Former coach Darren Lehmann's criticism of George Bailey's selection approach has ignited discussion within the Australian cricket team. While some outside the team agree with Lehmann's assessment, senior players who experienced his tenure raise concerns about his comments.
Travis Head dropped during a Test series. Mitchell Starc dropped during a World Cup. David Warner on notice for his spot. These were a few of the examples raised by players and staff within the Australian side on Thursday when this masthead asked them about former coach Darren Lehmann 's assertion that selection chair George Bailey was too close to the team and thus unable to make hard decisions.
Lehmann’s comments during the Gabba Test, backed up by his fellow ABC commentator Stuart Clark on Thursday, were lauded by many outside the team. But they also raised plenty of eyebrows within it – particularly among the senior members of the squad who played under Lehmann, in a period that ended in the infamy of the ball-tampering scandal and was marked by plenty of capricious selection calls and wildly inconsistent results. Team transition was also a sore point during Lehmann's time in charge. His panel took an ageing squad to England in 2015 that was beaten comfortably by the hosts through batting collapses in Birmingham and Nottingham. Ryan Harris, Michael Clarke, Shane Watson, Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson all quit during or soon after the tour, before a much younger side struggled in 2016, losing five Tests in a row. Those two trends were maintained during much of Justin Langer's tenure between 2018 and 2022, especially before Bailey replaced Trevor Hohns as selection chair in mid-2021.Since then, Bailey, coach Andrew McDonald and captain Pat Cummins have all spoken eloquently about why things needed to change: opening up better communication between players and selectors and also allowing for the panel to spend more time close to the team. A rough gauge of improvement can be provided by the team’s all-format results since 2021. Australia have won six Test series, drawn three and lost just one in that time, while also winning the Twenty20 and ODI World Cups and the World Test Championshi
Australian Cricket Selection Controversy George Bailey Darren Lehmann Team Transition
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