Flawed Cricket Australia contract system to come under scrutiny after Sri Lanka selections

Cricket Australia will review their outdated and cumbersome contract system following the continuing outcry over controversial decisions by selectors.

Acting CA chief executive Michael Brown has reinforced the view of under-siege chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch, who claimed the system was “far from ideal”.

Can the system get better, absolutely,” Brown said.

“We’ve never been tested before because we had basically the same team for so long.

“Now 20-over cricket is booming, we need to look at its impact on the rankings and make sure we’re awarding the contracts to the right players.

“Interestingly, David Warner is a very good Twenty20 player but missed out on a contract.

“The only form of the game it (the contract list) absolutely favours is Test cricket.”

Simon Katich would disagree after being dumped from the 25-man contract list in June despite an amazing Test record over the past three years.

The four-man selection panel ignored their own contract list on Tuesday to pick three uncontracted bowlers in a 15-man Test squad for the tour of Sri Lanka.

Spinners Michael Beer and Nathan Lyon and seamer Trent Copeland are the outsiders, while four spinners and four fast bowlers on contract were ignored.

One of the casualties, leg-spinning all-rounder Steve Smith, is ranked seven and on a contract of more than $1 million a year.

“It’s really a totally different issue, the contract list, compared to the squad that we’ve picked for Sri Lanka,” Hilditch said.

The Australian Cricketers’ Association was unimpressed with Hilditch’s explanation.

“If the selectors are saying there’s something wrong with the system, then it is incumbent on the selectors to tell us what they’d like to do with it,” ACA chief executive Paul Marsh said.

“We haven’t seen a proposal from the selectors or Cricket Australia to look at changing the system.

“I was taken aback yesterday by Andrew’s comments that the system is wrong. Let’s hear it, how can we make it better.”

The selectors rank separate lists of the top 20 Test, one-day and Twenty20 players with a weighting of 1.25 for Tests, 0.8 for one-day players and 0.2 for Twenty20 players. A player’s total points are combined and the 25 with the most get contracts.

Marsh denied that contracted one-day and Twenty20 players were over-represented but agreed it was odd that some selections had come from outside the contract list so soon after it was chosen.

“We’ve got to work out how it is that some players who aren’t contracted get picked on the very first tour after the list is selected and some who are contracted don’t get picked,” Marsh said.