Bichel selection adds needed spine to panel
Stuart MacGill
November 13, 2011
The recent Australian Team Performance Review, chaired by Don Argus, described the need for our new full-time national selector to function as ''the HR manager'' of Australian cricket.
In appointing John Inverarity to that role, James Sutherland would be pleased to know that he's proved many of us, myself included, wrong. Apparently, the chief executive of Cricket Australia actually does have the capacity to take advice.
I was contracted for almost a decade, and throughout that period players would regularly complain that they had been overlooked by selectors despite their great form, or had been dropped without warning because of a personal vendetta by captain/coach/chairman of selectors (take your pick; that's what most players did).
Every year without fail, regardless of whether they were on the way up or on the way out, players would scream for higher levels of communication with the selection panel.
John Inverarity is not everybody's cup of tea, and at almost 68 years old some might question his suitability for the role of national selector. However there is no doubt he will open and enjoy dialogue with as many of Australia's cricketing elite as he can possibly reach.
It's just as well we've finally put this perceived communication problem to bed, because it means we've crossed one more excuse off the list.
The only time I wanted to talk to a selector about my cricket was when I was bowling well. On the way up. How could a conversation between a jilted or out-of-form player and a selector ever work out the way the player wanted it to?
''Oh, I see your point Stuart; let's just go into the umpires' room and change the starting XI for this Test because leaving you out was clearly an oversight.''
Let's face it, most players nowadays need a serious dose of reality. Not the kind that you see on MasterChef, I mean real reality.
Perhaps instead of academic Inverarity (having had successful careers in both secondary and tertiary education in Western Australia), Australian cricket will ultimately be better served by his fellow national selector Andy Bichel, poster boy for the School of Hard Knocks graduate program. Having played with and against Andy for most of my cricket career, I have absolutely no doubt that this is the first truly great appointment of the Sutherland era. Cricket Australia should have made Bichel, 41, the main man, instead of Inverarity.
Cricket Australia needs to gather up its contracted players, along with anybody else they think has a chance of playing or coaching professional cricket, and invite them to spend a day with Andy Bichel.
''Bick'' can tell them about his development, which included working hard on and off the sporting field, as a footballer, a cricket player and a tradesman. Then he can talk about the injuries, about playing through them, causing them and finally succumbing to them.
Finally, I suggest they listen to how he dealt with disappointment.
Two weeks after being told he'd lost his Australian contract (coincidentally following a year of achievements similar to those of Simon Katich), Andy phoned me. He'd been left scratching his head by the selectors but never once showed signs of anger or contempt and was actually calling to make sure I was OK (SKW had just returned from suspension). I knew that anyone who faced him in domestic cricket when he returned would probably see a different side of him. That's the way a true competitor shows they're disappointed.
The review contains some very clear guidelines for Bick and his national selection panel colleagues. Try not to choke on your Corn Flakes when you read them.
''Players must earn their positions in the time-honoured way of making runs, taking wickets and showing that they are ready to play at the next level'' and ''must be held accountable when they are not performing. This has been an issue in recent years''.
Thank God the performance review team of Argus, Mark Taylor, Allan Border and Steve Waugh communicated this so clearly so our outgoing selection panel know why they've been dropped.
