Robert Craddock warns Australia to take cautious approach with emerging star
Ricky Ponting is one of the best judges in world cricket so his call to promote emerging star Cameron Green to the Test squad carries plenty of weight but ROBERT CRADDOCK writes Australia must tread carefully.
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Australian cricket has a major star on the rise but how he is managed could make or break his career.
Ricky Ponting’s call for West Australian all-rounder Cameron Green to be included as a reserve batsman in the Test series against New Zealand is a significant vote of confidence given Green is only 20.
While he is considered only a rough chance of selection because he cannot bowl at the moment due to injury it’s heartening the debate over his elevation has started in earnest because he will get there eventually.
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Green, and several other interstate players, would seem a better bet than current reserve Cam Bancroft who is struggling to hit it off the square and when he does often gets caught at leg slip.
Bancroft is not improving as a batsman. You can’t just keep rewarding mediocrity.
Green is unlikely to play a Test this summer but he is a young man with an exceptional future.
All-rounders are great for cricket because they create such immense discussion.
Where do they fit it? Are they paying their way? Should they be chosen for the conditions? Who misses out for them?
All these issues create fertile debate and enrich the game.
Forests were cut down to provide the newsprint for debate over the many threads of Shane Watson’s career and, serviceable though he was, it’s not as if he was Imran Khan.
But there was always issues surrounding him that warranted discussion.
Rarely since Rod Marsh branded a 16-year-old Ponting a “once in a generation player’’ has there been so much excitement about a young Australian cricketer as Green.
Test Greg Chappell has been spouting Green’s virtues as a thoroughly genuine Test match batting prospect for some time but the remarkable thing is some people think he may be an even better bowler.
He’s probably not but at around 200cm his 140kph deliveries have garnered 28 first class wickets at an exceptional average of 21 to go with his two first class centuries.
The fact that he has a couple of hot spots in his back means he is not bowling so he would have to be chosen as a batsman only.
That may not be a bad thing.
There is a feeling in Australian cricket he will develop in a Pat Cummins style way where his body is best left to harden up for a few years before he is overly taxed as a bowler.
Green grew several centimetres last year so Australia is extremely careful about not pushing him in the way Cummins was early in his career.
The great bonus for Green is that there is no need to rush him as a bowler because at interstate level at least he has the ability to hold his place as a batsman.
If he went a season without bowling much at all it might not be a bad thing for his long term development.
Originally published as Robert Craddock warns Australia to take cautious approach with emerging star