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Simon Katich attacked the selectors at a fiery but focused press conference.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Sympathy among players and cricket followers was very much on Katich\u2019s side. But the conflict underpinned how the system was changing. Most of all, this was a conflict about Katich\u2019s contractual status, rather than his selection in a particular match.<\/p>\n
Murmurs have long persisted that new skipper Clarke didn\u2019t want Katich in the team after their SCG dressing room confrontation in 2009. But Clarke and the selectors are adamant that the captain was not involved; in fact Clarke is known to have argued for Katich\u2019s recall in December 2011, when Ed Cowan was picked instead.<\/p>\n
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After his omission, Katich and his then manager Robert Joske were offered, and took, legal advice. While Katich ultimately chose not to pursue it, the advice was that he had, given his standing as Australia\u2019s most prolific batter over the previous two years, good grounds for unfair dismissal on the basis of age discrimination.<\/p>\n
Greg Chappell, who had become a selector in 2010, gave the panel\u2019s side of the equation. The selectors took exception to Katich\u2019s response, \u201cif you pay peanuts, you get monkeys\u201d, when asked about how much the selectors were paid.<\/p>\n
\u201cKatich\u2019s repudiation of the contract decision, and the selection panel in general, cut deeply,\u201d Chappell wrote in 2021. \u201cBut we all knew that in taking on that role it inevitably came with some days as a punching bag.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s in anybody\u2019s interests for the panel to be publicly slagging off current or past players. We also knew how emotional a time it is for a player, dealing with the end of the line. So you need to give them a little bit of room. If you\u2019ve got a thin skin, don\u2019t become a selector.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Greg Chappell says if you have a thin skin, don\u2019t be a selector. Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n
From that point, Cricket Australia and its selection panel became exceedingly careful around the contracts list in particular. Current selectors George Bailey and Andrew McDonald were playing at the time and sympathetic to Katich, while third selector Tony Dodemaide was in administration.<\/a><\/p>\n Entering the next season, the Don Argus-led review of the Australian team emphasised clear, evidence-based selection methods and consistency. Katich is content that his stand helped make life easier for younger generations: the likes of Usman Khawaja, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins were teammatesof his.<\/p>\n As part of a series on the inner workings of the national selection panel, we examine some of the most contentious calls. <\/p>\n The Brad Hodge riddle<\/p>\n \u201cI love Marto, but Brad Hodge was averaging 50. How does he not get another go?\u201d asks a fellow member of the 2006 Australian Test team.<\/p>\n Hodge made 409 runs at 58.42 in five Tests against West Indies and South Africa in the 2005-06 summer, but found himself not only out of the team but out of the squad altogether when it flew to play the Proteas in South Africa. Damien Martyn was recalled instead.<\/p>\n Brad Hodge was dropped after five Tests.Credit: Sebastian Costanzo<\/p>\n It was a highly contentious call for the panel then chaired by Trevor Hohns, who called Hodge at home the night before the squad was announced. The bad news prompted Hodge to turn off his phone the next morning and disappear to Cape Schanck for a solitary round of golf.<\/p>\n Hohns, who did not respond to a request for comment on this story, hinted in 2011 that concerns about Hodge\u2019s handling of fast bowlers were part of the decision, both for South Africa and ahead of the 2006-07 Ashes.<\/p>\n But once Martyn, Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer had retired, the door remained more or less closed, save for one Test match in the Caribbean in 2008. Why?<\/p>\n Merv Hughes, a fellow Victorian and a selector for much of the period in which Hodge was left out, explained it was a combination of circumstances and also the all-round abilities of others, notably Marcus North.<\/p>\n Australian cricket hall of famer Merv Hughes.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cFor a long time if on the eve of an important Test match Ponting, Clarke or Hussey went down and we needed an experienced player, Hodgey was in,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cThat would be indicated by the contract lists, and he got a contract every year. He was seen as a valuable asset to us.<\/p>\n \u201cBut if a Test series was over and there was a spot you\u2019d put in a younger player, often Hodgey missed out. It got back to horses for courses and knowing what we needed \u2013 not playing the wrong card at the wrong time.\u201d<\/p>\n North made his Test debut in South Africa in 2009 and stayed in the team until mid-way through the 2010-11 Ashes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat people didn\u2019t understand about Marcus North, particularly in Victoria with \u2018why isn\u2019t Hodgey being picked\u2019 was that when we picked him for the tours to South Africa and England he [North] was the third-best run scorer in the previous two or three years and the best performed spinner in domestic cricket,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n \u201cMarcus was bowling a lot in Shield cricket and performing well. He to us was a No. 6 batsman who could score runs plus a real bowling option.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Inspired lunacy:\u2019 Mike Whitney misses the 1989 Ashes tour<\/p>\n In the last Test of the 1988-89 summer against the West Indies, Whitney had taken 7-89 on a batter-friendly Adelaide Oval pitch, among 58 wickets he took in the most prolific first-class season of his career.<\/p>\n But when it came to naming the 17th player for the Ashes tour to follow, Whitney was left out. Young seamer Greg Campbell and the more seasoned Carl Rackemann were figured to have snuck in ahead of him. <\/p>\n Mike Whitney was a hard-luck story.Credit: Getty<\/p>\n It was a bitter pill for Whitney, and considered a scandalous decision in NSW circles. As one columnist put it in the Sydney Morning Herald: \u201cWhitney, and genuine cricket enthusiasts, are entitled to know what inspired lunacy prompted the selectors to leave the season\u2019s leading first-class wicket-taker out of the tour squad.\u201d<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n It was the tightest call of the Laurie Sawle selection panel\u2019s tenure. Coach and selector Bob Simpson, who died aged 89 in August<\/a>, described it as the only occasion a formal vote was required to split Whitney and Rackemann. Campbell, though by far the junior of the trio, was already in.<\/p>\n \u201cBoth men deserved the trip,\u201d Simpson recalled in Cricket Then and Now. \u201cI was one of two selectors who went for Whit, in my case because I believed we needed a left-hander. The other pair, however, preferred Carl.<\/p>\n \u201cAllan Border was still to come in and give his views on the squad\u2019s makeup, and when he did, he said \u2018Rackemann is the right choice. Whit doesn\u2019t swing the ball\u2019. Laurie Sawle, as chairman, promptly announced, \u2018OK, that\u2019s the way we\u2019ll go\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Whitney was unlucky, but the 1989 Ashes touring party would go on to hammer England 4-0. In the early 1990s, Whitney would enjoy a couple of prominent summers in the Test and ODI teams, having gained the ability to swing the ball that Border had required.<\/p>\n Dean Jones dropped in 1992<\/p>\n Fifty-two Tests, 3631 runs at 46.55, and two hundreds in his past four games. Yet Deano was sensationally dropped for a young Damien Martyn and the Waugh brothers for the first Test of the 1992-93 home series against the West Indies.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout 10pm Simmo gave me a call and asked me to go to his room,\u201d Jones, who died in 2020,<\/a> wrote in My Call. \u201cWhen he offered me a drink at 10pm the night before a Test match I knew the worst.<\/p>\n \u201cHe told me I wasn\u2019t in form, that I\u2019d had only three hits going into the Test whereas some of the West Australians had as many as nine or 12. So I was left out of the side. I was spewing \u2026 because the reasoning behind it was so far out of my control.\u201d<\/p>\n Dean Jones was axed before the 1992 home summer. Credit: Chris Cole\/Allsport<\/p>\n Then selector John Benaud committed a whole chapter to his book Matters of Choice to the decision. It highlighted how Jones was not only short of batting at the start of the season, but that his impact on live games early in series had diminished for over two years.<\/p>\n Add to that the fact the panel wanted to introduce Martyn, and Mark and Steve Waugh offered bowling skills that helped cover for the injury-prone fast man Bruce Reid.<\/p>\n Some years later, Simpson suggested Jones had lost the confidence of the dressing room to build an innings when required.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was dropped because he had moved away from technical efficiency and consequently was getting out in the most extraordinary ways,\u201d Simpson said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was still scoring a few runs, but often streakily, and too often it just didn\u2019t seem as if his brain was in the right gear. The mood in the room when he was batting was \u2018which crazy way is Dean going to get out now\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Made 12th man at the Gabba, Jones was effectively scrubbed from Test cricket when he was left out of the 1993 Ashes touring party. The young players chosen ahead of him \u2013 Martyn, Matthew Hayden and Michael Slater \u2013 went on to prolific Test careers.<\/p>\n Matt Wade\u2019s sledging-based recall in 2016<\/p>\n There were plenty of unsettling pointers to cultural issues in Australian cricket before the ball-tampering scandal in 2018, but few were more blatant than the way Matthew Wade was recalled for Peter Nevill in 2016.<\/p>\n Australia had lost five Tests in a row, the last by a huge margin in little more than two days against South Africa in Hobart, forcing the resignation of selection chair Rod Marsh. With Hohns returned to the chair and Greg Chappell the selection panel, the next Test team featured a lot of change. But Wade\u2019s inclusion left Chappell flummoxed, and unafraid to say so.<\/p>\n Matthew Wade was picked partly for his chirp.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cSuffice to say the team\u2019s leadership felt that a change of wicketkeeper was required and Wade was the preferred candidate,\u201d Chappell told me in 2021. \u201cNot because he was the best wicketkeeper, but because he was the loudest gloveman with the most \u2018mongrel\u2019, whatever that means.<\/p>\n \u201cI stated, \u2018that\u2019s never been a criteria for picking a Test team that I\u2019ve ever heard of, and we shouldn\u2019t be starting that now\u2019. As the idea developed in the meeting I just shook my head, saying \u2018no, we can\u2019t go down this path\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI shook my head again when the decision was made, and it\u2019s the first and only time I\u2019ve walked out of an Australian selection meeting in total disagreement with what we\u2019d just done.\u201d<\/p>\n Chappell quickly sought out Pat Howard, Cricket Australia\u2019s then head of team performance, to state his objection.<\/p>\n \u201cMate, I just need to let you know that for the first time in my life as a selector, I\u2019ve been involved in something that I totally disagree with,\u201d Chappell told Howard.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery other selection meeting I\u2019ve had my say, we\u2019ve had a good discussion, a decision is made and we\u2019ve all been comfortable that we\u2019ve made the right consensus decision. We have just made the wrong decision, and it\u2019s going to end in tears, and I need you to know that from me right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Nathan Lyon out, Ashton Agar in, 2013<\/p>\n As captain of Australia, Michael Clarke was a resolute defender of spin bowlers, and preferred perseverance to experimentation.<\/p>\n His loss of official selector status, following a heart-to-heart with Rod Marsh and Allan Border in India during the 2013 \u201cHomework-gate\u201d tour, had one instant outcome.<\/p>\n Ashton Agar made his debut after a bombshell selection.Credit: AP<\/p>\n Nathan Lyon, the young spinner about whom other selectors had held reservation for more than a year, was dropped for the start of the 2013 Ashes and replaced by the 19-year-old Ashton Agar. With a thrilling 98, batting 11 on debut at Trent Bridge, Agar made himself an instant pin-up in much the same way as Sam Konstas last summer.<\/p>\n![\"Brad](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2fa781a3cc14a30c16e61d01abfcd0f6e6a6ad18.jpeg\")
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