Dear Cricket Australia, Please Fix Your Calendar
Every summer when the time comes around to pick the Australian Test cricket squad for the series against whoever is touring, the eternal question gets asked by the talking heads on Twitter about every single player:
“What’s their form in the Shield?”
It’s a fair question. The Sheffield Shield is meant to be the breeding ground for Test cricketers. A level where you’re constantly pitted against the best red ball cricketers in the nation all vying for the same thing, a spot in the squad to potentially wear the Baggy Green during some of Australia’s biggest events on the sporting calendar.
Why then, is half the Shield season after the Test matches?
Cameron Green barged down the door to a Test debut on the back of an eye-watering start to the 2020/21 Sheffield Shield. Credit: AAP (Jono Searle)
In an era where we’re constantly told that runs are the only currency for selection, it seems a little disadvantageous to only give players 4-5 games to press for selection (3 in the 2020/21 Shield season, likely due to restrictions placed by the pandemic).
Traditionally, the Shield season has always taken a pause for the summer of Test cricket, even before the rise of T20 and the Big Bash League, that much is true. The popularity of T20 isn’t a reason why Shield cricket stops for two months. It is, however, a good excuse now as to why the Shield takes a break.
The inaugural BBL featured 31 games. BBL10 has 61. Credit: News Limited
When the BBL first launched back in 2011/12, each team played each other once, then there were two semi finals and a final. The whole thing was between Dec 10 and Jan 28. Fast forward to BBL10, teams now play each other twice, followed by a labyrinth of finals games which can see teams play as little as two or as many as four finals, depending on ladder position. The current season compared to BBL01 is two weeks longer, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but the fact it extends into the new school year is borderline insane.
BBL at Adelaide Oval. The current BBL season runs from December 10, 2020 to February 6, 2021. Credit: Adelaide Strikers
Adam Voges, current coach of the Perth Scorchers, even felt the need to comment on the length of the season. Speaking to ABC Radio back in November, Voges said "Yeah I've got a view on this, I think the season is too long…I'd love to see it reduced a little bit and find a window where we can get the best players playing.”
Now you might be wondering why I’ve brought up the BBL when discussing the pause in the Shield season. To me, it seems like during the Test summer we should be encouraging more players to be playing red ball cricket. If a Test player is out of form during the summer and a replacement is called up, that player will either be in the middle of a T20 season, or have been riding the bench of the Test squad.
“Yeah I’ve got a view on this, I think the season is too long…I’d love to see it reduced a little bit and find a window where we can get the best players playing.”
There’s no reason to have the Shield season finishing in March. What exactly is the point of players piling on runs in First Class cricket only to have those mean nothing regarding future selection. Even this year, the squad for a potential (now cancelled) tour to South Africa was announced before the Shield had even recommenced. Where’s the fairness in that? Are we picking Test players on white ball form? Or just regurgitating the same players that underperformed in the summer with little recourse for replacement?
Keeping players ready for a Test call up should be the priority of the ACB right now. Keeping the Shield season going during the Test summer rather than pausing seems like a logical solution. It doesn’t have to run through the whole summer, but bringing forward the end so that it finishes in January rather than March would allow players to score runs and get in form.
Marcus Harris played two Shield games before coming into the Test side. Credit: AAP (James Elsby)
Take the example of Marcus Harris. He played two Shield games and two First Class games against India for Australia A, between October and December. Four games in two months before earning his Test recall at the expense of the injured Will Pucovski. Most of his summer was spent running drinks out to the middle and carrying sweaty gloves back to the pavilion. He then made scores of 5 and 38 in the Fourth Test against India before likely being dropped from the XI had the tour to South Africa gone ahead. That isn’t fair on the player and gives him no chance to build or maintain form.
I’m not going to pretend to know the logistics behind the Shield and BBL, and things during a pandemic are doubly difficult anyway. My suggestion would be to shorten the BBL back to 10 regular season games, and implement a more traditional finals format. This way, the BBL can start later so the Shield can run longer. Even if the two formats slightly overlapped for a week or two, it’s still keeping the Test hopefuls playing first class cricket and maintaining a reserve of in form players should the Australian national team need changing mid-summer.
