A Letter to Cricket Australia

To Whom It May Concern,

As a penman, a wordsmith of some repute, I have been searching for the right word all day to describe the decision of Cricket Australia to dump Simon Katich from the Test team.

Disgrace is all I could come up with and that does not nearly convey my anger, disdain and disgust at Cricket Australia, the selection panel and those charged with running the game in Australia.

It now withers on the branch and deservedly so. Cricket Australia does nothing to help cricket so why should the rest of us?

The treatment of Katich is appalling but the disdain with which the decision has for Australian cricket is beyond belief. Katich is one of the three or four best batsmen in the world. If he had blonde hair and sold wheatbix, would he still be signed up?

Of course, nobody is really surprised. Not after the way Brad Hodge was treated. It has been a long time since the team was selected on merit. A long time indeed. And over that period, we have lost The Ashes three times while our best players sat on the sideline.

Well, luckily I guess, nobody gives a damn no more, hey? You clowns have presided over a steep descent with what was once the national game now as marginalised as tennis and even soccer. Nobody cares because Cricket Australia is a corrupt, duplicitous organisation that allows fools like Andrew Hilditch and Greg Chappell to play out their biases and fanciful stupidities.

Well, for the last time, I give a damn. 20 years of playing, watching and caring are over. Cricket Australia will never again get a red cent out of me. I will never again attend a live event and my summers won't be spent watching cricket. I care no longer. And looking at the sharp fall in crowd numbers and television ratings, I am not alone.

If I had my way, James Sutherland would be bullwhipped at dawn for allowing such rot to set in. You don't want to know what I wish upon Andrew Hilditch.

Good luck with it all. You'll need it.

Yours for the Last Time,
Nick Tedeschi