The decision today to pick Cameron Green in the starting XI for the upcoming West Indies Test series to replace the retiring David Warner came as no surprise to anyone, given the number of leaks to the media over recent days to ensure everyone was prepared for the eventual announcement. It has become a time-honoured tradition, essentially to ensure that the Chairman of Selectors press conference to announce the team is made easier by the fact that he already knows what questions will follow.
The discussion on today’s episode will focus on a couple of factors in the hope of sparking a different line of questioning. That focus is on the change in mindset of selections at the top level over the past two decades, that form in the Sheffield Shield is no longer relevant in selecting the national teams, it is more about the targeting of talent and how that is seen to be best placed in bringing about success. The same process that is used in the Pathways set up for junior representative cricket nationwide, with various opinions on its success or lack thereof.
If form is no longer a necessity when it comes to choosing players in the Test team, nor apparently is it a necessity to be an opening batter in first class cricket in order to be chosen for that position in the Test team, then what message is being sent to the cricketers at that level, and is it more important to look pleasing to the eye in bashing a ball than to accumulate runs on differing surfaces and conditions?
That’s the basis of today’s episode of the podcast that hasn’t agreed with the National Selection Panel since 1993, The Casual Mankadder.

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