Tuesday, February 19, 2002 Trevor Hohns, Allan Border, David Boon and Andrew Hilditch, the Australian selectors, are not impetuous men. Yet they have acted with reckless haste. They are not fools. Yet they have shown a painful lack of intellectual rigour. They are men who care about Australian cricket. Yet they have needlessly jeopardised its prosperity, tearing the heart, brain and soul out of a team that is still streets ahead of any other in the world.

They are not political animals. Yet they have introduced political machinations where there were few before. They are not men who believe everything they read. Yet they have been seduced by the flawed logic of bloated sports sections carrying too many column inches and too few real stories to fill them with. They are not vengeful. They are not egomaniacs. They are not publicity seekers. That is why the events of the past week have been so hard to understand.

Steve Waugh might eventually see his sacking from Australia's one-day team as a back-handed compliment: his breakneck revolution, whereby Tests are won in three days and runs scored at 380 a day, has transformed not only his players but the selectors too. Where once a captain might have been under pressure after four mediocre series, now he is dumped after four mediocre games.

History is more likely to see the decision for what it is: rash and stupid, the most short-sighted judgment since a young Don Bradman was dropped 73 years ago after only one Test. The difference is that back then the selectors made amends one game later. For Waugh, there is no way back.

This is no criticism of Ricky Ponting. Once Hohns and co. had decided to break with the past, he was unquestionably the right choice. He comes across as likeable, a thinker, and the captaincy may be the impetus he needs as a batsman to go from precocious to prodigious. He may even hold the World Cup aloft in 12 months' time. But if he does it will merely underline the riches of Australia's talent pool; it will not excuse the poverty of logic among Australia's selectors.

It isn't clear who among the four was gunning most strongly against Waugh. However, one detects the hands of Border and Boon. Both felt their own playing careers were harshly terminated. An incandescent Border announced his retirement on TV in 1994; Boon jumped before he was pushed a couple of years later. In truth, the selectors had agonised long and hard over how to phase out those two cherished but underperforming national treasures. The figures speak for themselves: Border had mustered only four Test centuries in the previous five-and-a-half years, while the increasingly stodgy Boon's average in his last 12 months had slipped below 25.

Waugh is a different case entirely. Over the past two years he has a Test average of 53.84 and a one-day average of 45.82. Over the past year he averages 48.93 and 40.00 respectively. If Waugh is in decline, it is a decline from almost supernatural to merely outstanding. Age alone - he will be 37 at the time of next year's World Cup - should not have counted against him. Clive Lloyd was 38 when he led West Indies to the final in 1983. Imran Khan was 39 when Pakistan triumphed in 1992.

Apart from lacking intellectual rigour, the selectors have a horrendous sense of timing. They seem to have forgotten the small matter of a Test series against South Africa who, buoyed by their one-day series victory, are a threat to a full-strength Australian team, let alone one in which players are looking over their shoulders and fretting over their next pay packet.

At Johannesburg on Friday, Australia will be led by an undermined captain in Waugh and a lame-duck deputy in Adam Gilchrist. It is an environment that breeds jealousies and rivalry. Perhaps the selectors - intellectual rigour, you'll remember, not being their strongest suit - have failed to grasp the nuts and bolts of the ICC Test Championship. Lose or draw in South Africa and Australia are no longer No. 1 in the world. Who would choose to be Ricky Ponting then?

But the biggest mistake they have made is to treat Waugh like any other player going through a bad trot. There are no other players like Waugh. In Test matches he has been the squinting embodiment of the team for over 16 years - longer, if you subtract interruptions for World Wars and World Series, than Giffen, Armstrong, Bradman, Harvey, Benaud, Border, Lillee, Marsh and both Chappells. Only the legendary Jack Blackham, who tended the stumps from 1876-77 to 1894-95, has been so faithful a servant.

As a one-day player Waugh has been without equal in 325 matches, a talismanic figure who has saved his best for the biggest stage: 978 runs in four World Cups at 48.90. He has been the common thread linking Australia's two World Cup victories; first, in 1987, as the loose-limbed allrounder who was dynamic with the bat and metronomic with the ball, then later, in 1999, as the steely grafter who piloted Australia to the final through sheer will alone.

It has yet to sink in that he will not be around for the next one. His gruff openness, his honesty, his patriotism, his wit, his creative mind, his spirit of adventure, his unflappable bat, his sense of history, his dignity in the good times and his composure in the bad times will be missed.

Chris Ryan is former managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly and a former Darwin correspondent of the Melbourne Age.

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