Australian Cricket Falling Apart

 

                           

 

For decades, Australia has been referred as one of the best cricketing nation in this world and its domestic cricket system is taken as an example of perfection. But Australian teams performance in last three to four years has dramatically gone down and their successive Ashes loses and defeat from South Africa at their own home soil has raised serious questions over the effectiveness of Australian domestic cricket. There are many reasons for it.

The first major cause is the undermining of Sheffield Shield competition by Cricket Australia’s greed and commitments, which they have made under the Future Tour programs. Because of this, majority of players do not get an opportunity to fine or tune their game in conditions that are best for them.

 Then, the changes made in one-day Ryobi tournament have resulted in absolute failure and this contest now is not considered a healthy activity for international one-day competitions. Further the elevation of T20 Big Bash to main event could well undermine the importance of Test cricket in a nation struggling to maintain its ranking in the longer format. Speaking on it, Australian captains mentor Neil D’Costa said,\

   "It's a real concern because everything in Australian cricket at the moment seems to be about T20. It's all about the Big Bash, how we can get more people to the games, how we can make money out of India. It's not really about how we can make better cricketers.”    

 

Moreover, the run of injuries to young Australian fast bowlers is also a worrying sign. Commenting on it, Cricket Australian general manager Michael Brown said,  

“Getting the best 66 players on the park has been challenging, you never would have thought that you'd have injuries to Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Andrew McDonald, James Pattinson, Mitchell Marsh, we've had an incredible run of injuries.”

He further added,  

“Then you've got the usual thing that happens with young players, right on the cusp of opportunity - they start to think about it and maybe start to struggle a bit because they're so focused on taking it and maybe some of the young players don't perform as you'd like.”

 

 

 In order to improve Australian team’s performance and regain its top position, it is necessary that Cricket Australia must get the balance right in scheduling of their domestic Sheffield Shield competition and finalization of the 2014-2020 Future Tours programs. Then, the Big Bash tournament and ODI format need to be reassessed, so that quality of game can be improved. Further trainers need to be appointed, to work with injury issues of emerging fast bowlers. Also Grade cricket in the country should be re-evaluated to make sure that development needs of players are fulfilled.  

Article by : 

Omar Sajjad