Via Thoughts from the Dustbin (who objects to Mitch's shirtlessness) comes this link to inimitable and hilariously funny (perhaps not entirely the effect they were looking for) photographs of many of the players in the current Australian XIs:
Please, dear God, please, please, please, PLEASE make me one of the XI.
2 Comments:
Poor lad, he must know by now that he had his chance, failed and tweeted about it. Then they gave his chance to Twatson, who wouldn't know how to tweet. Or even spell the word "tweet".
Katto is getting on (a little ahem from the girl who remembers him from school) and we will be needing a replacement for him in the next couple of years. Will it be Hughes? Yeah, probably. But only because the CA selectors have no imagination.
Well, yes and no. Twatto has been the anointed all-rounder for almost as long as I can remember. But for the grace of a torn hamstring, we wouldn't have had the entertainment of Symonds being given a second chance in the Test XI, remember?!
I am not ... entirely happy with the way the 'generational shift' has been managed: I feel that in order to preserve that sacred #1 Test ranking, a lot of 'safe' selections have been made (Katich and North in particular, but also, to some extent, Haddin). And where are we now? Oh, that's right: at #4.
I have likened Hughes's batting to that of a demented windmill, but personally, I would rather watch a young, demented windmill try, flail around, and fail, than another 'safe and tried' option. It does not seem to pay off in the long run. (Mussey is, I believe, rather an exception than the rule.) I thought the success of the Baby Blues in the Champions League 2009 would have provoked some soul-searching among the OZ selectors — especially after they beat the Vics in the KFC BigBash final by sheer cheek — but no such luck. (Actually, it apparently didn't even lit the lightbulb for the NSW selectors, who in 2010 reverted to a more 'safe' team ... and, lo and behold, NSW wasn't in even the domestic final.)
Sadly, I don't think the OZ selectors will change any time soon: when Katich retires, which I doubt will be soon unless he's forced to, we will see another late-twenties/thirtysomething selected. At least if the immediate past is something to go by. And sadly, I think it is.
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- Francis Bacon