I must admit that when I read news stories about George Bailey, the first words which came to mind were: George WHO? While no expert in Australian cricket I thought I had some notion of who was reasonably good and a potential Green Baggy recipient. Dan Christian, perhaps, or even perennial nearly-man Steve Smith. However, the Tasmanian batsman's promotion came out of the blue. After all, he is the first Aussie since the very first Test to captain the side on his very first senior international appearance.
To my mind his selection has been made more extraordinary by the fact that he didn't have a particularly impressive Big Bash tournament. I'd have expected the Board to use the competition as the test bed for the T20I squad - and indeed the recall of Brad Hogg and Travis Birt owed everything to their exceptional bowling and batting achievements in the past month - so why did they pick Bailey as captain? As a middle-order batsman, he aggregated a paltry 114 runs in seven innings at a strike rate of just 111. So was it down to being an astute skipper for the Melbourne Stars? Er, no. His predecessor as Australia's T20 leader, Cameron White had that honour.
Aged 29, Bailey has been around a while and does have captaincy experience. So does White, but his 2011-12 Big Bash batting was a Big Disappointment. Like Hogg, fellow 40-something Shane Warne also had a good competition and he would make a marvellous captain. However, he was reputedly overlooked for the India matches because of his injury problems. Nothing to do with it being a decidedly backward-looking decision and a damning indictment of the younger generation then!
T20 still seems a bit of a lottery to me. One season's fabulous talent becomes next year's disaster, but one memorable innings can stay with you for years. Just think Graham Napier and Luke Wright. Even Kieron Pollard seems dreadfully overrated. As T20 cricket has developed, so have the tactics which go with it. There are only 120 balls to bowl or face in each innings but, while field placings surely require little genius given that batsmen are usually trying to smash the ball into the crowd, a good captain needs to decide when to switch his bowlers according to the state of play and what the batsmen are doing. If Bailey does this successfully and his side win their games then making him captain will have been a masterstroke. If not then people may reasonably demand why someone like Marsh, Hussey or vice-captain David Warner wasn't put in charge.
Good luck to George Bailey and his efforts in making people like me wake up to the other talent lurking in Aussie domestic cricket.
