Worst selectorial decision by your country that you have seen.

[War]

Aftab Habib for England? FAIL. Jimmy Ormond too.

Yes Habib was badd, that was a horrible summer in 99 for English cricket.:brickwall

On Ormond. Well to be fair to the England selectors, he was picked for the 2001 tour to India just around the terrorist attack when everyone was afraid to tour Asia. Alot of Englnad's senior bowlers/players didn't want to tour, so Ormond along with Dawson, Foster where picked.

War added 1 Minutes and 15 Seconds later...

Not selecting Scott Styris lately is a big one. We went through on era where players like Astle, Cairns were being dropped and Fleming lost captaincy which made everyone want to retire.

Yes it is quite odd to see that Styris is not a fixture in the NZ ODI team.

 

[TruSachFan]

Yuvraj Singh for Australia tour :

 

[Cricketman]

Rohit Sharma. Took us two years, 41 ODIs to drop the guy. He averages a pathetic 24 yet keeps getting called up, and getting outrageously labeled as our future Tendulkar or some bullcrap like that.

He was picked again for the Nagpur test. Him being in the dressing room alone lead to a humiliating innings defeat.

Oh, and Yuvraj Singh/Wasim Jaffer being persisted with for 4 tests in Australia.

 

[Robelinda]

Yes Habib was badd, that was a horrible summer in 99 for English cricket.:brickwall

On Ormond. Well to be fair to the England selectors, he was picked for the 2001 tour to India just around the terrorist attack when everyone was afraid to tour Asia. Alot of Englnad's senior bowlers/players didn't want to tour, so Ormond along with Dawson, Foster where picked.

He was first picked though against Australia at the Oval, where he was duly caned by the Waugh's. Fat and crap.

 

[sifter132]

AUSTRALIA:

- Not playing MacGill in the 2005 Ashes
- 4 seamers not playing in all 5 2009 Ashes test

I find it odd that you criticise MacGill's non-selection in '05, but wanted 4 quicks in all the '09 Tests. That's gotta be a typo right? If I recall, the '05 wickets were much more quick friendly than the '09 ones. In '09 England wanted dust bowls to exploit our lack of spin class, while in '05 they wanted green tops to avoid Warne's influence.

And in my opinion, Hauritz and Hilfy were our 2 best bowlers in '09. There's no way Clark should have played ahead of him for Haury for all the games. They made the right call to play 4 at Headingly, but that's the only ground where they should have done it.

Will totally agree with you on Scott Muller though, he was a shocker.

 

[Robelinda]

I dont think Muller was a shocker, he didnt actually bowl that bad, he got crucial wickets at Hobart and at the Gabba he bowled with nice swing. Chris Matthews in 86 and 88 was much worse, even McGrath in 94 vs England was hopeless- didnt even get a single wicket in the 1st test and was dropped.

Not sure about MacGill in 05, but he shouldve been tried at least, but our bowlers did a reasonable job but couldnt dismiss England in the first innings for a low score in the 2nd 3rd and 4th tests which hurt us, MacGill was hardly the type of bowler to run through a side on Day 1 or 2. Our batting was to blame in 05, none of them enhanced their reputation.

 

[stereotype]

I hated it when Colin Miller got selected in front of MacGill in tests simply because he was an offie.

I know what a quality offie and quality leggie can do on a good spinning pitch but MacGill was so obviously the better bowler it is silly to compare.

 

[Robelinda]

Dunno about that, Miller was great- didnt even have 1 really bad test where he got hit around, I thought he was unlucky to not get selected more. In the tests he and MacGill played together he often was the better bowler. He really turned it. When Miller came into the team in 98 Warne was out injured and we had selected Robertson too. Miller played quite a few tests with MacGill, not many with Miller as the sole spinner- from memory Waca 98, Antigua 99, i'm sure there are only a few others. 12 wickets in his last two tests, then dropped, thats unlucky. Outbowled Warne in his only Indian test too.

 

[stereotype]

Often when MacGill and Warne were together MacGill took the majority of the wickets as well.

There are theories for that in that MacGill was probably more likely to get a rash stroke out of someone because he bowled less accurately than Warne.

I still think MacGill was a better bowler, was more likely to run through a team than Miller.

 

[Robelinda]

True, no doubt MacGill was always a better bowler, but obviously very different. but look how many woeful tests MacGill played where he just bowled rubbish. Miller bowled so well almost every time, and he got wickets, 70 odd wickets at 26? Pretty good for the 3rd choice spinner for only 3 years at test level. He spun the ball more than any other Aus finger spinner since I can remember. Even Ashley Mallett thought Miller turned it more than him, so youre going back to the 50's and 60's to find a better Aus finger spinner. All the more remarkable given he only took up off spinning a few years before his test debut, give the man some credit.

After the 99 WI series I think the selectors were quite rightly a little worried about picking Warne and MacGill together, both of them bowled crap and naturally if you have Warne plus a good finger spinner you have bases covered.

 

[stereotype]

I am not saying Miller wasn't good, I just felt it was a less aggressive move to pick him on many occasions.

 

[sifter132]

I hated the Miller pick when I heard it, but he did really well and considering our lack of spin prospects lately it was a shrewd move I think.

And yes, Muller didn't bowl too badly. I more think of it as a joke because of Joe the cameraman's comments I think

It's hard to pick out bad selections by Australia. Even guys like Andrew McDonald did a great job in South Africa. Nothing fancy, but certainly effective. They haven't lost many Test series and their ODI record is excellent of recent times so it really is hard to criticise. Consider too they were pretty close to winning the '09 Ashes and the 08/09 series v SA. It's only the 2008 India tour where we got smashed. And with no spin options I think there was a pretty obvious reason why.
In ODIs I really hated the play James Hopes (or Ian Harvey back in the day) at #8 strategy. I think the more batsmen you play, the looser your top order bats. And Hopes/Harvey are decent 4th bowlers if there is an early breakthrough, but if not it's pretty easy to target them. I don't think it's a coincidence that in ALL of the last 4 World Cup finals there's been 4 REAL bowlers at 8,9,10,11.

 

[Robelinda]

Well who was the other spin options at the time Miller was selected? Warne was injured, MacGill was in the team, Robertson was picked from club cricket and there wasnt anyone else taking any wickets, and Miller was the top wicket taker in the country that 97/98 season, where Tassie made the shield final. His stats made him irresistible.

 

[sami ullah khan]

Muhammad Sami continuously getting picked for 34 tests with his average of 52. Kamran Akmal dropping a catch every match and keeping his place till the Australian Tour where he cost Pakistan their maiden win in Australia in 12 years :doh. Another case in point is Muhammad Hafeez who keeps getting selected every now and then and he has no talent.
Another glaring example of nepotism was selection of Junaid Zia in 2003 IIRC. This bastard is son of General Retd Tauqeer Zia who was head of PCB then. He was picked for ODIs against Bangladesh and could not justify his selection.

 

[sifter132]

Well who was the other spin options at the time Miller was selected? Warne was injured, MacGill was in the team, Robertson was picked from club cricket and there wasnt anyone else taking any wickets, and Miller was the top wicket taker in the country that 97/98 season, where Tassie made the shield final. His stats made him irresistible.

Well exactly. I was kinda dreading some old guy who'd been reluctantly dragged into the team just because we needed someone. I didn't know much about him at the time I just knew he was an old offie and feared the worst.

Oh and forgot to add. Andrew Symonds getting into the Test team in 05/06. We picked Watson as our potential Flintoff clone, not a terrible idea I guess although we didn't need one. But there certainly was no need to force Symonds into the XI after Watto went down. We had Clarke, Katich, Hodge, Hussey and Martyn all fighting for 3 spots and with Warne in the team there was no need for an all-rounder. Yet we stuck with Symonds. He made a cavalier 72 in Melbourne, I think the only time he got past 30 in the whole year of cricket until that 156 v England with Hayden. It was a stupid selection with everyone falling in love with his slogging and his ability to bowl medium and spin. Who cares if he can bowl both if he's good at neither?? :