Does anyone else here think we've made another set of selection blunders with this team?
Warner
Rogers
Watson
Clarke
Smith
Bailey
Haddin
Johnson
Siddle
Harris
Lyon
I still have a big question mark over Johnson. "He bowled well in India in the ODIs". Well so I hear. But I seem to remember we conceded 300+ in every game. But that was put down to the conditions. Bailey made a lot of runs in those conditions too. It seems to me at least one of those selections is dubious, but IMHO probably both.
Also, I thought the whole idea of the scheduling of this summer was to allow the contenders and members of the team 3 solid first class warm up/selection games in the Sheffield Shield. But the team was announced after just the first 2 games, and form in ODIs in India was given more weight than 1st class performances in Australia. Alex Doolan can feel hard done by IMHO.
But if you look at the leading run scorers in the Shield, Bailey doesn't make the top 20. Of course he's only had the one game. But two starts, 0 hundreds and 0 fifties. The leading run scorer is Marcus North: with 2 centuries and 1 fifty, in conditions similar to that of the first two tests, and low scoring games IIRC too.
I think more telling was Inverarity's comments about Bailey's selection: "he deserves this 'opportunity'". As if he's in on probation only - a reward for a good job in the pyjamas in India, not because he deserves his spot on merit.
Spinners are topping the bowling in the Shield. But the leading seaming is/was D Bollinger.