Brad Haddin’s non-selection for the Third Test is no excuse for Australia’s poor form

Claims that the selectors’ decision to omit Brad Haddin from the Third Test has harmed team harmony are alarming, writes Scott Walsh.

Australia’s Brad Haddin, left, and Australia’s Peter Nevill walk for nets practice in preparation for the third Ashes Test cricket match, at Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, Tuesday, July 28, 2015. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira)

MATTHEW Hayden calls it Australia’s “one per cent”.

A margin of X-factor no other side in world cricket possesses. It’s a boost, apparently. An invisible, immeasurable but indisputable benefit that is the envy of rivals.

Sorry, but no. On the evidence of the past three days it’s a weakness. An alarming one, at that.

And it’s a frailty that, like training wheels and wet nappies, our country’s best cricketers must find a way to outgrow. If Australia can be so destabilised, so unsettled and so obliterated by a single call at the selection table, then you have to wonder about what else might damage these souls.

Team culture is, no doubt, a real thing. At its best, a bond between mates in elite team sport is a powerful weapon to have, because not every unit has it.

But if it can collapse and turn against us, so stunningly like it apparently has at Edgbaston, then is the benefit worth the risk?

No-one from inside the camp is saying it out loud, but the dropping of wicketkeeper Brad Haddin for second-gamer Peter Nevill in the third Test has reportedly busted noses out of joint.

So far out of joint, evidently, that had it not been for David Warner serving as a one-man top-six and late resistance by Nevill, we probably would have lost inside two days.

Word filtering out is, from the players’ perspective, it’s a case of coach Darren Lehmann and his hierarchy urging a family-first mantra then showing zero empathy when players do exactly that.

What rubbish.

Culture might be an unlisted team member, but this is still professional sport. There is still a duty to select the 11 players most capable of winning every match we play and for those players to do their jobs.

Despite the hysterical views of some, Haddin didn’t drop the Ashes on that first morning in Cardiff, when the difficult catch off Joe Root went down. A squeezed deflection like that was a tough chance for any keeper of any age.

But when our long-term gloveman withdrew from the second Test at Lord’s for family reasons that no-one would ever hold against him, his replacement performed brilliantly.

Some argue that if Haddin’s form wasn’t enough of a concern before the first Test, then he should have come straight back in when available for the third.

That’s too simplistic. We all knew Haddin hadn’t been in scintillating touch and we knew that, at 37, he probably wasn’t on a sharp improvement trajectory.

What we didn’t know was whether there was a better option. We didn’t know how Nevill would perform on debut, on arguably cricket’s single biggest stage.

In the end, Nevill was superb. His 45 in the first innings finished the work of Chris Rogers and Steve Smith and his seven dismissals didn’t even count that diving blinder that was overturned for brushing the grass after sticking in his glove.

The Lord’s Test was a turning point. We found out that in measurable areas like batting and fielding Nevill is, right now, a better choice as Australian wicketkeeper. That’s all we can expect selectors to make decisions on. To accuse them of heartlessness based on the health concerns of Haddin’s young daughter is ridiculous.

This was a cricket call. There is no such thing as entitlement when it comes to selection. No-nonsense Haddin knows that better than anyone.

For team morale to implode because of it is not just churlish, but childish. Imagine if Port Adelaide had dropped Brad Ebert for tomorrow’s clash with St Kilda and then sulked through a pathetic 100-point thrashing. It just wouldn’t happen.

Perhaps the Haddin factor is made up. Maybe it’s all just a ruse, an excuse masking that Australia’s batsmen are plainly vulnerable to good bowling away from home on wickets with any more life than “flat”.

Because that is a reality, and it’s not invisible.

Originally published as Brad Haddin’s non-selection for the Third Test is no excuse for Australia’s poor form