What is going on with Aussie cricket?! I wrote a blog entry a week or two ago about this subject but the plot has thickened since then.
Four players have been denied the opportunity to press for selection in the upcoming Test match in India due to the fact they failed to submit a three point plan to the coach, a South African named Micky Arthur, about how they would improve themselves and the team’s performance in the future.
Now I am not sure if this was an exercise designed by performance managers and implemented by dunces like Arthur who seemingly wouldn’t know how to manage a hen house in order to get players to have a look at themselves in some “new age” manner or an attempt to actually get the players to look at why the team is failing. In any case, I’m not in agreement with the coach getting the players to do his job for him.
My personal opinion is that the coach, in such a situation should go to each member of the squad, privately and personally and discuss with him any problems they may have and encourage the player to give his own recommendation on how things may be improved. The player should be confident that anything said by him will be in discussed in the strictest confidence. It’s called man-management. Something the current crop of administrators in Australian cricket seem clueless about.
I have some experience in clueless man-management having suffered under the strain of the most useless managerial performers imaginable over the years so I know a poor manager when I see one.
Of course the players concerned should have completed the task and suffered the consequences when it was not done but the whole thing was a ridiculous excercise in the first place, something which I imagine many may have been uncomfortable with doing anyhow. Suspending them from a Test match was far too harsh and may have unintended consequences for all concerned.
The apparent slovenliness of the players on tour has lead management to suspend these players. It was “A Bridge Too Far” for the coach. “A line in the sand” moment he declared, straining to use a well worn cliché with withering effect. Well how in the hell did it get so far then? The buck stops with him!
Of course outsiders like us really have no clue as to what happens in the inner sanctum of the Australian Cricket Team on tour. We have more idea of just what is going on in the current Papal Conclave than we do about the festering sores on the skin of our national cricket team. We are but visitors to the zoo when it comes to dissecting and disseminating information which flows to us through the tinted lens of the Cricket Australia propaganda machine. We can see the animals but we can never get close enough to them to interact personally. Or to find out the true story.
Rumours abound on social media that the side is riven by factions. If you are not in the captain’s clique then you may as well not bother packing your bags and in the traditional manner of inward looking administration, the powers that be in Australian cricket back their man to the detriment of the rest of the side. Or so it seems. The only sure thing which can be gathered from the current debacle which has made the Australian game a laughing stock world wide is that there are deep-set problems in the culture of the team and it appears they won’t be resolved as long as the current caretakers remain in power. For the first time in my life I am praying for an Australian cricket team to suffer a massive defeat, a loss which will put into train the changes which need to be made in order for our squad to regain ascendency in the cricket world.
The coach should be recalled immediately and be replaced by Darren Lehmann, a former Australian Test player and a man recognized as the best cricket coach in the country. The national selection panel should be sacked and the chairman replaced by Steve Waugh, himself a legend of the game, a hard man not likely to be overawed by the protestations of captain Michael Clarke or a cricketing minnow like Micky Arthur.
I would like Adam Gilchrist and perhaps Glen McGrath to also join this panel and the role of the coach in selecting the team to be abolished. Small steps, but a start. The public needs to have confidence in the men at the helm. The Australian team and the way they conduct themselves are still important in this country. Let us hope the current crop of administrators prove more worthy of their position than they currently appear to be.
Four players have been denied the opportunity to press for selection in the upcoming Test match in India due to the fact they failed to submit a three point plan to the coach, a South African named Micky Arthur, about how they would improve themselves and the team’s performance in the future.
Now I am not sure if this was an exercise designed by performance managers and implemented by dunces like Arthur who seemingly wouldn’t know how to manage a hen house in order to get players to have a look at themselves in some “new age” manner or an attempt to actually get the players to look at why the team is failing. In any case, I’m not in agreement with the coach getting the players to do his job for him.
My personal opinion is that the coach, in such a situation should go to each member of the squad, privately and personally and discuss with him any problems they may have and encourage the player to give his own recommendation on how things may be improved. The player should be confident that anything said by him will be in discussed in the strictest confidence. It’s called man-management. Something the current crop of administrators in Australian cricket seem clueless about.
I have some experience in clueless man-management having suffered under the strain of the most useless managerial performers imaginable over the years so I know a poor manager when I see one.
Of course the players concerned should have completed the task and suffered the consequences when it was not done but the whole thing was a ridiculous excercise in the first place, something which I imagine many may have been uncomfortable with doing anyhow. Suspending them from a Test match was far too harsh and may have unintended consequences for all concerned.
The apparent slovenliness of the players on tour has lead management to suspend these players. It was “A Bridge Too Far” for the coach. “A line in the sand” moment he declared, straining to use a well worn cliché with withering effect. Well how in the hell did it get so far then? The buck stops with him!
Of course outsiders like us really have no clue as to what happens in the inner sanctum of the Australian Cricket Team on tour. We have more idea of just what is going on in the current Papal Conclave than we do about the festering sores on the skin of our national cricket team. We are but visitors to the zoo when it comes to dissecting and disseminating information which flows to us through the tinted lens of the Cricket Australia propaganda machine. We can see the animals but we can never get close enough to them to interact personally. Or to find out the true story.
Rumours abound on social media that the side is riven by factions. If you are not in the captain’s clique then you may as well not bother packing your bags and in the traditional manner of inward looking administration, the powers that be in Australian cricket back their man to the detriment of the rest of the side. Or so it seems. The only sure thing which can be gathered from the current debacle which has made the Australian game a laughing stock world wide is that there are deep-set problems in the culture of the team and it appears they won’t be resolved as long as the current caretakers remain in power. For the first time in my life I am praying for an Australian cricket team to suffer a massive defeat, a loss which will put into train the changes which need to be made in order for our squad to regain ascendency in the cricket world.
The coach should be recalled immediately and be replaced by Darren Lehmann, a former Australian Test player and a man recognized as the best cricket coach in the country. The national selection panel should be sacked and the chairman replaced by Steve Waugh, himself a legend of the game, a hard man not likely to be overawed by the protestations of captain Michael Clarke or a cricketing minnow like Micky Arthur.
I would like Adam Gilchrist and perhaps Glen McGrath to also join this panel and the role of the coach in selecting the team to be abolished. Small steps, but a start. The public needs to have confidence in the men at the helm. The Australian team and the way they conduct themselves are still important in this country. Let us hope the current crop of administrators prove more worthy of their position than they currently appear to be.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 