An angry Simon Katich breaks his silence on his axing, saying selectors have forced him to the brink
Katich will announce today if the selectors have killed his cricket career. They have tried before and failed, but this time they have really taken him perilously close to the abyss. Katich is known for his fighting spirt and if his past is any indication, he won't let them beat him.
Katich revealed he is very upset. He played his last four Tests with serious injuries and feels he has been judged on that and not the fact that he has been the second-highest runscorer in international Tests since returning to the side in 2008.
In India last year he played two matches with a broken thumb which was incorrectly diagnosed by Cricket Australia staff.
In Adelaide he played even though he knew his achilles was about to go because the side wanted his grit at the top of the order to protect the out-of-form batsmen below him.
Katich was told on Tuesday he no longer had a
Cricket Australia contract. The news has been met with howls of outrage from former players and the public who suggest it is the selectors, not he, who should pay for the Ashes failure.
Simon Katich is angry, but is wresting back control. He was deliberate, careful and honest when he broke his silence and spoke to The Australian.
"Do I think I have been treated fairly? Not at all, not at all," he says.
"From my point of view I have had to play through injuries in the last four Test matches, two with a broken thumb and two with a torn achilles," Katich said.
"I didn't want to play Test cricket like that although I know that is what they have judged me on.
"In India they kept telling me it was a bruised thumb and I could hardly hold the bat but they kept telling me it was bruised so I thought 'Well I can't not play Test cricket if it's a bruise'."
Not only did he bat with the injury, he bowled as well. Gripping the ball with his "bruised" thumb.
The night after the terrible Adelaide Test ended he was at the airport with another player who ordered a beer and offered to get him one. He had earned it having made 43 batting on one leg.
"No thanks mate," Katich said. "Recovery starts now."
Katich returned home to a relentless recovery program and was at the SCG on Tuesday when he saw
Andrew Hilditch's name appear on the screen of his mobile phone.
"I was in the middle of a fitness test, saw the phone ringing and saw who it was and thought 'Damn, I better answer this'," Katich said. "I knew full well what it was, I didn't want him to have the luxury of leaving a message, so I grabbed it."
The selectors axed Katich in
Sri Lanka in 2004 when he was in great form and had to eat their words and reinstate him soon after. And Hilditch told him in 2007 that he wouldn't play Tests again. So he knew the way they worked.
"It's funny, I have been treated like this before by them," Katich said. "I have been down this path a number of times."
It would only have been human of Hilditch to hope to deliver the news after hearing the beeps on Katich's mobile.
"I spoke my mind, I certainly didn't hold back," Katich admits.
"There was no shirking the issue, but there was nothing said that was personal it was just about the decision. I vented my spleen about the decision and explained why. There was no name-calling or anything like that."
Katich is upset because he believes he has so much more to offer the side at a time when it needs it most. His statistics prove that.
"Put it this way I don't think I would have wasted our physio and our fitness trainers' time over the past six months or my time doing this rehab every second day for the sake of it," he said.
"That is not how I operate. It's not just my time, it is the staff's time as well and I am always respectful of that.
"Up to Tuesday I had done three weeks' training ahead of the rest of the squad starting and I did that because I wanted to be ready and firing in Sri Lanka."
Katich will announce what the future holds today. He is not in the mood to spare anybody
