Last Updated on 7 years by Charbel Coorey
A few days have passed since Australia’s Ashes selections, and I still have to rub my eyes to make sure they are not deceiving me. Australia have literally “trolled” us all, and also went against their own “policy” with their selections, which have actually been good for England. The hallmark of ridiculous selections.
The selection of Tim Paine was certainly the biggest shock. Without playing a Test for seven years, the justification of Tim Paine’s selection by Trevor Hohns (Australia selection chairman) was that he is the “best gloveman in the country.” Just one problem…. Paine isn’t even first choice keeper for Tasmania, so do the selectors think we are fools? This even prompted the legendary Shane Warne to claim that Australia are “confused”.
With the selection of Shaun Marsh, brought in to the side for an eighth time, and Cameron Bancroft, who will make his Test debut, it just does not make sense to throw even more uncertainty with the selection of Paine. This is not a personal attack on Tim Paine, but what happened to having to properly knock the door down to win selection to the Test team?
Tim Paine has barely even been knocking, scoring his last first-class century in 2006. Here are some things that have happened since Paine scored a first-class century:
- Australian coach Darren Lehmann scored a first-class century more recently than Tim Paine. Darren Lehmann’s last first-class century came in 2007, which makes Tim Paine’s selection even more ridiculous. How confident can the Australian selectors really be about Tim Paine?
- Twitter had just been founded when Tim Paine last scored a first-class century. Approximately, 2,200,000,000,000 tweets later, we are still waiting for a century… Doesn’t matter to the Australian selectors, though.
- Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton were the big things in Hollywood. I don’t have to say much more…
- Nokia was still the “big thing” when Tim Paine last scored his first-class century. Apple hadn’t even released the iPhone! Ten iPhones later, Apple has significantly changed the world.
- Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. YouTube is now worth approximately $40 billion.
- Instagram wasn’t even launched. In fact, Instagram was launched just a few days before Tim Paine’s last Test in 2010.
