Our Future

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R

RogerC

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Feb 6, 2001
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Our current test team is the second oldest running around, behind England. The average age (assuming Brett Lee is included at the expense of Miller) is 29.5 years. With that in mind, I have put together the best test team I can find of players who will still be under 30 at the end of this year:

Hussey
Maher
Love
Ponting
Symonds
Katich
Haddin
Gillespie
Brett Lee
Bracken
Inness

The best candidates beyond them are Cameron White, Dietz, Hodge, Clarke, Kremerskothen, Mail, Higgs, Wates, Marsh and Nash.

Not particularly imposing.

Assuming both Waughs will be gone within a year or two, I think the best idea would be to bring Katich into the team to replace one of them, and promote Gilchrist up the order (as captain) with Haddin as keeper. Only Hussey looks likely to be an opener, so one of Slater and Hayden are safe no matter what they do. The bowling looks okay, as long as Gillespie and Lee stay fit.

But at any rate, our side looks likely to remain pretty old for at least five years, unless some raw talent comes through pronto.

My understanding is that the Australian team has been strong because of the competition for spots. The next generation looks a bit thin on the ground, so what does this mean for our competitiveness in the future?

Or are there more guys coming through who I have missed?
 
You missed Shane Watson, a very promising allrounder poached from Queensland by Tasmania...he has already scored a pura cup century i believe.
Yes Visro, Marsh is gonna be better than just about anything we've seen in Australian cricket in the past 10 years. Simply amazing talent.
 

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our future is extremely strong.

We have easily the best cricketing set up in the world.

I would say we will be on top for a number of years to come. There is no much young talent, and the selectors pick them just at the right age - not like the subcontinent, who pick teenagers to play test cricket.

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When players reach their early 30's people always say well they've only got a couple of years left BUT for batsmen (& in theory spinners) this doesn't have to be the case Graham Gooch had his best years in his late 30's where he averaged in the 60's for a couple of years at test level.I'm sure if Steve Waugh is still hungry he can still keep averaging around 50 for a few years yet.
 
Sean marsh is going to be a gun as is shane watson
This is i believe our future in two to three years time

Hayden
Slater
Ponting
Katich
Symonds
Watson
Gilchrist
B.Lee
J.Gillespie
A.Noffke

Australia is going to have an unbelievable side
watson is as good a bat as he is bowler
i just hope they pick him, noffke has the goods, gillespie will take three hundred wickets for australia as will lee and noffke
it is interesting inness will be the fringe player similar to the kasprowich, bichel role
symonds will play test
he is too good not to
with the two waughs going i am excited, it istime for a changee
 
i reakon we need to improve the keeper area i mean haddin is crap!!!!!! only in state is he good, after gilchrist there's no one.
what harvey in test hes a good pura cup player. hodge will play for aussies
 
Originally posted by acuguy:
This is i believe our future in two to three years time

Hayden
Slater
Ponting
Katich
Symonds
Watson
Gilchrist
B.Lee
J.Gillespie
A.Noffke
Click to expand...

Pretty much agree with you, except for Slater. He's going - hes having personal problems, hes not batting well. If he doesn't do something on the Ashes tour he wont be here in 2001/02. And Noffke. Glenn McGrath will be around for another 5 years at least. Hes action is so injury free, he could just keep bowling forever.
I would be more inclined to think another bowler would come in for Lee and Gillespie, as those two seem to have all the trademarks of "what could of been" because of their injuries.
Also, you only picked 10 players.

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[This message has been edited by WCE2000 (edited 24 March 2001).]
 
This would be my team in 2002/03:

Matt Hayden - his career is starting to turn around
Adam Gilchrist - I'll think they may move him up to opener like in the one dayers
Simon Katich - very good player
Martin Love - as above
Steve Waugh - i still reckon he's got a lot left in him, bnatting better than ever
Ricky Ponting - still young
Andrew Symonds - very talented cricketer
Brett Lee - hopefully can stay fit
Jason Gillespie - as above
Cameron White - every test side NEEDS a spinner!!!
Glenn McGrath - he's 31 now, with his action he bowl in tests for another 7 years

The Australian team over the last few years has been so succesful because they don't rush players into test cricket. All the new players in that side, except for Cameron White, have had a long FC career. The reason White is being rushed into the side, he will only be 19 in 2 years, is because we despertaely need a spinner.

If you don't want to open with Gilchrist. I would open with Katich, move Ponting to 3, Symonds to 6 and Gilchrist to 7. Also if Gillespie and Lee can't stay fit, then take your pick from McInees, Bracken, maybe Noffke.

From the current side, Shane Warne, Michael Slater, Justin Langer and Mark Waugh are gone.

I think the best way to do this would be to ease those players out of the side, one at a time.

First off, I would bring in Symonds to the side after the ashes tour, this being the end of Slater and move Gilchrist to opener.

After 2001/02, Mark Waugh will probably retire, this would see Katich come into the side

Prior to 2002/03, I would pick Martin Love, instead of Justin Langer.

While, i think for the next 2 years, we will have to make do with Shane Warne, Colin Miller and Stuart MacGill rotating as spinners.

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Thanks for all the feedback. I had overlooked Watson, but he looks like a gun. The only worry I have about him is that he's had stress fracture problems in his back through out his teens. Aside from that, excellent prospect.

Noffke, well, he's having a good final, but his stats aren't impressive enough yet. His bowling average (playing on pitches that generally suit him half the season) is 31. He's nearly 24, he needs a couple more good seasons to press his claims.

Throughout the early to mid nineties it was easy to put together a list of 10-15 players who could easily make the test team. Law, Siddons, Lehmann, Martyn, Moody, Veletta, Dale, Julian, Angel, Hayden, Langer, Cox, Nobes, Hills, etc. Some of them did eventually gain a spot, some are still about, pressing their claims. But where are the 10-15 youngish guys pushing for a test spot right now? The ones we think of readily are all the same vintage as the incumbents, barring Katich. At some stage, maybe not this year or the next, but soon, we're going to have to face up to that problem.

Ponting, for instance, made regular high scores for Tasmania in successive seasons before making the test team. Nobody is doing that in the shield right now. Brett Lee was young and bowled incredibly quickly, and he was rushed in because we needed him owing to Gillespie's injury. Where's the next Brett Lee coming from? Or Shane Warne/Stuart McGill for that matter?

It's all very well saying that half the current side is going well, so age isn't a problem for them, but there is less pressure on them from below to perform, and there will be less inclination to replace them if their form does slump. Ponting, for instance, had a shocking tour to India, and never once has his position been in doubt. I agree that he should be persisted with, because he is a quality batsman, but where's the guy breathing down his back, saying "I want his spot"? There isn't one. Martyn is being overlooked, probably because he is older than Ponting, and it would be seen as a backwards step regarding the future. Katich wasn't even considered fleetingly.

We need that next generation pushing these guys NOW. And they aren't there.

Just two more points. Border, Boon, Healy and Taylor were eased out of the test team before their time, to make way for new players. Neither of the Waughs have been, and it looks like Warne won't be either.

And: Of the under 19's Australian team of 1991, a party of 14, only Martyn, Gilchrist, Blewett and Kasprowicz played test cricket. Unfortunately, a junior team doesn't represent an entire generation of test cricketers.
 
RogerC:

Cricket is so much different in terms of setup (regarding age) than it was 10 years ago.

Now, very few players play FC cricker before 23. And very few players are playing test cricket before 26. Thats in regards to Australian players.

That why Australia have been so succesful over the last few years, because players have been put into the side at their right age, instead of rushing them in early.

Thats why there's no younger generation pushing the current crop, because selectors aren't picking a half a dozen 20 year old prodigys in their state side.

I wouldn't worry about Australia's future, it is very bright.


anyway, i'm off to go and see my Eastie boys kick some Balmain ass.

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Sorry i only put ten players in , i was really intoxicated at the time of writing that, i am surprised how enlightening i was, must of been all the beer at the pub.
Noffke like mcgrath has a very economical action, and mcgrath didn't set the world on fire at the start either
 

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WCE, that just worries me more. By your logic, the next generation of Australian cricketers are at least 5 years away. They're not even playing state cricket yet. Almost our entire batting lineup will be mid thirties or older by then, along with half our bowling line up.

Anyway, I don't think it is all that different now as opposed to ten years ago. Most of our current team debuted in their early 20's (the notable exceptions being Mark Waugh, Gilchrist and Miller). Brett Lee was rushed in, but most had a couple of years of dominance in the Shield before claiming their spots.

I think the main difference is that the current crop are careerists who want to hang on to their positions at the expense of easing new players in. The current success is being milked for all it is worth (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) but it does create problems as the team ages; success gives them the perfect excuse to stay as long as they like. I don't particularly care what Mark Waugh's form has been like lately - he should have stood aside a couple of years ago for the sake of blooding a Katich or Symonds. And the time is coming very soon when Warne, Slater and Langer will need to do the same. Otherwise, a mass exodus at around the time Steve Waugh retires will create a vacuum.

Success always breeds a kind of arrogance, a feeling that things will always be this good, and that we don't need to prepare for the future. I'm sure the West Indies felt the same way in the late eighties. Our fall won't be as dramatic as their's but we are bound to have one.
 
in the early 90's the younger generation were all in their early 90's.

now the 'younger generation' isn't all that young. Katich, Hussey, Love, etc,. are all mid 20's.

in 5 years time, Katich and Hussey and Love and McInness and Brack and Lee will all be coming up for their retirements, and players like Watson and Marsh and Noffke and White will be around about 25 about ready to make the international debuts. (White probably would've already made his).


There is a younger crop, it's just their holding them back from FC cricket, until they peak. whats the use of blooding a 20 year old in the test side, he gets 0/500 from 3 tests, loses total confidence, never heard of again.

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Australian cricket is O.K & will be for a while. However we have major problems not too far away. Roger summed it up with the remark about careerists. We will have shield players playing forever where before as they couldn't make a living they threw it in.
Cricket selectors are the most conservative people imaginable. Gilchrist had to leave NSW because that great champion Emery was in his way. Just think if he had decided he didn't want to leave Sydney he might have thrown it in
Batsmen are kept forever regardless of how they play because you either can't change a winning side or it's not time to panic yet.
Unless the cricket academy is admitted to the shield we will become like England with the 1st class ranks full of has beens & nearly were's & with only 6 teams the problem is magnified.
 
In the good old days, 2 tours of England was probably the extent of your career. Remember Bob Cowper ? Scored a 300 v England but finished his cricket career to get a real job. Now that cricket is a real job, how do you get made redundant ? Not many go quietly -as in a real job - and its all very traumatic. If you are a part of the 'inner circle' - possibly the captain's brother - it's even more complex. Wasn't this the reason for having two teams for tests and one day - so that there would be no dissent in the ranks ?

Look at the careers of Blewett, Martyn and Bevan - all quite strange but never a part of the inner circle. Compare that with Ponting - he's there - so he can afford to screw up a few times.

The future of spin is still the issue in AUstralia - we've got some pissed off types who are always compared with Warne at his best ( how many series did we win with Warne taking critical 2nd innings wickets ? ) and jsut can't get a go. Look at Qld - played the final with no spinners. There's the endless search for the left arm finger spinner - and suggesting that White should be elevated quickly is very risky ( looking for the new Warne ).

There should get all the half decent spinners and send them to the Indian spinners camp for a few months .. and work out how those guys do it.
 
our future has been a concern for over 5+ years now.


we still have an aging team and in that time have only dropped the one test series.

during this time we have pensioned off these 30+ players : slater, m waugh, s waugh, bevan, lehmann, bichel, miller and one or two others i've probably forgotten.

hayden, langer, martyn, gilchrist, warne, macgill, mcgrath and kasper are still on the scene and surely this summer will see the last of some of these in the test arena.

the transitional phase is just about here but the aussies do have adequate replacements.
 

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