Rod Marsh goes in to bat for high-performance boss Pat Howard
POLARISING Cricket Australia high-performance boss Pat Howard has enemies in the game but also, it turns out, a surprising ally — keeping great and former national selector Rod Marsh.
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ROD Marsh says Pat Howard would have had the Australian cricket team picked by a computer if he had his way.
But despite the opposing views they might hold on selection, Marsh has made the strong declaration that the game “needed” Howard.
Howard has faced criticism over news that he would not seek a another contract, but The Daily Telegraph understands he had always intended to walk after next year’s Ashes, even before the ball-tampering scandal exploded.
This defence is supported by the fact Howard has twice previously during his eight-year tenure told the Cricket Australia Board that he believed he should walk away, including after the 2015 World Cup.
On both occasions the Board had to talk Howard around and convince him to stay.
Mitchell Johnson has called for the polarising high-performance boss to be moved on immediately and not see out the final 12 months of his contract in the wake of the cultural review.
Howard has enemies in the game, but he has an — which some might see as surprising — ally in his former national selector Marsh.
In his newly released illustrated autobiography ‘Rod Marsh’, the straight-shooting Test great calls Howard a “micromanager” and even admits he may not have informed him he was quitting as Selection Chairman in December 2016, writing: “If I didn’t, I should have.”
However, Marsh still insists that whatever the former Wallaby lacked in cricket knowledge was more than compensated for by his fearless personality and insatiable work ethic.
“There was a massive swing towards following process, and I’m quite sure that had Pat Howard had his way the team would have been chosen by running the stats through a computer,” writes Marsh.
“This may sound as though it’s a swipe at Pat, but it’s not. Pat came from rugby and knew nothing about cricket.
“He had read the book Moneyball (about Major League Baseball) and thought all of those principles could apply to cricket. But cricket can be as much about players having the right temperament to perform under pressure as them having a good record.
“Pat was a micromanager, but I do really like him, and I reckon he got lots of people off their backsides and got them contributing far more than they had pre-Argus review.
“He was something Australian cricket needed and he threw himself into his job like he no doubt threw himself into a rugby (ruck).”
Other sources have reaffirmed to The Daily Telegraph that Howard’s decision to vacate his post as high-performance manager is not related to the cultural review.
“Pat was never afraid of responsibility and quite often blamed himself for a poor performance by the team,” writes Marsh.
Howard has unfinished business with the huge World Cup and Ashes assignments next year and support from the board remains strong.
Cricket Australia have pledged a thorough review of its high-performance operations after the cultural review provided the damning feedback that the department was guilty of functioning on a “win, without counting the costs” mentality.
Former Test great Johnson played under Howard’s stewardship for many years and believes an immediate change should be made to bring in a new head of team performance with a cricket background.
“I sort of believe, we’ve just seen David Peever go, why is Pat Howard not gone?” said Johnson.
“I think the high-performance side of things has definitely taken over in the sport and I think it’s gone too far with looking at many issues like the bowling workloads for bowlers.
“It needs to be addressed and hopefully it gets addressed sooner rather than later because I think for the future of cricket for the betterment of the game, they’re on the right path but it probably needs to be a bit sooner.
“I think it has to be a cricket person. They have to know the game and know what works.”
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Originally published as Rod Marsh goes in to bat for high-performance boss Pat Howard
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