Since Australian cricket doesn't know whether it is Arthur or Martha, then at least let the choice between young Artie and little Mattie.
To explain: The demolition of England and South Africa in the summer of 2013-14 was the high point of this decade for Australia. It made us feel that we were on top of the world.
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Australia prepares to regroup as rain hits Hobart
Rain has halted play on day two of the second Test between Australia and South Africa in Hobart with the Proteas 5-171 with a lead of 86 runs.
It was also a maverick result. Worse, it masked a sober reality. In Test matches before and since, Australia has barely broken even. Apart from two statistical blips, it has not been No.1 in the world since 2009.
That 2013-14 team came together more by providence than planning. Months before, Australia was fiddling around in England with a team that included Ashton Agar and Ed Cowan and was still trying to work out what to make of ill-fated Phil Hughes, meantime adapting to a hasty change of coaches. It was well beaten by England.
Back in Australia, momentarily and gloriously, the star aligned. But the heroic team of 2013-14 was conspicuously old, with barely a player younger than 30. Moreover, the oldest players by and large were the best-performed. It meant that the selectors were obliged to continue to play them – they had become national treasures – but also that it was improbable that they would rise to those heights again.
So it proved. Within 22 months, six of them – Rogers, Clarke, Watson, Haddin, Johnson and Harris – had retired. They left a gaping hole. Further confusing the picture, the one batsman to emerge in the meantime was another venerable, Adam Voges. That is where Australia is today, a year later, trying to patch up the team instead of rebuilding it, Arthur in some part, Martha in another.
We've been this way before. More than 30 years ago, the simultaneous retirements of Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh gutted the Australian team, which was eventually left in the hands of a reluctant young captain, Allan Border. Dark days followed. But at a certain point, the selectors decided to identify a youthful cohort and stick with them.
Striplings Steve Waugh, Geoff Marsh, David Boon, Dean Jones, Merv Hughes, Greg Matthews and Bruce Reid all were picked within 12 months of one another, and backed. Not all had the runs on the board, and not all made it. Some fearful thrashings ensued, from the West Indies and England. For fifteen months, Australia did not win a Test. A last-ball series win over New Zealand almost called for a national holiday. But gradually a team emerged, a great captain found his vocation and a winning tradition evolved. It founded the most successful period in Australian Test history.
That's the precedent. The parallels now are not exact. The Sheffield Shield is lower in profile and marginalised in the schedule. Youthful talent, if it exists, is more obscure, and in any case may not be as intent on Test cricket anyway, or else lost between the game's several stools. But the selectors' job is to identify young talent, the board's to back it. It is not enough to say no-one is knocking the door down. If knocking volume was the criteria, a computer could pick the team.
To be fair, they've tried Mitch Marsh, and dabbled with Cameron Bancroft, who was picked for a tour of Bangladesh that did not proceed. Now there should be no hesitation.This column is not in a position to name names in wholesale manner, and so offers Victoria's Peter Handscomb, a 25-year-old, not as the foremost candidate, but as an example. The selectors must trust their instincts. Instinct for the game still outranks data and science, or should.
Over years, Australia has built a sophisticated junior system. Perhaps too often, its graduates are then shelved for 10 years. Callum Ferguson is an instance. Historically, Australia picked cricketers younger and greener than England. Look now. As it happens, Australia and England each picked two debutants for Test matches this week. Australia's are 31 and 27. England's are 23 and 19, and the 19-year-old, Haseed Hameeb, fell only a little short of a debut century.
History does not have all the answers, or it would not be history. But there are lessons in it.