Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo
“It’s very early days for him”
Australia batsman Alex Doolan has missed out on being awarded a central contract, despite being a part of the squad that beat South Africa 2-1.
Cricket Australia announced that 18 players have been given new contracts, which is a drop from the 20 they had last year.
The board also revealed that Shaun Marsh and Phillip Hughes have been given contracts, while Ed Cowan, Pat Cummins, Xavier Doherty, Ben Hilfenhaus, Clint McKay and Matthew Wade have all been dropped from the list of contracted players.
“When we do the contracts we rank all the players for Tests, ODIs and T20 for performances over the last 12 months and expectation over the next 12 months,” national selector John Inverarity said. “Both Phil Hughes and Shaun Marsh earned points for their ODI contributions over the last 12 months and that would have nudged them ahead of Alex there.
“It’s for all three formats and Alex didn’t win any for anything other than Tests, and Shaun and Phil would have points from that.
“Alex is very highly regarded, he’s the incumbent No. 3. It’s very early days for him, I think he’s received an enormous amount of encouragement and had an opportunity when on standby for Shane Watson in Sydney, he played the three Tests in South Africa and we’re anticipating he will do well in the future, he’s the incumbent No. 3, and we’re looking forward to seeing him do well and receive an upgrade.”
Inverarity also noted that Cummins will be playing a lot of games for Australia A so that he can get back in form after succumbing to a lower back stress fracture.
“He’s an older young man now, we have full confidence in NSW to manage him, and I think Pat in working with various people including Dennis Lillee over the last year or so is now more independent than he was,” he said. “And we’ve supported him for a couple of years. We couldn’t justify including him in this year’s list, but he remains verymuch to the forefront of our thinking, and we look forward to him getting fit and strong to play. I saw him bowl in the BBL final, he took 1 for 47 in his four overs but I thought he looked really good.
“I think we’re all on the same page, a development in recent years has been CA working very closely and cohesively with the states, and there’ll be a conversation around Pat with NSW, CA and particularly the medical people there. So he’ll be well monitored and I’m sure the best interests of Pat will come to pass. CA will be announcing fairly soon an Australia A team, Pat will have some opportunities in that, and we’ll attempt to give him the right amount of bowling in the north of Australia in July/August.”
Inverarity added that he is unsure whether he will carry on with his role once his own contract expires in June.
“My contract when I joined in November 2011 was for up to the end of June this year,” he said. “In the coming weeks and months I will discuss with CA whether I will continue to play a role in the national selection panel, and that’s where it is. It’s yet to be finally decided.”