Why the Australia cricket captain should have a role in selecting the team

The Australian cricketer is a competitive, determined and opinionated creature. Those traits can no more be suppressed by rules and regulations than man’s desire to better his lot in life, which is why the history of Australian cricket – from the 1912 Overture to Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket to the narrowly averted players’ strike in 1997 – has been regularly punctuated by substantive disagreements between cricketers and the administrators and selectors who govern and pick them.

These character traits can typically be seen in the cricketer who has reached the apex of his profession: the Australian cricket captain. He has strong opinions about the merits of other cricketers and, as the man entrusted to lead the team, he wants to influence its selection and composition. The exact nature and scope of his power to do so has long been a problem for Australian cricket. It remains unresolved to this day.

When Allan Border reluctantly became captain in late November 1984, the formal selectorial powers that came with the job were limited. The captain was not formally a member of the selection panel that chose the Australian XI for home Test matches and the Australian touring parties for overseas tours. However, once those overseas tours got underway, the captain, along with his vice-captain and another senior player, became one of the three touring selectors responsible for picking the Australian XI for all matches on tour.
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