What Good Luck, What Bad Luck

With the one-day cricket World Cup set to kick off in Melbourne next month, let's take a look at the recently selected squad and take a stab at the best/worst case scenarios for each player. 

Michael Clarke (c)

Best Case: He regains his fitness and slots seamlessly into the team where his tactical nous, world-class fielding and experienced middle-order batting lead Australia to a memorable World Cup victory on home soil. After raising the Cup, Clarke immediately retires from limited overs cricket but not before making one final move as Australian captain; firing Shane Watson.

Worst Case: Clarke remains unfit for the entire tournament, instead forcing himself upon us in the commentary box and increasingly self-important Gatorade commercials.

George Bailey (vc)

Best Case: Leads the team in the same creative and successful way he has already in Clarke’s continued absence and cements his role as a middle innings pusher and end of innings destructive hitter. Memorably takes 32 off one Stuart Broad over.

Worst Case: The selectors listen to my pleas of two years ago to put him back in the Test team.

Pat Cummins

Best Case: Bowls at 150km/h, takes bags of wickets, breaks Stuart Broad’s thumb.

Worst Case: The stress fractures in his back flare up again ruling him out of the tournament and leading Cricket Australia to trial radical surgery to combine the remaining intact spinal pieces of Cummins and James Pattinson into one uber 6’5” fast bowler called Jametrick Cumminson who looks like a schoolboy and sledges like a bikie… Wait… was this best case or worst case?

Xavier Doherty

Best Case: Doherty made the team?

Worst Case: Really?

James Faulkner

Best Case: He becomes the team’s go-to death bowler as well as a clutch hitter late in games, as we’ve already seen in the Big Bash. Also gets a less douchey haircut. 

Worst Case: Ian Harvey-lite.

Aaron Finch

Best Case: Becomes a reliable, destructive opening batting partner for Warner who wins a few games off his own bat.

Worst Case: His technique gets exposed at the top of the order, leading to early dismissals, leading to a spiral of depression, leading to an eating disorder, leading to him blowing up like 2015 Big Bash Jacques Kallis. (Seriously, have you seen Kallis? He looks like Bill Brownless.)

Brad Haddin

Best Case: I don’t know, maybe a couple of late innings slogs? Two missed stumpings? When’s the last time he actually looked like making runs? It’s not like there’s a shortage of wicketkeeper/batsmen at the moment.

Worst Case: During the final versus New Zealand, as Australia are about to face the final ball with 2 runs required to win, Haddin storms from the stands as Rod Stewart’s “Do ya think I’m sexy?” blares from the P.A. WWE-style (“My God, is that Brad Haddin’s music?!”) Haddin proceeds to tear off his Australian jersey revealing a NZ one underneath and rolls in the final delivery underarm. The umpires immediately call a halt to play, Haddin is escorted away by security and Australia go on to win anyway. 

Josh Hazlewood

Best Case: Great economy rate, plenty of top order wickets, sensible haircut. The evolution to becoming Glenn McGrath 2.0 continues.

Worst Case: Batters start knocking him off his length, his metronomic qualities working against him, and the selectors make a late change for Doug Bollinger.

Mitchell Johnson

Best Case: Good Mitchell Johnson.

Worst Case: Bad Mitchell Johnson.

Mitchell Marsh

Best Case: The selector’s (and my) white whale is found: a genuine all-rounder.

Worst Case: Selectors tell us he’s an all-rounder and then play him as a batter only because he is too injured to bowl, and although he continually fails with the bat, he demands to stay in the top 3 and is for some reason granted this wish despite his figures with the bat being worse than Mitch Johnson’s and his figures with the ball being worse than Michael Clarke’s. Hmm. This sounds awfully familiar.

Glenn Maxwell

Best Case: Does his best Andrew Symonds impression; comes of age with the bat when needed, chips in with crucial wickets, responsible for 3 to 4 ridiculous run-outs/catches and provides continuous, un-broadcast-able sledging. Of Stuart Broad.

Worst Case: I don’t know, maybe something like this?

Steve Smith

Best Case: He continues his ‘deal-with-the-devil’ good form, bats permanently at 4 and breaks the World Cup record for “most runs” as well as “most box adjustments”.

Worst Case: Starts dating Lara Bingle, his hamstrings turn to sawdust, a diamond stud appears in one ear and a Rexona TV commercial is filmed. (Note: Possibly related to the afore-mentioned ‘deal-with-the-devil’.)

Mitchell Starc

Best Case: He finds his length and becomes a deadly end of the innings bowler with an unplayable late in-swinging yorker that continually makes a mess of English batsmen’s’ stumps, particularly Stuart Broad's.

Worst Case: He marries Ian Healy’s daughter ensuring preferential treatment in the media and endless fluff pieces featuring Starc and Ian awkwardly teasing each other. Ugh. I miss David Boon.

David Warner

Best Case: Warner makes approximately 1950 runs throughout the tournament (including an unforgettable 303* vs England) and is never actually dismissed, carrying his bat through every match, earning him a romantic, if not unjust, legacy as Australia’s greatest batter without a World Cup average.

Worse Case: Loses his footwork and becomes the bunny of one of the world's best quick bowlers, Stuart Broad.

Shane Watson

Best Case: He makes enough runs and takes enough wickets to remain in the team.

Worst Case: He makes enough runs and takes enough wickets to remain in the team.