Cricket Australia Claim Sri Lankan Test Series To Be A Raging Success

Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland today proclaimed the Sri Lankan Test tour a “raging success“.

Speaking after Australia’s embarrassing collapse in Colombo, Sutherland defended his country’s performance.

“It’s true we lost the series 3-0. Come to think of it, lost is such a soft word. Spanked is probably a better one.

But we didn’t lose 5-0 like the English tend to do. That’s a massive positive and something we can build on.

You have also conveniently forgotten that this Test series gave us a chance to take a look at Mitch Marsh. We needed to know if he is good enough to stay at number 6 for at least the next twelve years. Once we work out what number six is meant to do, it will also become clear that Mitch Marsh is the right guy to do it. This Sri Lankan Test tour provided us with that clarity.

We also got to try out Shaun Marsh. It is fair to say that he really hasn’t had enough goes at Test cricket.

Our left arm spinner addiction played out exactly as we would have liked. We haven’t really had a truly great one since Ashton Agar. They don’t really do anything, but it was a massive win for diversity and inclusion.

Since Shane Watson retired, there is a school of thought that Australia is under-represented by all-rounders in the top order. We fixed that by selecting Moises Henriques to replace a proper batsman. That went well we think, although Moises didn’t get much of a bowl because Holland was killing it.

Also, when was the last time Joe Burns or Khawaja got run out by the bloke at 1st slip? They just haven’t quite developed that part of their game to the level Moises has.

Everyone did their homework and David Warner didn’t punch anyone. That shows our discipline is improving.

Finally, hardly anyone back in Australia knew that the series was on or even watched it.

That’s the beauty of putting it behind the Foxtel paywall when the Olympics are on. 

So come the summer, we will be able to roll out that footage of Steve Smith receiving the mace thingy before we get stuck into Pakistan at the Gabba.

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