Ian Chappell calls for revamped domestic system
Our Correspondent
AGENCIES, SYDNEY: Former Australia captain Ian Chappell has called for a complete rethink of Australias cricket system after the teams crushing defeat in the ongoing Investec Ashes series in England.
In an interview with ESPNcricinfo, Chappell said Australia were now worse off than they were before the Argus review of 2011, and he has forecast dark days ahead due to the lack of batting depth in the domestic system.
The retirement of Michael Clarke and likely departure of Chris Rogers will leave Australia needing at least two new batsmen in their top six after this series, but their replacements are far from obvious. Chappell said the fact that so many of Australias new Test batsmen in recent years were older including Rogers, Adam Voges, Ed Cowan, George Bailey and Rob
Quiney was evidence of a failing system.
Normally youd be highly critical of the selection panel for doing that, but you have to have sympathy for the selection panel, because what they would obviously like is a lot of young players churning out runs regularly in first-class cricket, and sadly thats just not happening, Chappell said. That to me is where the major concern is.
I think there are some guys there with a lot of skill. But whether they would do any better against the moving ball than what weve seen lately - you wouldnt want to be betting your house on it.
The Argus review was, in my opinion, from the time it was done, a complete waste of time. Were now back in the same boat. In fact I think were behind the eight-ball
because what they did was they added another layer of management. The system is wrong, the Argus report was a waste of time.
Australias major failures in recent years have come when the ball has moved, either in spinning conditions or against seam and swing. Chappell said during his playing days, batsmen were exposed to enough variety in conditions during Sheffield Shield cricket that they had confidence in their techniques when asked to tour countries such as England or India, which he believes does not happen now.
Young players are going to be playing with an IPL contract in mind, Chappell said. If I can show that Im a terrific hitter of the ball and I can score at eight an over, that could get me a big IPL contract. So the question youve got to ask yourself is, are they developing techniques that make it easier to play in that manner, to score at eight and ten runs an over and be terrific hitters?
Every time I hear people say the batting is better now, I nearly throw up, because the batting is not better. The hitting is better, but the batting is not better.
