McGain conundrum: to play and be tonked or never play at all

by Red Sat 28 Mar 2009, 07:52

Richard Hinds comments on this dilemma here. It also illustrates just how hard the journey to the elite level is.

No pain, no McGain if you aim for stars

RICHARD HINDS
28/03/2009 1:00:01 AM

LAST weekend, I went to the presentation for the under-13s and under-11s teams at a local cricket club. (Despite regular reader complaints that this column has obviously been scrawled in crayon during playtime, I was there as a parent not a player.)
As the kids did what kids do when they are briefly disconnected from their PlayStations or iPods - run around in small circles, hit each other or look bored - a keen topic of conversation among the parents bunkering down at the back of the clubrooms for a solid hour of participation medals and thank-you speeches was the Bryce McGain conundrum.
Is it better to have bowled and been tonked than never to have bowled at all?
Actually, there was less conversation and more reflexive shaking of heads - eyes firmly fixed on the carpet - and sympathetic pursing of the lips when McGain's name was raised. The sort of reaction you might normally expect after mentioning a local boy who had gone to war and was not coming home.
There have been plenty of bowlers humiliated on their international debut. The Queenslander Glenn Trimble springs to mind, as much because of his failed attempts to hit the pitch during his one-day debut as for the cruel banner that appeared when he was given a second chance - "Glenn Tremble".
But there was nothing even faintly humorous about McGain's mauling. Indeed, it is difficult to think of a cricketer - or sportsman of any sort, really - who has evoked such a sombre response after a disastrous performance.
Ian Baker-Finch attracted similar don't-make-eye-contact sympathy as his game fell apart, particularly the day he hooked a ball out of bounds from the first tee at St Andrews in 1995 (missing the first fairway at St Andrews to the left is like missing the Pacific Ocean with a skimming stone) and shot 92 at Troon two years later. But at least Baker-Finch had won a British Open, and no one could suggest he would have been better off if he had been a trampolinist.

However, with memories of the premeditated assault from Ashwell Prince, Jacques Kallis and A.B. de Villiers still fresh in the mind, it was difficult not to think McGain's childhood might have been more usefully spent at the tenpin bowling alley than in the nets. That was until the presentation started and some mental arithmetic put "poor Bryce McGain's" plight in context.
The club secretary proudly announced that, of more than 40 kids who played for the three teams in the under-13s, one had been chosen for a district team that would tour England. Which made you think how unlikely the dreams of the room full of kids still hoping to be the next "Pup" or "Symmo" really were.
Assuming the other 14 kids in that squad came from about 20 similar clubs, that means 14 out of more than 800 kids were chosen. So most of those 800 will remain bricks at the base of the game's pyramid as club cricketers or return to their PlayStations.
Meanwhile, the chosen 14 - and the few late-bloomers who slipped the well-organised recruiting net - will vie for a place in broader zone squads and, eventually, state teams. So the boy proudly described as a "little champ" at my son's club might have - generously - a one in 20 chance of still being in the elite programs by the under17s when the cover-drivers have been sorted from the slog-sweepers. The odds are even greater near the pointy end of the pyramid.
McGain, one of those late-bloomers, didn't have a meteoric rise from junior to state star. However, at some stage, he was that "little champ". Chosen above his teammates for rep squads. Elevated from among a group of gifted teens or young adults to state academies and, inevitably, just the 410th player in almost 132 years to represent Australia. The sheer unlikelihood of McGain's achievement is easily forgotten when de Villiers and company turned an eight-stitcher into a piece of space junk.
Which is why the McGain conundrum was probably best put to kids with the participation medals around their necks. Would you still want to play for Australia if you knew you would be knocked all around the park in your first - and quite possibly only - Test? I suspect the queue to sign up would be even longer than the one at the sausage sizzle.

by Basil Sat 28 Mar 2009, 09:51

McGain is living the dream. F/C debut to first test in two years at an age when most players are contemplating retirement. If he gets to play in the Ashes, I think he'll be spanked, but for his sake, I hope he makes it.