Katich: the contrarian argument

Amid all the noise about Simon Katich's removal from the Cricket Australia contracts list, the national selectors have found some support from seasoned voices. Patrick Smith, writing in The Australian, makes his own case against Katich's retention, while also citing that of Robert Craddock, the long-time cricket writer for News Ltd Group.

If we take the rules of selection and run them over the case for Katich, we come up with this: his international career was waning. Katich's Test average quoted by Craddock over the past three series was running well below his overall mark of 45. With an obligation to both pick for the present and build for the future, Katich, at 35, was vulnerable. He was the obvious choice of the veterans because the selectors had no young solid middle-order batsmen screaming for attention, but they did have Hughes, a scorer of two centuries in 10 Tests with an average just short of 40.