Two Tales From The Cricket Week | Thebigtip

It has been a fascinating week in Australian cricket. A new selection panel has delivered its first home squad and a new coach has overseen his first days in the national office. Two of the biggest cogs are now in place for Australia to once again dream of glory days. But the burning question is will they work?

Mickey Arthur is South African. Men from that part of the world are, if you have the priviledge of knowing one, hard, tough people. Their history and physical environment dictates they have to be. And this hard-nosed determination is given a perfect platform on the sporting field.

Many South Africans come across as arrogant with their self assured gait and 'say what I think' attitude; but it is far from the case. They simply are a proud, fierce country with no room for grey areas when it comes to the right and wrong ways.

Mickey Arthur is one of these men.

The other two attributes he brings to the national set up is that he is not Australian - there are very few quality coaches prancing around the Sheffield Shield ovals to warrant a homegrown mentor. But the major box he has ticked is that he is a proven international performer, taking South Africa to superb series wins in Pakistan, England and Australia.

Judging by his front foot attack regarding the first Test against New Zealand he is not about to compromise his beliefs to wax the egos of the players. In his first week he has laid the law down to Peter Siddle in no uncertain terms. He signalled him out in his press conference and made sure the player, the team and the public know exactly what is expected of the Victorian - a strong, manly performance.

And the coach could not have chosen a better person for the job. Siddle comes from a rural, wood chopping, background where meat and potato ground work and genuine effort is required to succeed. It is the environment in which the fast man thrives. Against the Kiwis he needs to be mentor, bully, calming influence, motivator, the inspiration and the performer. That is, a real leader.

Siddle has not bowled well since the 'Gabba Test last year, seemingly now having a competition with Mitchell Johnson on how many long half volleys they can bowl, but this role is what is needed for him. He realistically cannot get dropped unless Harris makes a huge recovery, so he just needs to be the best he can, unleash the unneccesary shackles he probably has and bowl fast.

It is a sensational tactic from Mickey Arthur. It may seem a no-brainer to heap the responsibility on Siddle given his bowling team mates' experience, but the coach could have easily turned to the batters and said without three front line bowlers it is up to Ponting, Clarke and Hussey to do the business. That would be a negative move, and South Africans simply do not do negative.

The other great move, as a small aside to the Siddle motivation, can also been found in Arthur's press conference when he put pressure on Nathan Lyon to stand up.

It is the thought in Australian circles that the off spinner is genuinely good; with a nice action and a happy knack of picking up wickets reasonably regularly he is enjoying a solid start to his international career. Maybe Arthur recognises this because he praised his charge late in the interview. Initially though he did not call Lyon by name, but as "the spinner" as if to say 'you haven't done enough to earn my respect yet.'

It probably was not a deliberate calculation by Arthur to say such a thing, it was more likely that it was a South African trait of calling it how it is perceived. And it is this hardness which the Aussies need back. Watch for Siddle and Lyon to perform this Test.

Away from the players and coach the new selectors met for the first time and came up with an interesting choice. It is almost a homage to the last regime that David Warner has been selected to open for his country at Test level. It is curious that the Cricket Australia site still has the old faces up as the people in charge. Conspiracy?

This decision has the potential to define John Inverarity's reign on the panel. Do they pick on performance or potential? Do they take risks or pick the best side? It is something Andrew Hilditch could not come to grips with during his tenure, thus it became a shambles toward the end.

The new panel should be given this match as a sighter but questions have to be raised as to why Warner got selected. Yes he is talented, but a Test opener? He has not even played a full season of first class cricket yet.

To make matters worse this decision shows that the selection process has not learnt from its mistakes. It was only last year that the selectors were battered from pillar to post, and rightly so, for the extremely early announcement of the first Test squad. It was no doubt done to fit in with a sponsorship deal or something hideous like that. But this year instead of admitting they erred 12 months ago they repeated the dose by naming the squad half way through the Australia A game against New Zealand!

With Shane Watson out, a new opener had to be found and if Usman Khawaja and Michael Hussey were not in the equation the battle for the spot came down to the warm up match. So how does Ed Cowan feel when the Test spot was announced before he made 140?! This is startling in its ineptitude.

What doubles the pain for the ex-NSW, now Tasmanian, player is that on output alone both he and Warner were extremely close.

Warner had a far better first class average but had only played 11 matches and of his 17 innings less than 10 were opening the batting, hardly and appealling situation. Of course he has played international 20/20 and one day cricket but his last five matches in those formats have produced only 104 runs and his ODI average of 21 which is a D+ rating at best.

Warner was coming off a century against South Australia, but so was Ed Cowan! Warner's last domestic one day innings was a half century, so was Cowan's!

There is no problem with Warner being recognised as a potential Test opener, he has improved his temperament vastly, but the Australia A game was quite clearly a match-race between the two and Cowan won by half the straight. In fact their last big game together was in opposing sides in last year's Shield final. Cowan score a man of the match century, Warner could not get to 50 in two hits combined.

So we have two tales from last week - one of an assured, experienced man and the other delving into the unknown. Mickey Arthur will succeed and he will change Australia's cricket culture. Let us all hope the selection panel can provide him with the right people to work with. Sincerely, the Warner experiment has to work, because there are some tough decisions regarding Ponting, Hussey and Brad Haddin coming up this summer.