Why Greg Chappell, champion batter turned youth advocate, is worried about Australian cricket’s future

He was obsessed with youth, they said.

He was degrading first class cricket, others claimed.

Ah, the early 2010s. A crazy time where a baby boomer was being attacked for sticking up for millennials.

In retrospect, Chappell’s lament that young players were not getting tested enough at first class and international level was part of his job description. The changes he had ushered into Australian cricket’s pathway were relatively tame (and later discarded); chief among them was turning the national second XI competition into a virtual Under 23s event.

Yet a whole lot of passion was unleashed.

A decade on, Chappell isn’t one to weigh into an old battle, yet he still has a strong belief that an aversion to promoting youth is detrimental to Australian cricket. And he feels the next few years will test his theory.

“I think this is a transition period that we haven’t quite recognised yet,” Chappell tells CODE Sports. “It will be a challenge.”

The issue has come into sharper focus this week, as the David Warner farewell/succession planning becomes more apparent.

Initially, the PM’s XI game that will feature Cameron Bancroft, Marcus Harris and Matt Renshaw was billed as ‘Australian Opener Idol’, but subsequent comments from coach Andrew McDonald on SEN radio alluded to Marnus Labuschagne moving up from No. 3 post-Warner to accommodate Cameron Green back into the middle order.

Of course, long-term planning envisaged that Will Pucovski would be established atop the Australian order by now, but his travails have muddied the waters. As good as Usman Khawaja has been in his career rebirth, it is unusual to go into a home summer with two opening bats north of 36.

And those reinforcements from outside the team? Harris and Bancroft are both 31, while Renshaw is 27. All have had multiple chances at Test level and from a combined 38 matches, have produced just one century (Renshaw’s 184 at the SCG nearly seven years ago, against a Pakistan side that was swept 3-0).

Chappell reckons the days of a face fresh out of school debuting for Australia are all but over.

“That was one of our great strengths, there was always a place for an exciting young cricketer coming through,” Chappell says.

“We’ve now seen players play on much longer because they get well paid, and that’s fine, but you need to have a robust selection process so that the very best young cricketers are getting an opportunity.

“Otherwise, you’re going to have a lot of players debuting at 27, 28, 29 years of age and there’s not a lot of cricket left in them.

“A 22-year-old has probably a 10-12 year span in front of them. The others have got a five or six-year span.”

Regardless of which way the selectors go and notwithstanding the success, the Warner replacement question illuminates the dearth of young batters knocking down the door through Sheffield Shield performances.

Ahead of the current round, only two of the top 10 run scorers this season (Nathan McSweeney and Renshaw) will be under 30 by the time the first Test starts.

For some, this may be indicative of a hardened professional competition that produces Test players for now rather than the future.

Chappell is not convinced. While so many are wary of raw youth, he worries about players left marinating too long in Shield cricket.

“It’s an issue that we haven’t quite realised yet. I think that’s something we’re probably going to find when the Warners, Smiths and a few others finish up.

“What is there to replace them? Will there be any exciting young cricketers or will they be all 27, 28, 29-year-old players? If you play a lot of first class cricket you adapt to that level, then to make the step up is a bit harder.”

Chappell’s prevailing view, that the best talent is much better served coming into the Australian team in their early 20s and learning international cricket as part of their education, is disputed today like it was 10 years ago.

But when you compare this Shield year’s run-scoring table to that of 30 seasons ago, even ardent critics would have to give Chappell some concession. The age demographics and the names on the 1993-94 runs table tell the story of the dominant era that came next.

The inverse of the current-day table, only one player (Dean Jones) was over 30. More stunningly, the top eight run-scorers were all younger than the youngest run-scorer of this season.

Michael Bevan, Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden, Darren Lehmann, Dene Hills and Greg Blewett were all either 22 or 23. Ricky Ponting and Brad Hodge were just 18.

No explanation is required as to that group’s subsequent influence on Australian cricket.

The class of 1993-94 may have just been a freakish golden generation, yet Chappell is concerned that modern Australian cricket is not giving its brightest young players the best chance to emulate those greats.

“It may turn out that the 27, 28-year-olds play until they’re 37 and you get a really good span out of them.

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“But I’m just not sure that it’s going to work out as well as what we hope for.”

It’s also worth remembering that in his early 20s, David Warner was a square peg that didn’t fit the round hole of red-ball cricket. Ultimately, Australia succumbed to the irresistible force of his talent and now has 8,487 Test runs (including 25 centuries) to show for it.

Warner’s greatest champion? Greg Chappell.