Monday, October 21, 2013

Why I'm not watching the India v Australia series

They should be at home!

Well, actually, it's mostly because it's only being shown on FOX Sports, and the television in my bedroom doesn't get pay-tv, meaning I'd have to move to my sitting room. And also because it's exam knuckle-down time for university students in Australia at the moment.

But that's beside the point.

If it were a Test series, I'd be all over it. You wouldn't be able to move me from that sitting room for anything other than food - not for sleep, not for work, not for study. Even if it were an ODI series at any other time of the year, I'd still at least be paying more attention than I am now.

But my boycott of the India v Australia ODI series is, in part, my silent protest about scheduling idiocy in Cricket Australia. Why, why, why, when Australia has a home Ashes series imminently approaching, are Australia gallivanting around India playing ODI's and T20's?

I realise that much of the squad won't be appearing in the baggy green come the 21st of November, but players like Watson, Hughes, Haddin, Johnson, Faulkner and McKay, even Bailey, should not be in India now. They should be home playing Sheffield Shield, preparing to face Cook, Trott, Pieterson, Bell, Anderson, Swann and Broad at the Gabba.

I realise that the Sheffield Shield doesn't begin until the end of this month. But that's not how it should be either. Our Test players, whether they're in India now or not, will get only 2-3 matches of first-class cricket to prepare for the Ashes. Not good enough.

Instead of putting the Ryobi Cup at the beginning of the cricket season in a whirlwind month-long contest (I presume to get it out of the way as quickly as possible), the time taken up by the Ryobi Cup should be allocated to Sheffield Shield rounds, and all Test players and prospective Test players should be playing in them.

The Sheffield Shield should run uninterrupted from October (if not from September) up to Christmas. The extra rounds before the Test series start should allow both the Test players to get into form and the younger up-and-coming guys to put their names forward for Test selection later in the Summer. Success against Glenn Maxwell and Scott Boland does not prove a player's mettle (no offence to Scott Boland); success against Michael Clarke and Ryan Harris does.

The Big Bash League can go in a month-long contest over January, to rake in the school-holiday revenues (that's the whole point of the BBL, right?). The Ryobi Cup can be spread over February and March, or else run concurrently with the BBL over January and finish sometime in February or March.

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