Legendary NSW fast bowler Mike Whitney has bemoaned the state body’s failure to retain top-class players and aired his grievances over the epic crumbling of the Blues’ once-mighty production line of Test cricketers.
Whitney found himself grimacing as half a dozen players who had slipped through Cricket NSW‘s fingers helped lift South Australia to back-to-back Sheffield Shield titles in Melbourne on Monday.
“I just thought, ‘Wow. Look at all the Blues players in that side. There’s six dudes running around. It’s crazy!'” Whitney told Wide World of Sports.
READ MORE: Axed star’s ‘deflated’ admission to Thaiday before unlikely twist
READ MORE: ‘Think about it every day’: Kyrgios’ biggest tennis regret
READ MORE: Lloyd reveals huge void Bombers are ‘crying out’ to fill
Those six former NSW players who hoisted the Sheffield Shield as Redbacks at the Junction Oval on Monday were Henry Hunt, Liam Scott, Nathan McAndrew, Jason Sangha, Henry Thornton and Ben Manenti.
All six grew up in NSW and cut their teeth on the Sydney grade scene, but have become champion first-class cricketers interstate.
South Australia celebrate their 2025-26 Sheffield Shield title win. Getty
McAndrew’s journey has been particularly fascinating, or depressing, depending on where in the country you call home.
After spending his 20s scratching and clawing to break into the NSW Sheffield Shield side but getting nowhere, the right-arm quick packed up and moved to South Australia.
He made his Shield debut with the Redbacks in the 2021-22 season, aged 28.
Since then, no pace bowler has played more Shield matches than McAndrew’s 42, and no bowler, spinners included, have snared more wickets than his 181. He’s taken his wickets at 23.52, and bagged 11 five-wicket hauls and a 10-for.
He also took out man of the match in this year’s final, having bagged six wickets across two innings to go with a fighting half-century.
“New South Wales must look at that [the success at South Australia of former NSW cricketers] and go, ‘How did we let those guys go? How do we not recognise these guys, and why have we let so many of them go?'” Whitney said.
“I don’t know the answer to that. It’s bizarre to me.
“I think there’d be a few people [in NSW cricket circles] shaking and scratching their heads and going, ‘How do we let all these guys go?'”
Nathan McAndrew celebrates taking a wicket during the 2025-26 Sheffield Shield final. Getty
Whitney played in four title-winning NSW Shield teams across the 1980s and 1990s.
No state has won anywhere near as many Shield titles as the 47 claimed by NSW. Next best is Victoria, who’ve won the Australian domestic first-class tournament 32 times.
But the Blues haven’t won a Shield title since 2019-20, nor featured in a final since 2020-21.
They finished second-last on the table in the summer just gone.
“Sorry, it’s hard for me to swallow that,” Whitney said.
In addition to the six former NSW players who’ve now tasted ultimate glory with South Australia, a long list of others have fled interstate from Sydney grade clubs and blossomed as first-class cricketers.
Among them are Tasmania speed demon Nathan Ellis, who’s become a regular of Australia’s white-ball sides since heading south.
There is a widely held view that a prioritisation of players in Cricket NSW’s pathways system over strongly performing Sydney grade players has driven cricketers out of the state.
Mike Whitney bowling for NSW against Queensland in the 1988-89 Sheffield Shield season. Fairfax
In 2023, former NSW and Australian Test quick Stuart Clark accused the state body of being “fascinated with picking 19-year-olds and not those who have earned the right to play”. Clark has since joined the Cricket NSW board.
Whitney said he’d never agreed with the Cricket NSW pathways system.
“Some kid gets recognised at 14 or 15 or 16 and there’s a lot of resources put into that kid,” Whitney said.
“He might have been a great player as a teenager, but as you get older your natural talent is not going to take you there; you’ve got to be resilient, tough, train hard, turn up every day and wanna make 100 or get 50 every time you go out there.
“But because there’s been so many resources put into that particular kid, they feel like they’ve got to give him a chance, and they don’t want to flick him out of that line because the people that have picked him early might be a bit embarrassed about that now … They feel like they just can’t get rid of them. They need to give them an opportunity because if they don’t, they’ve wasted years on this particular kid that they think is going to be a talent.
“I think some of the coaches would be a little bit embarrassed to think, ‘F—, I made a bit of a blue back there’.
“I’ve seen people in grade cricket score heavily year after year after year but have never been included in the pathways system from a young age, but developed a little bit later when they were 20, 21, 22. They became really good players, but they’ve sort of missed that pathways entrance thing, and they get overlooked.”
South Australia after claiming back-to-back Shield titles. Getty
Whitney feels as though Cricket NSW tries to justify its pathways nursery by handing players produced by the system baggy blue caps, rather than taking into consideration gun grade cricketers and picking on merit.
“Absolutely,” said the former Australian Test quick.
“That’s been going on for a long time.”
It’s a long-running joke in Australian cricket that when a baggy blue is handed out, a baggy green is, too, so dominant NSW cricket has been at the Test selection table.
But of the 24 Australians who’ve made their Test debut since the beginning of 2017, only two came from the Blues — Kurtis Patterson and Sam Konstas.
“We’re not producing the level of player that we’d like to see, and some of our players that have left and gone elsewhere are performing at that level,” Whitney said.
“So it’s a bit crazy.”
Brad Haddin, newly appointed as head coach of the NSW Blues after the mid-season sacking of Greg Shipperd, has vowed publicly to reboot Cricket NSW’s once-vaunted production line of Test cricketers.
“Look, New South Wales is in a bit of a stasis at the moment,” Whitney said.
“We’ve just got rid of our coach, players have been leaving, you go to other states to get an opportunity, we’ve got a new coach coming in.
“I hope a few things change as far as the Shield side’s concerned.”