So you're not a keeper?

 Matt Cleary's excellent article touched on the joys of selecting the Australian cricket team, and it also proved a catalyst for considering current and recalling past selection dramas.The present Australian selectors were subjected to considerable criticism over their choices for the tour of India. Many of the more considered denunciations actually occurred prior to any matches commencing, and were largely based around the perceived premise that players were selected on the basis of their limited-overs performances rather than either their long-term achievements or current form in the first-class arena.  The art of selection has never been an easy one. A check on the internet shows that this recent critiquing of the national selection panel is not a new phenomenon; a quick search shows a total of around 100,000 hits for the terms "Inverarity", "Hilditch", or "Hohns" with the word "blunder". Former Australia selector John Benaud, who incidentally finished his career with a better Test batting and bowling average than his more famous brother Richie, nominated "form, a player's past record, temperament under pressure, enterprise, all-round flexibility, team balance, playing conditions and the opposition and the gameplay to try and win" as some of the factors involved in making selection decisions. The selectors have to balance the potential of young players with the experience of older heads. There is a very difficult line to be trod - tried and failed does not necessarily mean forever a failure. Matt Hayden, Justin Langer, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke are merely some members of the Australian batting line-up who were dropped for poor performance and had to fight at the first-class level to deserve their chance again.However, as a selector, how do you know one player will return wiser and better, while another will not? Clearly an element of "gut feel" comes into the complex equation described by Benaud, and this makes selection a very difficult task to quantify. The seemingly universal condemnation of the touring party to India is perhaps not entirely balanced, as it should be acknowledged that the selectors took a chance on two left-field options in Moises Henriques and Steve Smith, who both performed relatively well in a beaten team. Nonetheless, it would appear that selection blunders contributed to Australia's 4-0 drubbing.Of course, selection blunders are not just the domain of Australia. In the past two decades, England have also churned through players and there have been some particularly interesting choices. While dinky-di Australian Darren Pattinson's selection for England at Headingley against South Africa in 2008 would appear one of the front runners for worst selection blunder, it is worth pointing out that he was actually in excellent bowling form for Nottingham at the time. He has continued to perform well in first-class cricket in both England and Australia and was possibly worth the gamble at the time.
A worse choice would appear to be Gavin Hamilton, who played for Scotland over a period of 11 years. However, his Scottish career was interrupted following his selection for England against South Africa in 1999. He unfortunately failed to score a run in the Test, being caught by Shaun Pollock off Alan Donald in both innings for ducks. He also failed to take a wicket in 15 relatively expensive overs. Hamilton's English Test career finished at the same time as South Africa finalised their victory by an innings and 21 runs, and he then had to wait four years till he was eligible to again turn out for Scotland.However, probably the greatest selectorial mistake occurred well over a century ago, in the very infancy of international cricket.An Australian team was scheduled to tour England in 1890, but selecting the touring party was, in many ways, much harder than today. Selectors had to rely, at least in part, on newspaper reports for matches at which they were not actually present. This approach was considerably flawed, with highly biased commentators openly spruiking their favourites and demeaning any competitors. The Commonwealth of Australia was still 11 years in the future, and if current selectors bemoan the parochial nature of state supporters, it is nothing compared to the genuine dislike, distrust and outright hostility that often manifested between Sydney and Melbourne residents.The various state cricket associations were in thinly disguised open war externally with each other and internally with their own member clubs. This was having a highly detrimental impact upon cricket in Australia, with decreasing crowds just one sign of public impatience with the political wranglings. The off-field fights were being mirrored on the field, and some key Australian players, including George Giffen, Alec Bannerman, Harry Moses and George Bonner, ultimately opted not to tour England in response to varying discontents.At this point in history, the touring parties were nominally private affairs, coordinated and organised by the players and not any national governing board. The senior members decided amongst themselves, as was the norm, who would be the manager and who would be the selectors. For the 1890 tour, it was agreed that the former Test bowler Harry Boyle would fulfil both roles.