During his rise to fame in 2009 and excellent tour of South Africa, I myself was a big supporter of Hughes. But after inconsistency and a flurry of low scores and the throwing away of his wicket, I have jumped ship on his selection debate. Another failure in the second innings of the match in Hobart should see Hughes dropped from the team.
After scoring all but 17 runs in Australia’s first test victory over New Zealand at the Gabba, The media was inundated with calls to replace Phillip Hughes in the Australian Test Side. Being caught in his last 8 innings at an average of 17.25, He has only managed to reach double figures 3 times in this period. These statistics call for an openner who can keep a level head and score consistent runs in consistent openning partnerships for Australia.
Taking a glance at Phil Hughes’ 31 inning career, managing 3 hundreds and 3 fifties has been made incomparable to the number of times he has failed to build a formidable base for Australia’s innings. Since becoming a permanent opener for Australia, the opening partnership’s average has dropped from 51 (Katich-Watson) to 31 (Hughes-Watson) in which Hughes has been labelled as the major culprit for the drop. Keeping in mind that Shane Watson can also be blamed for this drop, He has been the steady player of the two. This goes hand in hand with being identified as a “weak link” in the Australian order, as evident with the “short ball” in the 2009 Ashes and guiding the ball to Martin Guptill off Chris Martin against New Zealand this summer.
Comparing Phil Hughes to the likes of Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden and Simon Katich the sense is given that he just doesn’t have that “rock” ability to be able to stay around and reach 0/100. Although Australian Cricket is in the biggest transition phase of its entirity, The only way to get better is to win matches by scoring runs and taking wickets. So far this summer, the “musical chair” pace attack has shown a promising sign but the batting order has been the disappointment, led by Phil Hughes at the top of the order.
Various names have floated around as suitable replacements for Hughes such as Dave Warner, Usman Khawaja, Ed Cowan and Shaun Marsh. For myself, Shaun Marsh would be the most logical and practical replacement for Hughes. Having only played a few test matches, He has shown the technical prowess of a test player and scored a magnificent 141 and 81 on debut. Having batted at 3 for his short time in the team, Marsh has been forced out to the crease a number of times within the first over. The transition to openning can therefore be justified to go along with Marsh’ spot at the top of the order in the One Day International team.
What to do for Phil Hughes now? Well, the only thing he can do is pray the panel of selectors see something that the rest of Australia do not see to play against India. The game against the Indians that begins on the 19th December is his D-Day. I think he will have to score a big hundred in this game and outscore Marsh,Warner and Khawaja in the game to retain his spot. With Ed Cowan playing in another Chairman’s XI game before the 19th, Hughes will have plenty of pressure on him to score runs, maybe too much to handle. He has already saved himself once in South Africa with the 88 scored but a tough road is ahead for Hughes.
I believe that to salvage his Test career he should (or will be forced to) go back to the Sheffield Shield or even over to Country Cricket, score some runs and focus on selection to the Ashes squad.This “stint” in the Australian team will not be his last but he does need to tweak his technique and his mental stability within a match, especially when batting in an awkward period of a match. I can see Hughes playing the same sort of career that Simon Katich did, holding back at state level until it is his turn again. With his talent though, which cannot be denied, one must say that he should play more test matches in the future with the potential to score a lot of runs.
Second Slip,
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