Tag Archives: Maxwell

So Is Wade Any Good?

2020-21 India in Aus, , ,

Is Matthew Wade good enough to hold his position in the Australian Test team?

Frankly, it’s hard to tell.

The selectors have rightly weeded out players like Joe Burns and Travis Head who have failed to score Test centuries against good teams in demanding conditions when their team really needed them.

Wade, meanwhile, has been around for a little while posting acceptable but hellishly inconsistent scores. He was the only batsman other than Steven Smith to score a century against England during the away series there in 2019 (in fact, he scored TWO). Given that few Australian batsmen other than Smith (not even Warner and Labuschagne) seem able to score hundreds against the best teams (i.e. England and India), Wade’s feat is not to be sniffed at. Unfortunately, scores of 1, 6, 1, and 0 in the same series meant he finished the five Ashes Tests with an average of only 33.70.

In the 2019-20 home summer when he played two Tests against Pakistan and three against New Zealand, he posted scores of 60, 38, 12, 17, 38, 30 and 22 for an average across five Tests of 43.40. On the numbers, not a bad result. However, his opportunities were curtailed in both series, crimped by huge scores by David Warner (154 in the 1st Test against Pakistan and 335* in the 2nd Test) and Marnus Labuschagne (185 in the 1st Test against Pakistan and 162 in the 2nd, then 143 in the 1st Test against NZ and 215 in the 3rd Test). In both series, then, Wade performed adequately, but how well might he have done if the top order had failed in the face of a good attack and he was called upon to save the team? We’ll never know. I’m not saying he couldn’t have done it, I’m just saying….we’ll never know.

In six innings across three Tests against India this summer, Wade has posted scores of 8, 33, 30, 40, 13 and 4 for an average of 21.33. For four of those innings, he was called upon to open the innings, which was not his usual position, so you’d have to say he did about as well as any other opener Australia had in reserve. He was freakishly and unluckily run out for 33 in the second innings in Adelaide when Australia’s victory was already beyond doubt, so that one doesn’t really tell us much. In the second innings in Sydney, he got a ripsnorter of a delivery which he edged behind, but I can’t really blame him too much for that one, either.

But Wade threw his wicket away needlessly in the first innings of BOTH the Melbourne AND Sydney Tests trying hit Ashwin, then Jadeja, over cow corner when there was no need to play such an aggressive stroke. One thing is clear: if Wade throws away his wicket with a rash shot one more time, he’s likely to give the selectors enough cause to drop him. If he doesn’t, I suspect they’ll retain him for the forthcoming tour of South Africa if for no other reason that compelling alternatives are few. Moises Henriques is waiting in the wings to take Wade’s spot, having scored two centuries for NSW in the first three Sheffield Shield games of the 2020-21 season. But Moises will turn 34 on 1 February (making him 11 months OLDER than Wade), so he’s hardly a long-term solution to any problem, and his first-class average of 35.96 trails Wade’s 40.85.

If Wade can’t demonstrate an ability to go on once he has reached 40, his middle-order spot for the 2021-22 Ashes will be thrown wide open to whoever can perform in the back half of the 2020-21 Shield season. Moises? Alex Carey? Glenn Maxwell? Other names like Ben McDermott and Nic Maddinson get bandied around in the media, but neither have proven themselves worthy of Test selection.

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.

Got That Right

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In the eyes of cricket fans, the selectors can doing very little right. The howling noise over the selection of Tim Paine and Shaun Marsh for the Ashes was deafening.

Now, with Australia 2-0 up in the series, it seems fitting to give the selectors a pat on the back not only for the selection of Paine and Marsh, who have played well, but for the contenders they did not pick.

Many felt Matthew Renshaw was hard done by when discarded in favour of Cameron Bancroft, but the truth is it was an excellent call by the selectors. In the first five games of the Sheffield Shield this season, Renshaw has scored 111 runs in 10 innings at an average of 12.33 and with a top score of 19. At 21, he is young enough to work on his game and regain his Test spot at some point, but he has a lot of work to do.

None of the prospective wicketkeeper candidates have shown they should have been picked over Paine. Peter Nevill has scored 221 runs at 31.57 in 8 innings, with a single half-century. Matthew Wade’s form with the bat has not improved appreciably; he has 154 runs at 22.00 in this year’s Shield, with only one half-century (72 not out in Round Five). Excluding that innings, he has not passed 30.  Alex Carey scored his maiden first-class ton (139) in Round Five, and has 301 runs at 43.00 so far for the season. Promising, but more evidence is required. Jimmy Pierson scored an 82 not out in Round Five but has scored only 156 runs at 22.29 in 8 innings.

First, top order contenders: Hilton Cartwright was considered for the Ashes but has done poorly in the Shield; he has scored 216 runs at 21.60 this Shield season, suggesting the decision to omit him from the Test squad was the correct one. Nic Maddinson was not seriously in contention for the Ashes, and a good thing, too, with only 177 runs at 17.70 so far this season. Why his name gets mentioned for a Test recall is a mystery to me.

Middle order contenders Kurtis Patterson (260 runs at 28.89) and Jake Lehmann (336 runs at 37.33) have not demonstrated that they should have been selected over Shaun Marsh. Lehmann in particular has seen his scores fall away after his scores of 103 and 93 in Round Two nearly got him a Baggy Green. Since then, his scores have been 13, 24, 1, 17, 43 and 26. Good call, selectors.  Marcus Stoinis has only batted five times this season and has only 103 runs at 20.60. Again, well done, selectors.

Travis Head is not far away, with Shield scores of 67, 80, 132 and 65 so far this season. He has scored 421 runs at 42.10 and must remain in contention but is probably slightly behind Glenn Maxwell in the race for a Test spot in the middle order (see ‘Zombies Live!’).

All in all, the selectors deserve some credit as much for the players they didn’t pick as for those they did. But they probably won’t get it.

 

 

 

Zombies Live!

2017-18 Ashes in Aus, , , , ,

The zombie cricketers are alive and kicking.

By zombies, I mean those players who refuse to die. They have tried and failed at Test cricket, then gone back to state cricket and performed well enough to at least come back into contention for a Test recall.

Tim Paine is perhaps the greatest zombie of them all, having been dead and buried until his shock recall for the Ashes. He fluffed a catch in Brisbane but also pulled off an excellent stumping and made a stylish 57 in the first innings in Adelaide. There would appear to be life in the old boy yet. At the very least, he has not embarrassed the selectors.

The other obvious zombie, of course, is Shaun Marsh, who not only won a recall for the Ashes but won player of the match in the 2nd Test in Adelaide with an excellent ton. Trevor Hohns and Team must be enormously relieved.

Elsewhere, discarded Test opener Joe Burns has lurched back into the selectors’ sights with 514 runs at 57.11 in his first ten Sheffield Shield innings this season, including scores of 70, 81, 103 and finally 202 not out against South Australia in Round Four.  But Cameron Bancroft is likely to get a few more games yet, so Burns will probably have to bide his time.

Perennial zombie Glenn Maxwell has cracked 590 runs at 73.75 so far this Shield season, with scores of 60, 64, 278 and 96. One would have to think Maxwell has his eye on the No. 5 Test slot currently occupied by the hopelessly out-of-form Peter Handscomb.  Will the selectors let Handscomb play out the series as they did with George Bailey four years ago? As it was with Bailey, they might if the team keeps winning.

And lastly there is Mitchell Marsh, arguably the most disappointing Test cricketer of the past half-decade. Finally sent back to WA after 21 Tests in which he averaged only 21.74 with the bat and took only 29 wickets at 37.48, Mitchell has scored 402 runs at 44.67 in the Shield this season, including scores of 95 and 141. The selectors took a lot of stick for persevering with Mitchell for so long, so one wonders how well he must do at state level – and for how long – before he gets another chance at Test cricket.

Feed them braaains….

 

The Big Show is Past It

2017 Aus in India (ODIs)

I have never been convinced that Glenn Maxwell deserved his nickname ‘The Big Show’. To be fair, I don’t think he cares for it himself. I certainly believed it was a huge mistake to elevate him to the Test team, and nothing I’ve seen in his seven Tests to date leads me to change that view. If he is retained at No. 6 for the Ashes, he will be a major liability for the Australian team.

But in the shorter format, Maxwell always seemed to have more going for him. He seemed able to get away with a little more than in the red ball game.

Not anymore.

For me, Maxwell forfeited any claim to a place in the Australian ODI team on 24 September during the third ODI against India. Coming to the wicket with 12 overs to go, Maxwell could barely lay bat on ball, crawling to 5 runs off 13 balls.

Enter the leggie, Yuzvendra Chahal. Picture the scene. Steve Smith had gotten out the PREVIOUS DELIVERY.

The Indians knew Maxwell would do it. Fans watching the game knew he would do it.

So he did it.

He charged down the wicket almost before the bowl was bowled. Chahal threw it wide. Maxwell missed it. MS Dhoni whipped off the bails. Stumped. Gone.

How did we know this would happen?

BECAUSE MAXWELL DID EXACTLY THE SAME THING IN THE PREVIOUS GAME! I don’t blame the Indians for grinning their heads off. Maxwell made it so easy for them.

After Maxwell fell, Travis Head panicked and Peter Handscomb didn’t have enough time to rescue the situation. Australia failed to make enough runs in the last ten overs and lost the game. Maxwell’s failure was the single greatest reason for the loss.

Maxwell has been around for a long time. He’s been playing first-class cricket for six years. He has played 80 ODIs for Australia. And yet he was utterly unable to respond appropriately to the situation. The team has every reason to expect a player of Maxwell’s experience NOT to throw his wicket away unnecessarily. But he does so time after time, trying for the Big Shot.

Opposition bowlers have worked Maxwell out. Although his batting average in 80 ODIs is 32.30, in his most recent 21 innings since January 2016, Maxwell has made only 500 runs at an average of 26.32. 

The truth is Maxwell’s skill set is sorely limited. His ability to slap a ball over deep mid-wicket is amazing, but an international cricketer needs more in his or her armoury than the ability to slog across the line of the ball, because – believe it or not – the slog sweep is not the best shot for each delivery. And don’t get me started on Maxwell’s reverse sweep. Most of the time it doesn’t work anyway, and he just looks foolish. Most of the time, a batsman just needs to play proper cricket shots, and not try to do anything too fancy. But if that player lacks the technique to play those proper cricket shots, he should not be out there.

Maxwell will be 29 years old in two weeks’ time. If he has not learned how to play by now, he is not going to. His lack of proper technique is alarming and the selectors should be weary of waiting for him to acquire it. Canny bowlers now know that if they vary their pace he can’t score, and if they throw it wide, there’s a good chance Maxwell will get himself out in short order.

Maxwell should limit himself to the 20-over format. He’ll do fine there.

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.

If Not Mitchell…?

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

Okay, a few minutes after my last post in which I lambasted the selectors’ inattention to Mitchell Marsh’s failings, Rod Marsh has said the 25-year old all-rounder is on notice.

The public acknowledgement of Mitchell Marsh’s poor performances is a big step forward. It’s difficult to know how much patience the selectors will continue to show Marsh, but reading between the lines, one would think if he doesn’t make a big score in the three Tests against South Africa, he may be left out of the side to play Pakistan.

So who – if anybody – would be considered for the all-rounder slot?

The trouble is the selectors have for years insisted on picking an all-rounder even if no suitable player was available. A Test all-rounder should be competitive at international level as either a batsman or bowler (preferably both, of course, but players who excel at both are like hen’s teeth). The players selected for Australia in recent years have not been particularly outstanding in either discipline. And really, this was obvious before they were picked.

Australia is full of solid, handy all-rounders who represent their states with some success and for long periods of time, but who are not good enough for Test cricket (Dan Christian is a good example). Shane Watson may have justified selection early in his career, but not for the last two or three years of it. The selectors tried the likes of John Hastings (1 Test), Moises Henriques (4), Glenn Maxwell (3), Ashton Agar (2), James Faulkner (1), Steven O’Keefe (3) and Jon Holland (2), but none have nailed the spot.

There is not a single player capable of batting in the top 6 in the Test team while also bowling well enough to be the fourth or fifth bowler. Watson was not good enough, neither are Mitchell Marsh or Henriques.

For me, the most sensible option on pitches in Australia and outside the sub-continent would be to pick James Faulkner (182 first-class wickets at 24.36 and 2,397 runs at 31.96) and have him bat at No. 8. The selectors have tended to consider Faulkner only for the short form of the game, but he spends so much time travelling with the ODI and T20 teams that he has little chance to play red ball cricket. Of all the all-rounders tried so far, he is the most promising and deserves more opportunity.

On the sub-continent, beginning with the Australian tour of India next February, it would make sense to play (at least) two spinners. In this case, the first choice should be Steven O’Keefe (207 wickets at 23.84 and 1,844 runs at 29.74). O’Keefe was sent home from Sri Lanka recently with a hamstring injury and has since missed the Matador Cup with a broken finger but I would think his selection for India is a lock. Breathing down O’Keefe’s neck is the promising Adam Zampa.

The obvious result of all this is that the selectors would still need to find a batsman to bat at No. 6.