Excellent advice to Australian selectors

I've been upcountry for a few days, hence my rcent silence.

This morning I managed to buy the last copy of today's Australian on sale at the Barmera Foodland. I was glad I did because it has another incisive piece by Patrick Smith " Miserly Clark holds key to Ashes glory".

Smith's assessment of the situation IMO is spot on:

So scrape away the hubris and this series is very even. Australia should stick to the 11 that brought the country back into the battle. We should cautiously discount the performance of the bowlers on the last day at Headingley where Stuart Broad and Swann thrashed an attack that tried to force dismissals rather than plot them.

The fact is that England, with Flintoff in and Bopara gone, will present as a more formidable opposition than what Australia did over three days in the last Test. But any change to the Australian team would weaken it.

The Ashes will be retained if Australia draws. For England to win the series and therefore win back the Ashes, it is crucial that it scores quickly. Clark has proved over his career -- and in the first innings of the fourth Test -- that he can shut down scoring with his impeccable line and length. To leave him out and bring in Hauritz or even Brett Lee makes the side unnecessarily vulnerable.

Hauritz can bowl frugally but Clark can do that better and get more wickets than the off-spinner. The suggestion that Lee plays to provide reverse swing surely is fanciful given that Australia's grasp of the science required has always appeared minimal.

Australia can retain the Ashes, but it must retain Clark first.

A one Test wonder?

Cricinfo (and various other outlets) report that, according to Chairman of Aust selectors Andrew Hilditch, Stuart Clark's place in the XI at the Oval is by no means guaranteed

Hilditch, speaking at Australia's limited-overs squad announcement on Tuesday, was adamant Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus remained Australia's first-choice Test fast bowlers, with Clark set to duel with Nathan Hauritz for the final bowling berth ahead of the Ashes decider at The Oval.

An alternative view is put by the News Ltd media, where Ben Dorries argues that axing Clark will suit England .

The Australian selectors have made several blunders both in the selection of the touring party and during the series itself. Clark's inclusion at Edgbaston was the people's choice well before the selectors followed suit, and was an important element in the general tightening which saw England bowled out for 102 in its first innings.

There may be reasons for omitting a pace bowler at the Oval, but if there are that need not necessarily be Clark. T5 is still a week away so I hope clear heads prevail among the selectors and not just on the nation's couches.

Strengthened Australia outplay weakened England: T4 D1

England 102 (33.5 ov, P Siddle 5/21, S Clark 3/18) v Australia 4/196 (47 ov, R Ponting 78, S Watson 50): Ashes 09 T4 D1 at Headingley, Leeds

298 runs and 14 wickets from 80.5 overs.

Not a bad day's cricket, eh? Up to a point, depending on your allegiance.

It was a disastrous one for England, weakened by the withdrawal of Andrew Flintoff, whose batters crumbled in the face of an Australian bowling attack strengthened and refocused by the selection of Stuart Clark.

Andrew Strauss must have been discombobulated by all the last minute uncertainty about whether Matt Prior - yet another casualty of the modern warm up regime - was able to play. The keeper was, and top scored with 37* as all around him succumbed to the four Australian quick bowlers.

Strauss, having been reprieved by Umpire Bowden from an lbw verdict from the first ball of the match, started the procession when he was well caught in the gully off Peter Siddle. Ben Hilfenhaus and Mitchell Johnson picked up a wicket apiece but it was Clark's combination, not often seen so far this series, of movement and accuracy which ripped the heart out of the middle order and set the scene for Siddle to mop up the tail. He finished with 9.5-0-21-5, Clark 10-4-18-3.

With his characteristic lucidityGideon Haigh in The Times summed up the difference Clark made:

Australia have wanted all summer for a bowler who understands line as a cardinal virtue, who strives above all for consistency, who tries to make batsmen play but is averse to surrendering easy runs off the pads — now they had him. He bowled the day’s first maiden, didn’t concede a first run until his seventeenth delivery, claimed his first wicket with his 21st — and every bowler around him benefited ... The question inevitably will arise why Clark has been made to wait so long for his chance on this trip, when his experience, especially of Lord’s as a former Middlesex player, would have been invaluable.

When Australia batted Simon Katich failed but Shane Watson with yet another 50 (51/67b, 9x4) and Ricky Ponting despite (or maybe because of) the booing which greeted him overhauled the England first innings total before Graham Onions and Stuart Broad took three late wickets including Ponting's for a belligerent 78 (101b/12x4, 1 x6) to give England some small consolation for an other wise appalling day.

Disclosure: I thought that Siddle should make way for Clark, leaving Nathan Hauritz in the team to provide some front line spin. So far I've been proved wrong.

Scorecard

Weakened Australia hold firm: Ashes T3 D1

Australia 1/126 (30 ov, S Watson 62*) v England Ashes 09 T3 D1 at Edgbaston.

Australia has not fielded its best available team. Stuart Clark was once again omitted. Moreover Brad Haddin withdrew with a broken finger between the toss (won by Australia) and the start of play . England sportingly allowed Graham Manou to replace him (a decision not without some self interest as an injured yet in form Haddin was potentially more dangerous, at least with the bat, than his untried deputy). The wayward Mitchell Johnson was retained (at Clark's expense) while Phillip Hughes, surprisingly, was dropped for Shane Watson, whose opening record in the longer forms of the game has been decidedly modest.

As it turned out Watson justified his selection with an impressive 62*(105b, 10x4) . He and Simon Katich put on 85 for the first wicket against an England attack which lacked the zest it had shown at Lord's. Still, 30 overs in a rain shortened day does not a Test match make, let alone give us much of a guide to the outcome. The weather may continue to play a part, even if there's provision to make up lost play over the remaining days.

Scorecard