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How to find the next Steve Waugh: Border

Record-breaking captain who oversaw Australia's emergence from the '80s doldrums explains his selection stance

Legendary former captain Allan Border has empathised with the plight of Steve Smith and believes "gut-feel" selections aimed at the next generation of first-class talent for the third Test could uncover the next Steve Waugh.

Border, who famously oversaw Australia through a tumultuous period in the 1980s to the brink of world domination when he retired in 1994, was critical of player performance throughout the first two Tests against South Africa as well as the Sheffield Shield competition, which he believes has become "almost glorified practice matches in some instances".

"I'm feeling Steve Smith's pain," Border told SEN Radio. "It's not good when you're the captain of the ship that is just sinking all the time.

"It's not a pleasant place to be."

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As captain during one of the lowest periods of Australian cricket, Border won just seven of his first 39 Tests in charge, before a 4-0 success on the 1989 Ashes tour marked a turning point.

Critical to that turnaround was the coming of age of Steve Waugh, who broke through for his maiden Test hundred in that campaign and never looked back.

Waugh had been picked to debut in the Boxing Day Test of 1985 as a 20-year-old, and was persisted with for the following three-and-a-half years through 26 Test matches, in which he'd made a highest score of 91 and was averaging 30.52.

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With the current scarcity of batsmen in the Sheffield Shield boasting averages in the mid-to-high 40s, Border believes selections should perhaps be based on instinct rather than raw data, with the 'pick-and-stick' mentality an important aspect of long-term success. 

"Going back in time, if you weren't averaging 50 (in Shield cricket), you didn't get a look in as far as playing cricket for Australia with the bat," he observed. "And it was a similar scenario with the ball.

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"Maybe the talent pool has lessened. I did this exercise a couple of years back – and in that period, we've gone on to become the No.1 Test team – (looking at) who are the next bright young stars?

"We were looking at averages and there were very few young batsmen – under 25 – that were averaging 40 or above; it was staggering when you start looking at the actual stats.

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"The selection process now, we need to start injecting some young faces into the side and it's got to be a gut-feel type selection rather than on just pure stats.

"And hopefully that produces some good ones.

"It's the sort of thing that's happened back in my time – selectors took a punt on guys like Stephen Waugh, who probably wasn't ready for international cricket when he was picked, but what a player he turned out to be.

"So maybe we've just got to do the gut-feel type selection and get some youngsters in there that you think can turn things around for us."

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Waugh was selected with just 11 first-class matches to his name – quite a remarkable fact when one considers an example of a contemporary equivalent would be Queensland opener Matthew Renshaw, who returns to Shield action on Thursday after recovering from a knee injury.

Renshaw, 20, has also played 11 first-class matches, scored two centuries among 863 runs, and is averaging 41.09.

At the same point, Waugh had 605 runs, with two centuries and an average of 43.21.

Likewise, another Queenslander, 21-year-old Sam Heazlett, who debuted last year, also has numbers matching closely with Waugh's: 10 matches, 700 runs, one century, averaging 38.88.

South Australia's Jake Lehmann, son of national coach Darren, is another not miles away from the Waugh precedent; the 24-year-old has played 18 first-class matches for the Redbacks and Yorkshire, with five hundreds and an outstanding average of 48.96 – the best in Australian domestic cricket outside Steve Smith and David Warner.

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Border also believes that the spirit of competition needs to be reinforced in the Shield, which in turn would naturally develop players equipped to handle the Test arena.

"I'm a bit critical of the powers that be that have let the Shield become almost a glorified practice match in some instances, where you're pulling guys out of games to rest and rotate and all those sorts of scenarios," he added.

"It just takes the gloss off a great competition, the competition that leads to the Australian cricket team."

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