The craziness of Selection as Justified by Boucher

It is really weird why players who have been part and parcel to  more losses than anytime before mus retaain their places in the team.     Boucher said the following:-

"In order to get those guys (Malan and  Verreynne) in we have to remove someone from the team   The guys that have been removed are the guys that own those places,"

What he said is crazy nonsense which could only make sense if the team was winning - bur we have a losing team that is dragging cricket down the drain,    No underperforming players must ever be replaced by better players, because they "own" their places.       

So now we know why SA cricket is failing badly and why Smith as Director of Cricket  and Boucher as Head Coach are  disastrous for the Proteas.   Their approach  is even worse than that of the disasters Meyer and Coetzee were for rugby in SA.

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After thinking about the above again it seems to me that the idea of ownership of positions once selected  is not only detrimental to the team - but it is pathetic as well,     So a selected player stays in the team till he decides to relinquish "ownership"   even if his performances are sub-standard.

So here we have what I would call the "Meyer Syndrome"  who when queried about seriously questionable elections for the 2015 RWC   remarked that "I know what the selected players are capable of" - but forgets when that capability was displayed,       That basically in other words  imply that when team selections  are made  poor present performances are disregarded  and ream members must be injured or unavailable for other reasons other players are brought in temporarily,   

So Malan and Verreynne - who performed excellently for the Proteas in the latest ODI  - will be discarded  once the "owners"  are  back - irrespective of the fact that the  "owners" regularly fail in  performances in  games. 

This is contrary to what happens in  other cricket-playing countries in the world - where the norm is for under-performing players to be discarded from the team after under-performing in even one series of matches,    It also means that  it has become impossible for the selectors of  younger and more capable players to enter the team and that younger players  must be satisfied with the crumbs  that go their way occasionally,  .    

I think that we must now realize that the decline of the Proteas when it comes to ranking in World  Cricket  is the result of this "closed-shop"  approach by the selectors and the team management  when selecting the squads and the actual playing teams in games.    It also discourage younger players hopes for advancing  their playing careers even when they perform way better than their Protea member counter-parts  on provincial level.    

The result can be summarized as follows - "it is more difficult for players to get out of the team than it was for them to get into the team.".   That approach is why series after series are lost by the Proteas and why the situation will only lead to further decline in the team performances.   That is also why players with comparatively low batting averages are now captains of the various teams involved.

So the Proteas are doomed to mediocracy  in World Cricket while this approach is in place. 

That’s exactly the approach NZ successfully used when players like Carter, Barrett and Ardi Savea  couldn’t crack the team despite their individual brilliance. The team is an entity which should be more than the sum of it’s parts. Hence incumbency.

Every successful coach has understood this principle.

Granted it is probably less applicable in cricket than rugby, but still relevant. Barry Richards had to wait his turn and was even better for it.

But Malan is in the team?...as is Verre ynne in the ODI side?

Mozart

The fact is that you lost the plot    The NZ rugby team used by you as an example  was a WINNING  team and could afford  to experiment - the Proteas is for two years now  a LOSING Team  with the same players failing repeatedly,    

You can through good coaching improve the skills  of younger players - the skills of the over 30 players are set in stone and will never improve.

The  above confirms why the selection process is the shit is widely known for.  

By the way Goddard was a top class player and captain of he team - not the sub-atandard rubbish  that are in the team  at present.       

Draad 

Malan was in the team today in the absence of  De Kock.

Next problem is that Du Plessis played for Chennai Super Kings today and as expected was out for a DUCK.                

NZ were a winning team because they understood the notion of  team.  They never experimented. Just as we became a winning team under Jake after Destroyli killed Bok rugby by always picking the form player of the week. Jake created a team and was loyal to his players through form lapses.

And by the way, I saw Goddard play many times....also Hugh Tayfield, Roy McClean and Neil Adcock. Richards was a genius ...a genius who still had to pay his dues.

Mozart

How about   -   " ...  became a winning team under Erasmus  after Meyer and Coetzee killed Bok rugby by always picking the underperforming and old  players weakening the side.  Erasmus  created a team and was loyal to his players through form lapses because  he was able to identify  the capabilities of players and determine  whether the player has  deficiencies  which can be remedied or whether players should be dismissed from the squad."

The AB's did experiment - by the time Carter was replaced  by Barrett and McCaw by Cade - both Barrett and   McCaw had played as starters in 16 tests,     So the replacements were by the time they permanently took over were experienced test players already.    

I used to have a laugh when it was  said on here " we had the talent" ---- there's a lot of truth in that comment the problem is we're not seeing it because Boucher and co are not selecting the right players.

All our recent greats started early. 

If I'm not mistsken, Amla was the oldest of the big five when selected for international duty.

Why wait until they're 27 to get them in?

If they're good enough, selected them and by the time tthey're 25 you have quality players accustomed to international conditions. 

I struggle to see it any other way.