While were not planning on a never-ending blog regurgitating never-ending themes from time to time between here and November there’ll be something of note in the early morning trawl through the websites that’ll give me something to cogitate over the course of the morning walk.
Take, for instance, Lehmann promises a 'pick and stick' policy for Test side in The Australian this morning. Given the way things have gone recently, you’d think that’s a no-brainer, but there were a couple of associated issues to muse on as I stepped out around regular the circuit.
We’ve got a fairly definite batting order with a space at either Three or Six that’ll be decided by who’s been scoring Shield runs in the early rounds and where we want them to bat. Haddin at Seven, and Siddle, Harris (if fit) and Lyon. That leaves two spaces for quickies in the twelve, so the question becomes which two?
The current contracted players list includes Cummins, Faulkner, Harris, Hilfenhaus, Johnson, McKay, Pattinson, Siddle and Starc. With Watson presumably right to bowl that’s a fair battery of quicks, with several candidates lurking on the fringe, but we have an interesting point that was raised regarding the first name on that list, so let’s leave the fringe players out of it for the moment.
Fringe players don’t have central contracts and are therefore, presumably, outside the Cricket Australia player management/rotation/whatever you want to call it policy.
There was an interesting piece in The Age from Australian team doctor Peter Brukner (Why our young fast bowlers keep breaking down) which didn’t tell us much I didn’t already know, but reinforced a couple of points.
The most significant of them is here: The bowling load of these players is monitored very closely. Total numbers of balls bowled at training and in games is planned as much as possible ahead of time and adjusted according to circumstances. What we particularly try to avoid is rapid increases in the number of balls bowled from week to week.
There was an interesting article a couple of days back that I’ve just spent a quarter of an hour trying to track down that points out Pat Cummins is involved with three separate squads when you take national, Shield and Big Bash commitments, with potentially different workloads and build ups involved with each.
He’s just twenty, with around another four years until he’s out of what Brukner cites as the extreme danger zone as far as stress fractures are concerned, so Cummins ... will have to severely limit the amount of bowling he does over the next two to three years if he wishes to remain free of injury.
One hopes these matters are being looked at, along with a number of other issues with team protocols and procedures. On 21 November we want to deliver a side onto the paddock that’s focussed and free from distractions. There are a number of things that are going to be part of that package, and the news coming out of the England team celebrations reminds us that there are issues with alcohol and socialising.