Australian cricket coach Andrew McDonald
The Australian cricket team will hold a summit this winter to question whether the Test team’s nursery has become too tough for batsmen, too friendly for medium-fast bowlers and too grassy for spinners.
Cricket Australia and state teams discuss worrying trends in the Sheffield Shield since the end of the season; With the batsmen’s low totals and a large number of wickets on the cards for the seamers and the steady decline in the number of overs bowled by the spinners.
Curators from all major venues across the country will hold their annual meetings in July, with CA planning a national coaches’ meeting to discuss recent struggles, particularly in batting.
County teams, by their own admission, have become accustomed to playing Shield games on “results” pitches with plenty of grass to help secure an outright win, rather than more equal surfaces that could result in a thrilling draw in which neither side manages to score maximum points.
Ahead of the summer, when Australia will play five Tests in India, the struggles of the likes of Todd Murphy and Matt Kuhnemann to play a central role in the matches have also been put under the spotlight; State coaches and national team mentor Andrew McDonald agreed that the style of cricket prevalent in the Shield needed to change.
While players called up from domestic teams have served Australia well in recent summers – particularly the likes of Beau Webster and Michael Neser – there are concerns that the environment has been created to develop the generation that will follow the likes of Pat Cummins, Travis Head and spinner Nathan Lyon.
“I think there is general agreement that batting has become more difficult on the current surfaces played on in Shield cricket,” McDonald told this imprint. “I still believe that the best players are averaging in the top 30s, they’ve just fallen off. Instead of averaging 50 in a season, the averages have dropped into the high 30s and then the bowling averages have fallen as well.
“Is this something that will produce cricketers to the next level? It’s a question mark and there is a delay between now and the emergence of these players at the international level.
“There is a debate about what kind of cricketer is productive. Is it an overly aggressive cricketer who tries to hit bowlers outside his line and length, especially the batsmen? Do you get rewarded for investing in your innings in the first 50-odd balls, or does the wicket continue to come in stitches for the rest of the game? I know county coaches have an appetite to start that conversation and then it really depends on how you go about it.”
Victoria’s coach Chris Rogers, who took his team to the top of the Shield table after 10 rounds before losing the final to South Australia, said he was aware too many games were played similarly: too much over-pace, difficult batting conditions and a distinct advantage for bowling first.
“We want to make sure we don’t always play one style of cricket and that’s a discussion we’ve had with Cricket Australia,” he said. “I think we have to be a bit careful not to fall into the trap of trying to get a result every game, which means the best bowlers in the competition are around 130km/h and we need to make sure we still make it difficult for the bowlers to take wickets.
“But I’m not ignoring the fact that the first-class game is very difficult in Australia and we still have great cricketers. I’m just saying we can make sure we produce the right kind of cricketers and they will then go on and make sure the Australian cricket team is strong.”
Lyon had been concerned for some time about the style of cricket being played in the Shield due to the lack of opportunities for spin bowlers to influence the outcome of the game.
“I care about spin bowling and I’m not saying this because I’m worried about my position in the team,” Lyon said last year. “I know my role, I know how important spin bowling is, but there is also a part of me that worries about spin bowling, not just in Australia but around the world, because of the wickets we play on.
“If you look at spin bowling and the young spin bowlers across the country, you see that they are not overdoing it or getting opportunities to bowl third, fourth day wickets or spin wickets or even green seamers because the fast bowlers are dominating.”
In the final round of the regular season, Victoria faced South Australia on a well-prepared pitch at Junction Oval, which provided something for everyone: innings runs and wicket runs for both pace and spin.
The match ended in a draw largely because both sides had already qualified for the final. By the time the final decider was played a week later, the surface was much grassier, leaving Murphy with little to do, with SACA wrist spinner Lloyd Pope carrying the drinks.
There is a system in English regional cricket where the ECB has the opportunity to take points away from teams that field pitches rated “below average” or “poor”.
“A game that lasts four days and one team is down nine at the end of the game, it’s a great game but you don’t get a lot of points out of the game,” Rogers said. “However, a match can be finished in two days and the field may be a bit bad, but you will get the maximum points from the result.”
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Daniel Brettig is The Age’s chief cricket writer and the author of many books on cricket.Connect with: X.
