Batting woes continue to worry Inverarity

Australia’s chief selector Inverarity has revealed that his panel has struggled to find appropriate replacements for Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey. Although he has selected a decent squad for the Ashes Series, he has doubts about the performance of his batsmen on the wickets that aid fast bowlers. He is also worried about his batsmen’s ability to handle swinging deliveries in England. Also, Inverarity felt that the mushrooming of Twenty20 domestic league in large numbers has affected Australia’s batting.

“I don’t think anyone has got the exact answer as to why we haven’t got players coming through who bat for long periods,” Inverarity said. “But one thing I am sure about is young players need to work it out for themselves … Society is different now, there’s fast food and immediate gratification and those things, so whether we’ll see it in the abundance that we’ve seen it over the years before I don’t know.

“I think an intelligent young player with some talent, and looking to make his way in cricket, I would think high on his agenda would be developing an appetite and the wherewithal to bat for long periods and make big scores. A young player, if he wanted to play Test cricket, then applying himself in that regard is what we’re on the lookout for.”

Inverarity also felt that the lack of Sheffield Shield matches in the month of December and January affected players’ ability to develop continuity and momentum.

“The cricket scene now is more fragmented than it was, with T20. If you’d said 10 years ago that there wouldn’t be any domestic first-class cricket in Australia in December and January you would’ve thought that was not possible,” he said.

“The Big Bash League has been a great attraction and in spreading the word of cricket it’s been a great success. But in terms of players developing momentum it has made it rather difficult.”

“A very good example is Alex Doolan, who has been a very promising player for some time and built up some real momentum in October/November, and then of course the next time he played a Shield match was in February. So that was difficult for him.”

He also explained why Steve O’Keefe was not selected for the Ashes Series in England despite a brilliant performance in the Sheffield Shield matches for New South Wales.

“Steve O’Keefe is a very good cricketer. He’s taken wickets, and he’s a steady batsman,” Inverarity said. “Whenever we’ve been at the selection table, we’ve marginally preferred other players to him. But he’s still regarded as a good cricketer. We’re very aware of his figures and we do look deeper than that. But there’s a panel of five of us and there’s a consistency of view when we select the spinners.”