The 1978-79 Ashes saw a strong English touring team take on an Australian side decimated by defections to World Series Cricket. The previous summer Bob Simpson had come out of retirement to lead a rag-tag group of youngsters and people who would have thought time had passed them by (eg Sam Gannon) to 3-2 victory against India; they'd fared less well against the West Indies, but had enjoyed some good moments.
In neither of those series did Australia employ an all rounder except on one occasion - Trevor Laughlin in the final test. Apart from that they used the 6-1-4 formation, with batsmen capable of rolling their arm over (Cosier, Simmo) and bowlers very handy with the bat (Tony Mann, who has been called an all rounder, but his first class average is 24, and Bruce Yardley).
But the lure of the all rounder is strong, especially when playing an English side featuring Ian Botham, one of the most exciting players of the 70s. Botham made a big splash on his debut in 1977 and continued to impress; I think his presence in England's side turned the Aussie selectors a little ga-ga.
They already made a mistake by dumping Bob Simpson, which is what they effectively did by not guaranteeing his job for the summer. I understand by this stage many of the Australian players had gotten jack of Simmo in the West Indies, but he was still in good form as a batsman. They compounded this by not replacing him with John Inverarity, who was clearly the best captain in Australia, and was in strong enough form with the bat (he scored 187 early in the season in a shield game).
Instead they went with Graham Yallop, who to be fair had been in good form in the West Indies and captained Victoria to a Shield win, but who badly lacked experience.
So did the whole Australian side for the first test, but the biggest mistake was picking Trevor Laughlin to bat at six. Laughlin was a decent cricketer, a solid bits and pieces all rounder for Victoria (averaged 32 with the bat, 31 with the ball) but he wasn't good enough to bat at six. Botham batted at six but he had Geoff Miller coming in at eight. Miller wasn't an all rounder but he averaged 25 at first class level; we had Bruce Yardley, who was capable of the odd great innings but who averaged 20.
So Australia's batting collapsed twice, and we won a game we actually had a chance of winning. Inverarity was no Bradman, but averaged 37 with the bat at first class level and was a handy bowler - he would have been a far better choice as a player, even if he wasn't captain.
Australia returned to the 6-1-4 formula for the second test, which they lost, and the third test, which they won. They kept it too for the fourth test which they could have won and should have won, but the players stuffed it.
This made the selectors panic and they brought in a new "our Botham" for the last two tests - Queenslander Phil Carlson, who was having the Sheffield Shield season of his life. Australia lost the 5th and 6th tests, the batting collapsing on both times and Carlson's contribution being negligible.
A great "what if" of Australian cricket history.... what if John Inverarity had been picked at six instead of Laughlin in that first test, and to captain? You would have had his captaincy, the batting of Hughes and Yallop, the bowling of Hogg, Hurst, Higgs and Yardley.... I don't know whether we would have regained the Ashes but it sure as hell wouldn't have been 5-1. And maybe the ACB would have been inspired to fight Packer another season.
I know it's all well and good to speak in hindsight but even at the time it was mysterious why the Australian selectors looked at a team with a dodgy batting order and strong bowling, and decided to add bits and pieces all rounder who would weaken the batting and not particularly boost the bowling. They would have been much better off a genuine batsman, or at least a batting all rounder like John Inverarity, at six for the whole series. But Botham made them all silly.
No one every seems to discuss this when talking about the 78-79 series: it's all about Rodney Hogg's dynamic bowling, or Yallop's bad captaincy, or Brearley and Boycott's erratic form with the bat, or everyone preferring World Series Cricket.
Australia's dodgy all rounder policy never seems to get a mention.
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