Whilst watching the cricket on the television, it is currently impossible to miss an ad stating that you should never send a ute to do the job of the sponsor’s vehicle.
In his brief, three-Test career to this point, Nathan McSweeney has looked decidedly ute-like. Admirable in his resilience and endeavour, but selected out of position and therefore rendered, at least to this point, somewhat unfit for purpose.
This season has been tough on McSweeney. He has made his name at state level as a middle order batsman, yet has been asked to make his Test debut doing a job that he had not performed in first-class cricket at the time of his selection.
Cricket watchers of far higher minds than mine will tell you that if there is such a thing as a specialist job in the batting order, then opening is it. The new ball, especially since the remodelling of the Australian-made Kookaburra, presents challenges that a 30-over-old ball does not.
Jasprit Bumrah. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
And then there is the man that propels the ball towards the batsman. There is no Test attack that is easy to play, hence the name itself. Cricket at this level is meant to test the technique and the mettle of those that play it, but only one Test attack in the world of cricket contains a Jasprit Bumrah.
Bumrah, at age 31, seems to be getting even better rather than slowing down. He has taken 194 Test wickets at the frugal average of 19.52. Just to give that some context, the last bowler to average under 20 whilst taking more than 100 wickets was England’s Sydney Barnes, and he retired 110 years ago. That’s how good this fella is.
Bumrah has dismissed McSweeney in four of his six Test innings so far, and only once has the batsman made more than 10. I say this not to denigrate Nathan McSweeney; far from it.
However, he has been thrown to the wolves in the hope, more so than the anticipation, that he would be able to wriggle free. The potential is there; a fighting 39 in the worst of the batting conditions in Adelaide provided ample evidence of that.
When the emotion is stripped away, however, even McSweeney’s most ardent supporters would accept that this is not his time. It is most certainly not his place.
Unlike many commentators, I have no issue with McSweeney being rested (and I stress, rested rather than dropped), for the Boxing Day Test as long as the communication from the selectors towards the player is clear. The message needs to be that he was selected for a reason and that he is still high in the selectors’ minds, but that it’s time for a rest.
It is here though that I think the selectors have made another mistake. The question that they needed to ask themselves is, “what does Australia need most here?”. And I would argue that, in selecting an opening batsman to replace McSweeney, they needed a player for the here and now, rather than the future.
The future can be addressed on the tours of Sri Lanka and the West Indies. Australia needs to win at least one of the remaining Tests in the Border-Gavaskar series, and avoid defeat in the other, to not only take the trophy but to put themselves in pole position to appear in the final of the World Test Championship.
In order to achieve this against the world’s best bowler, Australia’s best chance would have been to select a solid citizen that has experienced the cauldron of Test cricket in the toughest of conditions.
He need not ever threaten the higher echelons of the Deloitte batting rankings, but he needs to have the ability to grind out a tough innings to ensure that the likes of Steve Smith and Travis Head do not have to bat inside the first two hours.
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Marcus Harris comes readily to mind. He has not made the big runs at Test level that his ability suggests is possible, but he is in sound form at Shield level, and he is capable of playing long innings.
Instead, the selectors have chosen 19-year-old wunderkind Sam Konstas to make his debut on Boxing Day in Melbourne. Now, Konstas may make runs in Melbourne; he may make lots of them. The point though is that this is a risk that could, and should, have been avoided.
That risk is twofold. The first is that exposing a cleanskin to this level of attack increases the possibility of a still-vulnerable Marnus Labuschagne being made to face a ball that is still swinging, in the hands of those that will use it to maximum effect.
The second is, with Konstas rumoured to be a rare talent, that a run of low scores could ruin his confidence and set him back two years.
Ken Rutherford was a New Zealand batsman in the 1980s with exceptional natural talent. He was exposed to the brilliant West Indian attack of the time, and they worked him over to the extent that he finished that series with 12 runs from seven innings. Rutherford was never the same player that he could have been.
Australia do not want the same thing to happen to Konstas.
To err is human. To make the same mistake repeatedly is a level of ineptitude that is at best ill-advised, and at worst inexcusable. Sam Konstas could be a raging success from the start. If he is not then the selectors may have serious questions to answer.