Why Rob Quiney SHOULD NOT replace Shane Watson?

By Adrian Meredith

MELBOURNE, Australia (TheSportsNEXT) November 4, 2012: I can hardly believe it but the Australian cricket selectors have just picked Rob Quiney to replace Shane Watson in the test team, and he is tipped to be "very likely" to make his test debut!

Most people probably don't know who Rob Quiney is, so let me give you a quick refresher.

Rob Quiney is an ODI and limited overs specialist who generally replaces Chris Rogers in the team, as Victoria's opener, when they play ODI and T20 cricket, as Chris Rogers, while a much better first class batsman than Quiney, is not as quick between the wickets. Quiney averages a decent 38 in ODIs, at a healthy strike rate of 90, which should have seen him to be close to playing an ODI for Australia - indeed some were tipping him to make it this season. He also averages 38 in first class matches - when he plays, often due to other players being in the national set up - far, far below the national test team.

The rationale for his promotion was apparently on the back of him scoring a half century for Australia A against South Africa in the tour match - when the team total was almost 500 - for 7 declared - and South Africa scored heaps too. It wasn't a competitive match - it was batting practice. It was a 3 day match with nothing attached that wasn't serious.

Before that, Quiney has had a string of low scores in all formats this year - other than a century against Queensland earlier in the year.

We may as well just hand South Africa the series.

It is bad enough having to put up with Ed Cowan - who averages 40 in FC cricket and 29 in tests - but now we have to tolerate another out of form and poor quality batsman on top of him, someone who averages 38 in FC cricket! Neither are in form either!

If we were going for a batsman, it should have been a choice of George Bailey - who has done well in his ODI and T20 games and averages a decent 42 in FC matches - or David Hussey - who averages over 50 in FC matches, has amazing numbers, but isn't in consistently good form and is 35 years old. Usman Khawaja should have been an outside chance too - though he isn't in particularly good form and his test average is pretty poor.

We also could have gone in with an all-rounder, when it would be a choice of Dan Christian or Mitchell Marsh, which should have been a close contest except that Mitchell Marsh has had disciplinary problems lately; hence it should be Christian. Glenn Maxwell should have been an outside chance too, though his bowling has been shown to be substandard for internationals, and his batting isn't good enough.

So, overall, it should be a choice of Bailey vs Christian, depending on if they want a full on batsman or an all rounder.

Playing Quiney is insanity!