Age as a selection criteria

I don't know why age is relevant to selection in professional or club cricket. At professional level, either a player is good enough to be in the XI or they aren't. In club cricket you might take into account a few other factors so it might be, for example, batting, bowling, fielding, availability, attitude. Whatever happens, age is irrelevant unless there is no splitting the players based on those criteria.

So Simon Katich being dropped from the Australian team is simply wrong, as a politician there has pointed out in strong terms. We already knew that the Aussie selectors were not up to the job by the fact they've selected 10+ spinners since Warne retired and the fact that Hilditch announced that they'd done a good job after the latest Ashes loss. Selectors can't play the match admittedly, but I don't think anyone would claim that Australia came into The Ashes with a settled side. Not so long ago, Greg Chappell announced that he'd rather give an aging champion one too many chances than one too few, when talking about Mike Hussey. Well he seems to have forgotten that advice now after not even selecting Katich for the top 25 Aussie cricketers. Not the top XI....he's somehow dropped from the top XI to outside the top 25.

It's with the 2013 Ashes in mind, when Katich will be the grand old age of 37. Some players do lose form in their 30s but many others don't. Look at Tendulkar and Laxman. If Australia had a player nipping at Katich's heels to get in then it would be more understandable but they don't. Phil Hughes has been, to date, average.

As an Englishman it's lovely to see Australia get it so wrong. They didn't select their best XI once during the Ashes and they don't look like doing it for the forseeable future. Long may it continue!

Greg Chappell in the running for first full time Aussie Selector post

Greg Chappell will be interviewing for the full time Australian selector role that's going in Australia and is going up against Jamie Cox, amongst others, no doubt. I'd love to know what each candidate is proposing to do, apart from watch as many games as possible, to increase the number of successful elevations from state cricket into Test cricket - the possibilities are endless.

What I find interesting is that Andrew Hilditch is considered to have "won high praise for guiding Australia through generational change" but all I read in the online Australian press is very negative. Whether professional cricket writers or amateur bloggers - I can't find one person that thinks that Australia are currently selecting the strongest eleven.

Has Hilditch really "won high praise for guiding Australia through generational change"?

Australia retain Hilditch

Despite the strange selections that many saw as contributing to Australia losing the Ashes, Andrew Hilditch seems to have retained his job. Hilditch wasn't the selector on duty for The Oval, but I'm still quite surprised he's survived....

England get good news on Symonds

Time will of course tell, and no doubt he'll win The Ashes single-handedly, but I've always felt than Shane Watson was in that group of cricketers that are not quite good enough at either batting or bowling for Test cricket (an average of under 20 with the bat and over 35 with the ball would tend to support that argument). And, of course, he's the one person in world sport who can give Jonny Wilkinson a run for his money for number of injuries.

So his reaction to being picked seems a little strange. First, how does he feel about being selected ahead of Symonds (who averages more than double with the bat, and just slightly less with the ball)? "Good" apparently. Don't they do media training in Australia? And just to ensure that there are hard feelings he continues, "...of recent times he hasn't helped himself in regards to what he's been doing and I've just got to make the most of the opportunity that's presented itself." All true but seeming to miss the point that Symonds hasn't been ruled out of playing again and the two of them need to get on as they may well play in the same side in the not so distant future.

I look forward to hearing Symonds' thoughts when Watson goes down injured in the first warm up game (which would be true to form) and he's called in. As you can tell, I think Australia have made a mistake with their selection and Symonds English experience would have come in very handy. Not to mention his world-class performances when he last had an extended run in the side. But that can only play into England's hands, so let's applaud the selection!

Although Watson's comments made me cringe Chairman of Selectors, Andrew Hilditch, made me almost fall off my chair. Apparently Watson "is capable of batting anywhere in the top six". In Twenty20 or ODIs perhaps. In a Test in England with the ball swinging around, higher than 6 is exceedingly risky (some would say 7 or 8) and as an England supporter I'd love to see it.

Canvassing the opinion of a cricket-mad Aussie in our office, she was of the opinion that Australia should play their best side and it was the job of Ponting and the management team to man-manage Symonds and get the most out of him and the team. It somehow seems a dereliction of duty to leave him behind under the pretence that he's not good enough to even get a place in the squad.

Aussie Dave - what do you lot that live upside down make of it?