The omission of senior wicketkeeper-batsman Brad Haddin continues to make the headlines here.
The selection panel chief, John Inverarity, has said “Haddin has been rested.” But the 34-year-old Haddin had clarified that he had “been dropped”.
Wicketkeeper-batsman Matthew Wade not only replaced Haddin for the two Twenty20 Internationals against India but has continued to be a part of the Australian eleven in the Commonwealth Bank ODI series.
James Sutherland, Cricket Australia's chief executive, threw light on the subject while speaking to the media here on Friday.
Focus of the panel
He said the focus of the selection panel was to communicate directly and clearly to the cricketers. He, however, added there could have been some uncertainty over the public space over the non-inclusion of Haddin.
He said, “Personally I think we can do better and we need to do better in that regard. Looking back on it, something clearly has gone awry there (in communicating with the public) and that's something we need to be clearer on. We are not comfortable with the level of uncertainty and public discussion on this particular matter.”
Sutherland said, “Brad's aware of the situation. He's had a number of conversations with the selectors, particularly the national selectors, over the last few weeks and probably as back as just over 24 hours ago. He knows that he's out of the team on a performance basis and he's under no illusions as to where he sits in selectors' eyes.”
Indeed, Haddin's form with the bat and the gloves has been indifferent this season. Wade, in contrast, impressed in both aspects in the Twenty20 games and in the early stages of the triangular ODI series.
It is likely though that Haddin will be the first choice wicketkeeper-batsman for the upcoming Test series in the West Indies. Wade could don the big gloves in the abbreviated forms of the game in the Caribbean.
On Woolf report
On the Woolf report that has spoken on how the game should manage its global governance, Sutherland said, “Cricket Australia's take on this subject is that the members of the board of the ICC have commissioned this review, it has got some recommendations about what's best practice and from that viewpoint it would be silly to just throw it out. No organisation should be satisfied that it cannot improve in some way by acting on recommendations to bring us closer to best practice.”
He added, “I think there is a lot of really good stuff there and sensible stuff about best practice governance and that is what any cricket organisation, any proper organisation, would want. There are also some practicalities, of course, in getting from one step to the next and they're the challenges the directors and ultimately the members will need to tackle.”
