age to have learned his craft and to hit the accelerator. I hope Matt Renshaw gets his act together because he has youth on his side and just seems to ooze potential from every pore, but Harris edged him out, fair and square. Peter Handscomb might not make the starting eleven on 6 December but he, too, has a good combination of track record and recent performance. Even the hellishly inconsistent Shaun Marsh deserves his position based on recent performances. His brother, Mitchell, more assuredly does not deserve his, but the selectors have made it clear Mitchell Marsh will be picked if he can more or less stand upright. Yes, he made 151 against Queensland at Allan Border Field recently but who hasn’t made a score like that on that wicket? It’s a road. Put me in on that wicket. I’ll make 150, too.

But I digress.

The glaring exception is Aaron Finch. Why on earth is he described by all and sundry as a ‘lock’ for the First Test? Finch is a nice bloke and an experienced hand, but there is no evidence (and I mean none) to suggest he is among Australia’s top six red ball batsmen. After 79 first-class matches, he averages 36.58 and has made a mere 7 centuries from 131 innings. In the 2017-18 Shield season, he played 8 matches but averaged only 35.28 with only a single century. His selection is being described by the coaches as justfied based on innings of 62, 49, 39 and 31 in the 2-Test series against Pakistan in the UAE. Not long ago, Glenn Maxwell was denied a Test spot because it was said he needed to make hundreds. Now, personally I think Maxwell is overrated and does not necessarily deserve to be in the Test team, but if that is the rule for selection, why on earth is Finch a ‘lock’? It makes no sense. He currently appears to be out of form, but Finch is primarily a white ball specialist who swings hard for the fences without moving his feet. C’mon, he is not a Test batsman. I hope very much to be proven wrong, but if he opens for Australia on 6 December, I suspect he will fail against what is the best Indian pace attack to visit these shores for a long time.

If one is honest and logical, there is no place for Finch.

If the selectors really mean what they say and wish to strike the proper balance between performance and potential in red ball cricket, and if they absolutely insist on retaining M Marsh, the top six should be:

M Harris
M Renshaw
U Khawaja
S Marsh
T Head or P Handscomb
M Marsh
T Paine
P Cummins
M Starc
N Lyon
J Hazlewood

Personally, I would jettison M Marsh and play both Head and Handscomb with four bowlers (after all, Head can bowl some part-time offies), but as I said, the selectors appear illogically committed to M Marsh.

Paine’s position deserves plenty of debate, but we’ll save that for another post.

Square Pegs in Round Holes

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Australia’s Test, ODI and T20 teams all have their problems; some are common across more  than one format whereas others are unique to a respective format. As far as the ODI team is concerned, the biggest problem is the selectors have stacked the batting order with T20 bash-&-crash merchants who have a lot of brute strength but precious little technique.

The selectors appear to have missed the fact that the ODI format is more of a long form of the game than a short form. Fifty overs is a long time to bat. A top order batsman ideally needs to be able to bat for at least 20-30 overs (and preferably more if they can). If they get half the strike, that’s something like 60-90 balls. He/she needs to be able to negotiate the new white ball, dig in and build an innings and then launch an attack later in the innings.

T20 players are rarely called upon to bat for more than, say, five or ten overs at most (i.e. 30 to 60 balls). With half the strike, that’s 15-30 balls. Throughout Aaron Finch’s T20 career, he has faced an average of only 22 balls per T20 innings (yes, I looked it up on ESPN CricInfo). For Chris Lynn, the figure is 19 balls. For Glenn Maxwell, it is only 15 balls (because he usually comes in down the order). Players like this have great hand-to-eye coordination but next to no foot movement. When the white ball is coming onto the bat they just stand and deliver, but when it’s moving around, they inevitably fail. The selectors are flogging several dead horses.

But, I hear you cry, Australia has no decent batsmen in the longer form either. True enough! But successful ODI batsmen won’t be found in the T20 ranks. The selectors need to look at the likes of Matt Renshaw, Usman Khawaja (when fit, of course), and Peter Handscomb. Other potential candidates are waiting in the wings (e.g. Marcus Harris, Jake Lehmann – both of whom could just as easily be considered for the Test team at some point over the summer).

By all means reserve a couple of slots at No. 6 and/or No. 7 for the bash-&-crash merchants but without some technically accomplished batsmen in the upper order, the cause will be lost by the time the big hitters are asked to come in. By then, the pressure is on and the game is more often than not already lost. This pretty much sums up Glenn Maxwell’s career.

Sound batting technique is currently in desperately short supply across all forms in Australian cricket, but the T20 specialists are the guys least likely to display it.

Some Spine in the Middle Order

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Mitchell Marsh has gone home injured from India, hounded by cruel but accurate headlines labelling him Australia’s worst ever No. 6. It’s not his fault – it’s the selectors who persist in filling the No. 6 slot with a so-called ‘all-rounder’ who bats a bit and bowls a bit but does neither well enough to help win a Test match for his team.

And now they’ve done it again.

Marcus Stoinis?

Really?

Why would you pick this guy for the Test team on the back of one (admittedly phenomenal) ODI innings against New Zealand? Like Hilton Cartwright and Moises Henriques before him, Stoinis bowls lollipop medium-pacers which India’s batsmen will chew up and spit out on their low, slow wickets. And he’s not a good enough batsman to play at No. 6 in the Test team. He simply isn’t (and neither was Mitchell Marsh). So why fly him to India? It makes no sense.

And if they don’t play Stoinis in the 3rd Test, will they play Usman Khawaja? A sensible short-term solution, perhaps, but Uzzy is not a No. 6 batsman. He’s an opener.

Oh, and by the way, Glenn Maxwell certainly isn’t the answer, either.  Substitute ‘off-spinners that don’t spin’ for ‘lollipop medium pacers’ in the paragraph above, and all the same arguments apply. Maxwell should not even be in the Test squad. He hasn’t earned it. He’s not good enough.

The Australian selectors seem to have forgotten how much better the team fared when it had a proper batsman at No. 6. Come back, Mike Hussey, we miss you. The obvious solution is to find a proper middle-order batsman.  Australia has done well in India with two decent seamers and two decent spinners. It doesn’t need a third seamer, or a third spinner. Even with Starc flying home, you could play Jackson Bird or if you must have more pace, fly Pat Cummins out to India. I don’t think it makes any difference.  Honestly, I think Bird will do fine. He lacks Starc’s threatening pace but he’s a lot more accurate.

When desperate after the series loss to South Africa, the selectors resorted to picking a couple of young batsmen who had (shock, horror,gasp) a good if somewhat short track record in the Sheffield Shield. Remember the Sheffield Shield? So far, Matt Renshaw and Peter Handscomb have done pretty well.  Both look likely to improve.

Why not stick with that approach? Australia needs a decent No. 6 batsman. There are two obvious candidates.

One is Kurtis Patterson, who bats at No. 4 for NSW. He will be 24 in May. He has played 39 first-class matches and has an average of 42.83 with 5 centuries. So far this season, he’s scored 621 runs at 47.77, with one ton and six half-centuries.

The other is Jake Lehmann, who bats at No. 5 for South Australia. The 24-year old Lehmann has played 25 first-class matches and has an average of 46.41 with 5 centuries.  So far this season, he’s made 646 runs at 49.69.

I reckon either Patterson or Jake Lehmann would be worthwhile selections. They both resemble Renshaw and Handscomb: young, and with a decent track record. The selectors are on to a good strategy. They should stick with it and abandon this catastrophic policy of picking a mediocre player to bat at No. 6.

Yes, But Can They Score Tons?

2016-17 S Africa in Aus, , , , ,

Half the Test team spots are up for grabs. And why not? Although he made some poor selections, I do think Rod Marsh got the rough end of the pineapple from the media even though he did make a few poor selections (yes, Mitchell Marsh, Moises Henriques, Glenn Maxwell, among others). I mean, Adam Voges made 1,358 Sheffield Shield runs in 2014-15 – that’s the third highest Shield run tally in history! Why wouldn’t you have picked him? It’s not Swampy’s fault that Voges has gone off a cliff. Peter Nevill was averaging over 40 with the bat and was a better ‘keeper when he was picked over Brad Haddin in England. It was the right call. It just didn’t work out.

But now replacements must be found. Mark Waugh has more or less said that anybody with runs under their belt who scores big in the third round of the Sheffield Shield is going to get a baggy green. Peter Handscomb has, you would think, nailed the audition with 215 today against NSW.

Whoever they pick, I have just one request: make sure they have a track record of scoring red ball centuries.

Too often the selectors have picked players to bat in the top six when those players have no history of making centuries on any sort of regular basis. Shane Watson was the best – I mean worst – example of this. Watson made 4 Test tons in 109 Test innings. He was never good enough to bat in the top six in a Test match. Mitchell Marsh has made only 4 first-class centuries in 110 innings, and reached 50 only twice in 31 Test innings. Again, not good enough.

But they are gone now.

Is Callum Ferguson really the right pick? Sure, he has 15 first-class centuries in 187 innings (sort of decent but not stunning), but he only played five Shield matches in 2015-16, scoring a mere 478 runs and made just the one century. Sure, in 2014-15 he scored four centuries, but that’s two years ago now. In Voges’ fabulous year of 2014-15, he made six centuries. Chris Rogers made five centuries in 2008-9 when he scored 1,195 runs. Ferguson made a ton in the first Shield match of 2016-17 but followed that with 0, 3, 1 and 4 in his next four red ball innings (the middle two of which were in his Test debut in Hobart). I hope he works out but I’m not very optimistic.

Handscomb looks like a logical replacement for Voges. He was third on the list of highest run-scorers in the 2015-16 Shield with 784 runs at 43.56 with 3 centuries and 4 fifties. Prior to his double ton against NSW, he had scores of 78, 10 and 60. That double century was his ninth century in his 100th first-class inning. Twice as good as Mitchell Marsh, I guess. Fingers crossed.

If you look at the entire 2015-16 Shield season PLUS the first two and half games of the 2016-17 season, you have Travis Dean and Jake Lehmann with four centuries each and Matt Renshaw and Kurtis Patterson with three each.

For my money, these are the sort of names one should be looking at. They won’t all work out but unless they can score Shield tons, they won’t score Test tons.

 

Looking for Rock Bottom

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Most professional sporting teams experience fluctuations in form. A team doing badly will more often than not improve at some point. A strong team will eventually do less well. Rankings go up and rankings go down. After Australia was bowled out for 85 on the first day of the Second Test against South Africa in Hobart (after losing 10-86 in the first innings of the First Test in Perth), one might legitimately ask if the team is nearing rock bottom; i.e. approaching a nadir after which positive change might occur, even if it is by accident.

Not likely. I suspect rock bottom will not be found until after the tour of India next February. Until then, it’s going to be very ugly.

One of the worst Australian Test teams of recent memory has managed to lose the series against South Africa within the first hour in Hobart, losing 5-17.

Next, the world’s No. 1 Test team – Pakistan – will visit Australia for three Tests. Pakistan has good pace bowlers, good spinners and good batsmen (which, er, is why they are No. 1). It seems unlikely an Australian team this lacking in heart and skill will be any match for them. Then, unfortunately, India in February 2017 is simply a bridge too far. Beating India in India is like climbing Everest in a bikini and even a strong Australian team – which we do not have – would struggle. A result other than 4-0 to India seems inconceivable.

So there is a real chance that Australia’s string of consecutive Test losses – which will reach 5 when it loses the Second Test  against the Proteas in Hobart – could extend to as many as 13 (!) if Australia also loses the Third Test against South Africa (which seems likely) and plays a similar quality of cricket against Pakistan.

Only then can we start to talk about the team hitting rock bottom.

Only three players really can justify their positions in the team at present: Warner, Smith and Starc (four if you want to add Hazlewood). As for the rest, if you replaced any or all of them with peers currently playing Shield cricket (Kurtis Patterson or Peter Handscomb  are candidates for the middle order, but there are others), you could not do any worse. Trouble is, the selectors could not replace so many players in one go as if would be a sign of panic. As it is, only the fans are panicking.

Joe Burns and Usman Khawaja, for example, are both out of their depth. When they have made runs in the past, it has usually been against average (NZ) or weak (West Indies) teams or on flat pitches where the ball comes straight on to the bat. Neither has displayed any competence against the swinging or spinning ball. Same goes for Adam Voges, whose first-ball duck in Hobart helps to confirm suspicions that age is catching up with him. The selectors have (correctly) dumped Mitchell Marsh and might be persuaded to get rid of Voges, but having only just reinstated Burns and Khawaja, are unlikely to axe them again so soon. We are, therefore, probably stuck with both of them even if Voges is dropped.

As we and others have said, the Aussies can hit but they can’t bat (see Hitting vs Batting, and the Invisible Man). The Australians’ complete and utter absence of skill against the swinging, seaming or spinning ball over the past five years or so suggests there is no quick fix. The coaching must be called into question. The turnaround will take a long time.

Darren Lehmann’s blokey she’ll-be-right attitude is wearing thin, and his insistence on ‘playing our natural game’ betrays an alarming lack of awareness of the problem. The Australians’ ‘natural game’ does not work in the Test arena and unless Lehmann acknowledges this, nothing will change. It is only five years since Australia was all out for 47 against South Africa in Cape Town, just over a year since it was dismissed for 60 by England in Nottingham, only three months since it folded for 106 against Sri Lanka in Galle, and only a week or so since it lost 10-86 against South Africa in Perth. Now today it has been bowled out for 85. Lessons are not being learned. Basic Test batting skills are not being acquired. Lehmann’s honeymoon has been over for a while and he desperately needs to turn things around. However, the more time goes on, the worse the batting seems to get. Will he be sacked after the series loss to Pakistan or will Cricket Australia wait until the India series is lost?

It is ironic that Lehmann’s team may well face Pakistan after six successive Test losses (assuming they lose the Third Test to South Africa). Lehmann’s predecessor, Mickey Arthur, was sacked by Cricket Australia in 2013 after four consecutive Test losses, and guess who Arthur coaches now? Yup, Pakistan.

Soft in the Middle

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As just about everybody except the selectors agrees, Mitchell Marsh does not deserve his place in the Test team, and now Adam Voges is struggling for runs. I don’t know if Father Time has finally caught up with Adam Voges or whether he’s about to make a big score, but one way or another, it seems likely that one or possibly two middle order batting slots will soon be opening up.

Selector Mark Waugh has indicated new squad member Callum Ferguson of South Australia may play in the Second Test against South Africa in Hobart. Either selectors have changed their mind about guaranteeing the dismal M Marsh a last chance, or they know something about Voges’ hamstring that we don’t. Either way, the middle order has been so poor for so long that long-suffering Aussie fans would be happy to see a new face in there just on the slim chance he might make a few runs.

The table below summarizes the first-class careers of a few promising contenders. (Cameron Bancroft is included not because he’s a middle order player but because he’s a contender for Joe Burns’ spot as opener if Burns blows his latest chance. )

First class stats
CareerMatInnsRunsAve100s50s
Bailey, G121215779139.751939
Bancroft, C4479279237.2279
Ferguson, C101185672040.231535
Handscomb, P6099363938.71824
Maddinson, N58102361438.04817
Patterson, K3256217142.56513
White, C152256916740.562045

Given the lack of middle order runs lately, Ferguson’s call-up is not illogical. Despite his career average of 40.23, he averaged 52.25 across 19 innings in 2014-15, and 53.11 in an injury-shortened 2015-16 season of 10 innings. In the first two games of 2016-17, he made 101 against WA followed by a third-ball duck against Tasmania, so make of that what you will. I have always been a little suspicious of Ferguson, wondering if his average is flattered by playing so often on the bowling green of the Adelaide Oval. But given the alternatives, he is frankly as good a choice as any.

Sheffield ShieldMatInnsRunsAve
2015-16
Bailey, G91776147.56
Bancroft, C101773245.75
Ferguson, C51047853.11
Handscomb, P111978443.56
Maddinson, N101748830.5
Patterson, K91773752.64
White, C5933842.25
2016-17*
Bailey, G2425986.33
Bancroft, C246516.25
Ferguson, C2210150.5
Handscomb, P2314849.33
Maddinson, N1211658
Patterson, K2422255.5
White, C2317487

*Only two games played so far in 2016-17

George Bailey (34) and Cameron White (33) have made careers out of performing well when no Test spots were available and poorly when the selectors were on the hunt. Bailey eventually managed to play five Tests but was about the only player who underperformed in a 5-0 whitewash of England, and was dropped. White has never managed to be in the right place at the right time. Both men are getting too old to interest the selectors.

Of the younger players, Nic Maddinson (25 next month) has been touted as a future Test player since his first class debut six years ago, but has never managed to string together enough good scores. He had a mediocre season last year but has this year with 116 and 0 against WA. Still not battering down the selectors’ door.

Peter Handscomb (25) is under close scrutiny but needs a big year in the 2016-17 Shield. He is going to be fighting off Kurtis Patterson (23), who debuted back in 2011 but is only recently starting to make some big runs. Patterson, who bats at No. 4 for NSW, averaged 52.64 in 2015-16 and has shot out of the blocks this year with scores of 111, 38, 60 and 13.

If Ferguson plays and either Mitchell Marsh or Voges disappears before the end of the summer, and if the selectors abandon their foolish insistence on an all-rounder and decide to play six batsmen instead, my money would be on Kurtis Patterson. Test selection is all about being in the right place at the right time.