Andrew Hilditch’s belief in the Australian batsmen and Shane Watson’s delicate body seems more moronic the longer this tour goes (5 days of cricket in). He and his team decided that Australia’s spare batsmen for the tour was Shane Watson, a man that makes a violet crumble look like a titanium rod.
Watson broke down, surprisingly absolutely no one, and Australia are left with two men to be back up batsmen for the next test, Andrew McDonald, not a test class batsmen, and Graham Manou, definitely not a test class batsmen.
All of this would be fine if the Australian batting order was firing on all cylinders, but if Marcus North’s batting was a car then he wouldn’t be able to put the key in.
The best way of explaining North’s current form is that Nathan Hauritz looks like Mark Waugh in comparison. North cannot buy, steal, find or molest a run so far.
Against Sussex he was in quicksand, his first innings lasted 5 balls, his second innings lasted 50 balls for 11 runs. There was a sense of desperation in his batting that I haven’t seen since the last time I saw Michael Hussey out of form (which definitely was not today).
Today he lasted 5 balls again, although I am not sure how. Almost every ball, no matter how benign it appeared, was like a cluster bomb when it got to him.
North is a very accomplished batsman, but he isn’t a world-beater, and if his off spin wasn’t like Viagra to the Australian selectors you couldn’t see them picking him ahead of Hodge, Ferguson, Hussey (jnr), Klinger or some random NSWales youngster.
His maiden hundred was well made, but he did have some luck. Had South Africa seen him play a bit more they would have closed down his “Western Australian scoring channel” though point with a posse of catching fielders a la Stephen Fleming to Damien Martyn.
And since that hundred Marcus North has not been a factor, although since that hundred he has had only 3 innings to be a factor.
There was a time when Australia would have had a “bat off” with a couple of batsmen on a tour like this, but Hilditch turned up with his batting superglued in place.
Right now, he must be looking for some nail polish remover, because North is looking shaky at best, and at worst, he looks like an Ashes anchor like The Krab Katich did in 05.
Shane Watson’s injury hasn’t made this worse, as even if he was brought into the side to replace North, what sort of kamikaze gambler would bet on him lasting 5 whole days of cricket.
Surely even Hilditch is questioning is choices about now.
