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Two well known cricketers from Parkes head to Griffith this weekend to represent Western Zone in the NSW Country Championships.
Pat Rosser will captain the team again this year and will be joined by Anthony Heraghty in the side.
Pat’s brother Cameron Rosser is also involved with the team in a coaching capacity.
It is an exciting tournament for the boys and I wish them all the very best.
Joining them in the team is a fast bowler plying his trade in Orange.
What makes this player stand out for me is that he is an English import enjoying the summer sun down under.
The Western Zone team is a representative side and in my view, should only have local talent in its ranks.
How does it help Western Zone cricket by including a foreign player in the team?
I do not doubt the player’s talents warrant selection in the team as selectors would not have picked him otherwise.
However, his selection cost a local player a spot in the squad and the chance to develop his cricket that this would have created.
It does no good for Western Zone cricket to select a player who may not even be in Australia this time next year.
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As a football lover (soccer), I was very excited to hear that super club Real Madrid will play a couple of friendly matches in Melbourne next year.
It is rumoured they will be joined by English Premier League side Manchester City and Italian Serie A greats Inter Milan.
This will be a great spectacle, especially if interest is piqued by Australia producing a decent run in January’s Asian Cup which we will host.
Real Madrid was voted Club of the 20th Century and well deserves the accolades they receive.
Most players dream of playing for them and it is often the pinnacle of their careers.
Their roster boasts superstars Christiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, Toni Kroos, Sergio Ramos and Iker Casillas.
Any of those players would be walk-on starters in most clubs around the world.
We could certainly do with one or two of them at my ailing Arsenal.
It seems I have a major task ahead of me - convincing my wife Jane we should holiday in Melbourne next July!
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It looks likely Shane Watson will benefit from the indifferent first class form of Australia’s batsmen and get another chance in the Test team when they take on India in Brisbane on Thursday week.
I think selectors have had to revert back to Watson because of a lack of other players scoring runs to force their way into the side.
I don’t think Watson is the correct choice at No 3.
I think he would be best suited at five or six but with the form of Mitchell Marsh and Steve Smith he would find it hard to oust them from the side.
Watson averages 36.25 after 52 Tests with four centuries.
These are not the figures of a No 3 batsman at Test level.
His average is not bad for a batting all-rounder but it seems every time he bowls he gets injured.
I said a few weeks ago that I would have liked to see Alex Doolan get a prolonged run in the No 3 spot but if selectors needed to go a different way, I would have preferred Phil Hughes or Usman Khawaja over Watson.
Nathan Lyon’s Test career must be living on borrowed time.
Nathan Hauritz was dropped from the Australian team for not bowling his side to enough victories on the fifth day of matches.
Has Lyon ever done it?
They are both off spinners and neither of them is a real strike bowler.
If Hauritz was dropped for this reason, Lyon must soon follow.
Maybe Lyon’s net bowling is keeping him in the side - even he would be getting the Aussie batsmen out with the way they play spin!