dropping the selectors

”At no stage have they told any selector that his job is being dissolved, discontinued. One of us has to drop off, not anyone has been told who that one is going to be. Our future is in someone else’s hands. Obviously we would like to know who it is. If it is me that gets dropped off the list, I have enjoyed my time with the Australian cricket team, it has been absolutely fantastic. What happens going forward is out of my hands.”

Merv Hughes

OK, you’ve now read that.

Let me do this to it.

”At no stage have they told any player that he will be getting the axe. One of us has to drop off, not anyone has been told who that one is going to be. Our future is in someone else’s hands. Obviously we would like to know who it is. If it is me that gets dropped, I have enjoyed my time with the Australian cricket team, it has been absolutely fantastic. What happens going forward is out of my hands.”

Any cricket player ever

I feel sorry for cricketers that they have to live and die  by old men who have agendas, but that is how cricket is.

That is how life is.

Your job as selector is to select the team, that means making tough calls on people’s careers.

But, Merv, someone has to select the selectors.

And now you are on the end of what you do to other people all the time.

As one cricketer may or may not have said to me, “My heart bleeds boys, it really does, now go back to the 2s, get some runs and hopefully we can chat later in the summer…”.

You surely can’t complain.

This isn’t even a full time position you currently hold. You have a real job, I assume.

If it was full time, Merv, then you’d have been made to pay the couple of bucks a month to get a foxtel subscription to watch the international cricket you currently don’t see.

If it was full time, Boon and Cox would have to give up their jobs helping out SA and Tas.

If it was full time, Hilditch wouldn’t be walking dogs on the beach while test matches are being played.

Boys, I do feel sorry for you, but one of you will have to miss out. G Chappell is obviously the future, and we need to fast track him into the system, this doesn’t mean the end for you, obviously Hilditch is on his way out, so maybe one of you can go back, get a bunch of good decisions under your belt and get a call up.  No one ever said the life of a selector was an easy one, but you’ve made it once, you can make it again. A lot of great selectors were dropped early, and they fought like hell to make it back, there is no reason why you can’t do the same. .  You’ve done well, but this is mostly for selectorial balance, you know, horses for courses.

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4 thoughts on “dropping the selectors

  1. Wes ~PFCNFS~ says:

    Whatever happens, it’s too bloody late to get rid of North :/

  2. Jonathan says:

    From my point of view, it’s a bit like being a player waiting for selection. Ultimately, the decision is out of my hands and there’s nothing I can do except wait and see – although it does make it hard to plan the summer considering we won’t know until just before the season begins

    Maybe some of this logic applies here, too.

  3. Can’t you have one more selector?
    I like Hughes. Him being bartered for Chappell is one small step for both, one humongous step back for hirsuteness.

  4. Hit the road Merv….you’ve shown us how you select!

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