Hot Cricket Newz~! November 2016

In these extraordinary cricket times, I've brought back the highly reputable HOT NEWZ~! masthead.

In this edition:

• There Are No Selection Failures
• Lollygeddon! 

THERE ARE NO SELECTION FAILURES

Rod Marsh didn't jump before he was pushed as Chairman of Selectors because he made terrible choices. A few choices were bad, some were good, most are hard to assess. 

But it's not a case where there are unselected players out there that would've saved Australia from the two Test defeats so far.

There was no gross selector negligence that held team performance back. This is not about selection failures at all.

It is about strategy and communication failures by his panel.

One of that panel has just been promoted to be his temporary successor, and the other is still there too, even though throughout his career he found watching cricket boring... "I couldn't watch a full day's play at a Test. Eight hours at the game? Couldn't do it." They should take some blame too. 

A selector demonstrates his trademark gracefulness that he is looking for in selected batsmen.

Their continued involvement also means we shouldn't assume everything is fixed.

Here are some of the failures they should look to address.

You should not publicly support a player, stating they are 'not cooked', then immediately drop him anyway.

You should not send a bowler a message they have not been selected due to their batting, then three weeks later decide it doesn't matter after all and pick them.

You should not prevent the preferred bowler, who had a difficult Test debut, from having the opportunity to play for his state, then drop him.

You should not decide two batsman are the best available, and then drop them after two failures each in a Test where every batsman was terrible.

You should not spend years creating a bowler rotation and player management policy, then select a fast bowler who has been injured for eight months and is now predictably injured again.

You should not talk about picking on instinct and 'guessing a little bit' as it makes you sound like you don't know what you're doing and have no plan. 

You should not stress 'patience will be required' one Test match at the same press conference where you announce dropping five players, three who were given one test match, two of which were on Test debut, and expect to be taken seriously.

I hope Australia succeeds in this recent Test, and the new players do well, but it certainly won't be because of good player management.

LOLLYGEDDON

South African captain Faf du Plessis has been fined his match fee from the last Test for eating lollies.

GUILTY!

Ok, it was actually for ball tampering - that is, the sugar from the lolly mixed with his saliva is considered an artificial substance that altered the state of the ball to favour his bowlers.

Technically he broke the rules, specifically Law 42, Subsection 3.

The problem with this Law is there is no real evidence that sugary saliva actually alters the state of the ball more than normal saliva. I've played some cricket - admittedly at a pretty low level, but we still did use a hard red ball that was shined vigourously - and I'm pretty sceptical of the magic powers of lollies.

If artificial substances assisting shine of the ball is really such a grave crime then no cricketer could eat or drink anything but water during playing hours. Or wear sunscreen, hair gel, lip balm or anything else that might mix with sweat. 

It is also telling that the complaint came through the media, was taken up by the ICC, and nobody involved with the Australian team went near it. The reason was obvious to anyone that has ever played cricket. Steve Smith confirmed in a press conference today that Australia "shines the ball the same way".

So unless we want all our cricketers to starve and get skin cancer while having bad hair and chapped lips, they should probably look at making the rule less of an inconsistently applied joke.

While the whole thing is an absurd beat-up - literally as well as figuratively - du Plessis will now be considered a cheat within Australia for the rest of his career over this.

But he will not be considered a cheat for the dozens of times he's nicked the ball to the 'keeper and not walked, or the thousands of times he's backed up from the non-strikers end before the bowler releases the ball. Yet those are illegal actions that do actually impact every match in a consistently measurable and observable way.

Cricket is a funny game.