By Adrian Meredith
MELBOURNE, Australia
(TheSportsNEXT) November 4, 2012: I can hardly believe it but the
Australian cricket selectors have just picked Rob Quiney to replace Shane
Watson in the test team, and he is tipped to be "very likely" to make
his test debut!
Most people probably don't know who Rob Quiney is, so let me
give you a quick refresher.
Rob Quiney is an ODI and limited overs specialist who
generally replaces Chris Rogers in the team, as Victoria's opener, when they
play ODI and T20 cricket, as Chris Rogers, while a much better first class
batsman than Quiney, is not as quick between the wickets. Quiney averages a
decent 38 in ODIs, at a healthy strike rate of 90, which should have seen him
to be close to playing an ODI for Australia - indeed some were tipping him to
make it this season. He also averages 38 in first class matches - when he
plays, often due to other players being in the national set up - far, far below
the national test team.
The rationale for his promotion was apparently on the back
of him scoring a half century for Australia A against South Africa in the tour
match - when the team total was almost 500 - for 7 declared - and South Africa
scored heaps too. It wasn't a competitive match - it was batting practice. It
was a 3 day match with nothing attached that wasn't serious.
Before that, Quiney has had a string of low scores in all
formats this year - other than a century against Queensland earlier in the
year.
We may as well just hand South Africa the series.
It is bad enough having to put up with Ed Cowan - who
averages 40 in FC cricket and 29 in tests - but now we have to tolerate another
out of form and poor quality batsman on top of him, someone who averages 38 in
FC cricket! Neither are in form either!
If we were going for a batsman, it should have been a choice
of George Bailey - who has done well in his ODI and T20 games and averages a
decent 42 in FC matches - or David Hussey - who averages over 50 in FC matches,
has amazing numbers, but isn't in consistently good form and is 35 years old.
Usman Khawaja should have been an outside chance too - though he isn't in
particularly good form and his test average is pretty poor.
We also could have gone in with an all-rounder, when it
would be a choice of Dan Christian or Mitchell Marsh, which should have been a
close contest except that Mitchell Marsh has had disciplinary problems lately;
hence it should be Christian. Glenn Maxwell should have been an outside chance
too, though his bowling has been shown to be substandard for internationals,
and his batting isn't good enough.
So, overall, it should be a choice of Bailey vs Christian,
depending on if they want a full on batsman or an all rounder.
Playing Quiney is
insanity!
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