We all know that players get better when they’re out of the team. At least, they get better in the mind’s eye. Especially in sports like cricket or baseball, where statistically players fail more than they succeed, those in the team have to carry the weight of those failures, while supporters are irresistibly drawn to imagine the triumph that might have awaited those left out. The possible tantalises when the actual disappoints.
Which means that skipping a disastrous overseas excursion – eight losses in 10 T20 Internationals across the Caribbean and Bangladesh – has been a good career move for a stack of Australian cricketers. The captain Aaron Finch left the tour early with injury, while David Warner, Steve Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Pat Cummins, Kane Richardson, Marcus Stoinis and Daniel Sams elected to sit it out. Now that so few of those who did travel have returned with…
