The Australian selectors have made a habit of springing surprises each time they sit down to pick a team. Sometimes it is a glaring omission that makes fans wonder if they just forgot about the player. At other times, they seem adamant on rewarding anyone with a ball or bat with the Baggy Green.
Whatever be the case, the Australian selectors headed by their interim chairman, Trevor Johns, have made bizarre choices in recent times and it is worth noting that very few of them have gone down well with the Aussie fans.
One might recall that they chose to rest their premier pacemen, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, for a high profile ODI series against the South Africans in their homeland, only for Australia to embarrassingly lose 5-0.
This is one among the many weird decisions that the selectors have made in recent times. Take a glance at a few others.
#5 Omitting John Hastings from the ODI team
When Australian selectors sat down to pick a 14 man squad for the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy in Australia against New Zealand few months back, they decided to omit fast bowler, John Hastings. What they missed or chose to ignore is that Hastings was the leading wicket taker in ODIs in 2016 until that point.
He had led the bowling attack in the ODI series against South Africa which they lost 5-0. Although he was not a bit impressive in the series, he wasn't alone. None of the bowlers enjoyed a good time in that trip. But the selectors chose to give the best ODI bowler of 2016 the axe.
Hastings admitted to being stunned by the omission but the selectors felt that with Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins returning, Hastings had no business in the ODI side. He had picked a career-best haul of 6/45 against Sri Lanka just a month prior to that.
#4 Swapping between Mitchell Marsh and Hilton Cartwright
After losing the first two Tests against South Africa last December, the selectors made some wholesale changes to the Test squad and this included omitting Mitchell Marsh, who was in a barren run of form. The bowling all-rounder had barely made any significant contribution at no. 6 to be retained.
They replaced him with Hilton Cartwright by the time Pakistan had come and they even handed the newbie a debut. But after one Test, where he scored 37 in the only innings he batted, the selectors decided that he was a misfit. When the team for the Indian series was named, guess who was back? Mitchell Marsh.
They chose to ignore Cartwright after barely having half a look at the all-rounder. Instead, the discarded Mitchell Marsh, who had done absolutely nothing in the period away from the Tests squad, was recalled.
#3 Sam Heazlett and Billy Stanlake in ODIs
When Australian selectors named the ODI squad for the series against Pakistan, they decided to give a certain fast bowler, Billy Stanlake, the go ahead. Stanlake had just four List A matches to his name at the time and had missed the Matador Cup, Australia's limited overs competition, due to injury.
There was no place again for John Hastings, Joe Mennie or Chris Tremain who were suddenly not good enough to be in the One Day squad anymore.
The next series against New Zealand threw up another surprise in the form of Sam Heazlett. Heazlett had some decent performances behind him for Australia A in mid-2016 but since then had little to show for. His selection ahead of Matador Cup performers, Cameron White, Marnus Labuschagne, Moises Henriques and Daniel Hughes did not go down well with the fans
#2 Selection of Mitchell Swepson and Ashton Agar in the Test squad for the Indian tour
The Test team to India had almost all bases covered with quite a few options in every department. But question marks still prevailed on the names in each department. The spin quartet chosen for the tour raised a few eyebrows when Mitchell Swepson, the leggie from Queensland, was chosen along with Ashton Agar as backups to Nathan Lyon and Steven O'Keefe.
Swepson had decent returns in the Shield games but he cannot be called the best leggie in the country with Adam Zampa and Fawad Ahmed available. Similarly, Ashton Agar seems to have been selected on the basis of his additional ability with the bat. Jon Holland, the leading spinner in the Shield games, meanwhile, seems to have been omitted after just two Tests in Sri Lanka.
#1 BBL's top run scorer and top wicket taker not good enough in T20Is?
The Big Bash League was expected to be a launch platform for dynamic players to enter the Aussie T20 squad. However, the Aussie selectors seem to think otherwise.
In the Big Bash 2016/17, Ben Dunk of Adelaide Strikers smashed 364 runs at an average of 52. He can keep wickets as well but the selectors felt Tim Paine, 14th in the list of run scorers this season is a better option.
There was also no room for the leading wicket-taker this season, Sean Abbott, who picked up 20 wickets at 16.15 for the Sydney-based franchise, Sydney Sixers. Instead, Jhye Richardson, a 20-year-old seamer who performed well in just the finals of the Big Bash was chosen.
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