What the Maddinson selection tells us about the state of Australian cricket

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A good shipping line doesn’t send veteran steamers into the worst of winter and hope for the best. It builds the next generation of ships while the old captains are still on the bridge. Anything else is sailing on hope and trusting the weather to hold.

By recalling NSW veteran Nic Maddinson into Australia’s Test squad to face South Africa, selectors have made that gamble.

Australia has South Africa and India away, and an Ashes tour of England next year. So we can’t afford to lean on hope.

Even if Maddinson makes runs, his selection plugs a gap and builds nothing. The batting is vulnerable, and the bowling again rests on Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon staying fit. One injury and we’d be exposed.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a great fan of Nic’s and always thought he should have played more Tests. But that window closed a decade ago. He was one of the most gifted players to emerge from Australia’s 2010 under-19 World Cup winners in New Zealand, alongside Mitch Marsh, Hazlewood, Adam Zampa and Kane Richardson. He struck the ball beautifully, bowled clever left-arm spin and had one of the best arms I’ve seen in youth cricket. His future looked secure.

Instead, he became a casualty of a broken first-class structure. I remember several seasons when he started well in the Sheffield Shield, then lost momentum when the Big Bash split the competition into two five-game blocks. Give him 10 straight Shield matches and he could easily have made four or five hundreds in a season, and grown into a long-term Test opener.

The problem is wider than one player. In fairness to the selectors, very few young batters get a sustained run of first-class cricket. The BBL break sees to that, and most states have held on to the stalwarts, believing experienced hands give them a better shot at the trophy than blooding kids.

State coaches are paid to fill the cabinet and protect their jobs, not to produce the next generation.

That has to change. A state job should be a working interview for the Australian head coach’s position, and states and premier clubs should be rewarded for the number of Test players they develop.

If a talented 19-year-old sees the door to Test cricket shut until he’s nearly 30, he will look at the T20 circuit and ask why he should wait. We are teaching our best young players that Tests are not where the future is.

The same disconnect exists at the top. Cricket is the core business Cricket Australia has to get right. If the cricket is strong, the commercial side looks after itself because crowds and broadcasters follow fresh stars. If the cricket is weak, no amount of corporate governance will fix it.

CA’s board should be rooted in the game. I’d have four-fifths of the directors nominated by the states, plus a couple of independents for financial and governance expertise.

The objection is that state delegates will protect their interests. For most of our history the states did the job we needed because their interests and Australia’s were the same: produce the best players.