Agreed that a succession plan is needed to prepare for the next ashes. Paine gave a good account of himself a year back against pakistan and india, and was doing alright in shield cricket before the finger injury.
Unless there's an amazing talent of the ilk of gilchrist out there i'd prefer to the position to be adjudged on glove work first and batting second - Tim's exceptional with the gloves and handy enough with the bat (FC ave. low 30s). Would like to see him considered once he's recovered if haddin doesn't start pulling his weight.
Yes, a succession plan is needed. We learnt two big lessons from last summer's humiliation:
1)
Blooding new players in a major tournament (and for 99% of Australian supporters, the Ashes being the creme de la creme of international cricket)
doesn't work, and looks very amateur. Michael Beer's selection out of nowhere (although Shane Warne recommended him, Beer was literally unheard of. Even the selectors hadn't seen him play), Xavier Doherty's selection on the back of 3 ODI performances....we all saw what the culmination of these deplorable selections were. The previous summer (2009/10 vs Pakistan/West Indies) was the time to mould new players/combinations, but the results from those series (including that dubious result in the SCG test, although it was one of the great come from behind wins before Pakistan's matchfixing scandal came to light a few months later) gave us a "false dawn" which set us up for a massive fall the following summer.
2) Relating to what I said about Xavier Doherty,
using ODIs (in last summer's case, 3 ODIs vs Sri Lanka)
as preparation for a test series doesn't work. ODI and test cricket are two completely different forms of the game, different strategies and tactics, and different rules as well. Saying that someone should be eligible for test selection on the back of ODI form is laughable, and was ALWAYS a recipe for disaster when I first heard that we were playing 3 ODIs vs Sri Lanka. England were smart though, and requested an extra first-class match pre-Ashes as they realised that this was one of the pivotal reasons for their lack of success in Australia over the previous 2 decades: inadequate preparation . Not to mention that the crowds at those 3 ODIs were absolutely woeful; the SCG barely cracked 10000 ppl (lowest ODI crowd at the SCG involving Australia) and the Sri Lankans easily outnumbered us 9:1 in the crowd. Most Australian supporters didn't give a stuff about that series, as they were all waiting for the Ashes.
I'm 99% sure that with the recent overhaul with the leadership in Australian cricket (Argus review), we won't faux pas in the way that we did 12 months ago. We cannot afford to repeat point 1) in next year's back-to-back Ashes series if we have any aspirations of reclaiming the Ashes.
One more on 94..
