Australian team order
[<<] [>>] by Martin Murray
19th November 2006
(The MacRobertson Shield)
Well, the Australian team order, with world rankings (on grade and index) was as follows. I've added the expected orders (by grade and index), and the deviations.
| Australian team: | ||||||
| Trevor Bassett | 61 | 93 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 |
| Martin Clarke | 20 | 31 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| Bruce Fleming | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Harley Watts | 24 | 16 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| Stephen Forster | 29 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Ian Dumergue | 13 | 21 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 10 | 18 | |||||
| GB order: | ||||||
| Robert Fulford | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| David Maugham | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| Chris Clarke | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Keith Aiton | 11 | 23 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 |
| Jonathan Kirby | 5 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| Mark Avery | 31 | 45 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 5 |
While one can argue about the relative merits and short-termness of grade vs. index, it seems fairly clear that the total deviation of the Aus team order from the grade/index is much greater than that of the GB team.
The "current singles form" formula may ignore experience and reputation too much, but it is certainly hard to see how the Australians even thought they could justify putting Trevor Bassett at No.1 on the basis of his results over the past two years. As it turned out, it seems they didn't "even think" they could justify it.
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