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There's been a heap of media this week about the nearing retirements of players that have been stalwarts of the Australian cricket side for the past decade or so - Warner, Smith and Khawaja have all spoken openly about how they don't have too much time left at the top level of the game.
Starc and Hazlewood are also starting to come to the end of a fast bowler's shelf life at 32 and 31 respectively and Nathan Lyon is about to turn 35. I've been thinking about this for a while: how differently Australia's test side might look in 24 months, and I think we're woefully unprepared.
My concern is how few of the next in line have been exposed to international cricket. The pathway was traditionally to get promising guys around the ODI side (Michael Clarke, Mitchell Johnson, Shane Watson, Andrew Symonds) so they had some exposure to international cricket before they were bedded into the test team, but we haven't seen that for a while.
I'd have really liked to see a few guys like Jhye Richardson, Josh Inglis, Matt Renshaw, Pete Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Mark Steketee and Aaron Hardie playing some ODI cricket this summer so that we can see how they fair against international quality players. The're great players at domestic level, the question is - can you do it against international batsman and international bowlers?
I'm not advocating for them all playing, but I'm saying that we need to use these opportunities to take a closer look at how they fair at international level, as well as start to get promising youngsters used to the big lights of international cricket.
I found it incredibly odd that we played a full-strength one-day team against Zimbabwe and New Zealand to start the summer - and then the players came out and said they were tired BEFORE we'd even got to the T20 World Cup. And now immediately after the World Cup, we're rolling out a full-strength one-day side again.
We know that David Warner, Steve Smith and Marnus can score international runs against Chris Woakes and David Willey - I don't know if Harris, Renshaw and Handscomb can, so why do the selectors refuse to use series that are largely meaningless to take a look?
We know that Starc and Hazlewood are excellent international bowlers - meanwhile, 28-year-old Mark Steketee is having an incredible domestic season - why don't we see how we does against international batsman?
I think there's been a big lack of forward planning in selection and it's going to come back to bite us.
Starc and Hazlewood are also starting to come to the end of a fast bowler's shelf life at 32 and 31 respectively and Nathan Lyon is about to turn 35. I've been thinking about this for a while: how differently Australia's test side might look in 24 months, and I think we're woefully unprepared.
My concern is how few of the next in line have been exposed to international cricket. The pathway was traditionally to get promising guys around the ODI side (Michael Clarke, Mitchell Johnson, Shane Watson, Andrew Symonds) so they had some exposure to international cricket before they were bedded into the test team, but we haven't seen that for a while.
I'd have really liked to see a few guys like Jhye Richardson, Josh Inglis, Matt Renshaw, Pete Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Mark Steketee and Aaron Hardie playing some ODI cricket this summer so that we can see how they fair against international quality players. The're great players at domestic level, the question is - can you do it against international batsman and international bowlers?
I'm not advocating for them all playing, but I'm saying that we need to use these opportunities to take a closer look at how they fair at international level, as well as start to get promising youngsters used to the big lights of international cricket.
I found it incredibly odd that we played a full-strength one-day team against Zimbabwe and New Zealand to start the summer - and then the players came out and said they were tired BEFORE we'd even got to the T20 World Cup. And now immediately after the World Cup, we're rolling out a full-strength one-day side again.
We know that David Warner, Steve Smith and Marnus can score international runs against Chris Woakes and David Willey - I don't know if Harris, Renshaw and Handscomb can, so why do the selectors refuse to use series that are largely meaningless to take a look?
We know that Starc and Hazlewood are excellent international bowlers - meanwhile, 28-year-old Mark Steketee is having an incredible domestic season - why don't we see how we does against international batsman?
I think there's been a big lack of forward planning in selection and it's going to come back to bite us.
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