Robert Craddock: How should Australian cricket handle its new drawcard Jake Fraser-McGurk?

With a T20 World Cup looming, Australian cricket has a huge call about how it handles Jake Fraser-McGurk. And as ROBERT CRADDOCK writes, it can’t afford to underestimate the importance of entertainment.

Call it cricket’s CAF rule. The Crowd Appeal Factor. It once helped Andrew Symonds win selectors’ favour and it could do the same for Jake Fraser-McGurk.

The batsman nicknamed Rooster gave his supporters much to crow about with his magnum forced 41 off 18 balls against the West Indies in Canberra on Tuesday.

The question is what does Australia do with him now?

The T20 World Cup in the West Indies and the USA later this year seems a bit soon. But you never know.

One thing is certain.

Very few players in the game can count crowd appeal among their credentials for national selection but given the way the 50 over format is struggling it’s harder than ever to ignore a bums on seats batsman with the potential to knock you off your couch.

Australia's batsman Jake Fraser-McGurk tees off in Canberra.

In 1998, the late Symonds was the first player to have his magnetic crowd appeal acknowledged by the selectors as one of the reasons for picking him.

When selection chairman Trevor Hohns was asked whether the public’s deep-seated fascination with Symonds’ explosive ways played any role in his selection, Hohns nodded before adding “it certainly doesn’t hurt when you are picking a one-day side.’’

Fraser-McGurk has become an interesting study because success or failure for free spirits such as him often rest on two factors – their heads and their captains.

For every David Warner and Glenn Maxwell there are scores of batting wonder boys who never quite got there.

Fraser-McGurk blossomed in the BBL this summer. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

The game’s true sabre rattlers need to be tough upstairs because their failures can be as spectacular as their triumphs. When they tumble from the hire wire of batting where only the brave attempt to tread, they need people to understand it’s all part of a big picture play.

Captains also play a key role.

Travis Head blossomed as a player after captain Pat Cummins told him “just be you’’, liberating his inner tiger.

England’s cavalier opener Zak Crawley has changed from a loose, error plagued battler into a world class force after skipper Ben Stokes told him to be comfortable with who he was and go down swinging.

Selectors, captains and teammates all need to be aligned of acceptance of the many rocks that will be sprinkled between the diamonds if Fraser-McGurk wants to become part of the national scene.

Fans will have to accept the good with the bad with an aggressor like Fraser-McGurk.

There will be plenty of days when he won’t be cricket’s version of a good lookin’ Rooster for he still has much to learn.

In first class cricket, Fraser-McGurk has averaged just 22 in 13 matches which was part of the reason why Victoria did not put up an extreme fight to keep him before he moved to South Australia.

During these 13 matches, Fraser-McGurk has hit 60 fours and 10 sixes. Like a lot of young dashers, he has the force but is still searching for the fibre.

For all glamour of being a beautifully balanced power hitter who can swat a ball into orbit it is those little noticed second and third gears in his batting that are even more important than the mortar fire.

There’s plenty of challenges ahead but hopefully he will make it – the game needs CAF factor more than ever.

Originally published as Robert Craddock: How should Australian cricket handle its new drawcard Jake Fraser-McGurk?