Seems Roy hasn’t done enough to make up for missing that very important last minute team meeting before the Top End Tour in August. You remember the series, we played some one day games against the Kiwi Crushers Bangladesh in Darwin, back in August.

Anyways, Roy’s punishment for going on a pre-booked fishing charter instead of the hastily arranged team meeting to discuss the new seating arrangements for the team bus, is that he was sent home from Darwin and back to club cricket.

The current word is that Roy will have to go through a “staged process” to regain his place. Presumably stage 1 is Watson getting injured, Stage 2 is a jihad on James Sutherland, and Stage 3 is a big wad of cash from his IPL connections.

The main contenders for Jaques’ distinguished position of reserve opening batsman are David Hussey, Brad Hodge and Shaun Marsh. If they’re looking for a like for like replacement they’d have to go Shaun Marsh, as he’s the only one who doesn’t play for Victoria. Unforunately Merv seems to have his way with selections at the moment, so we’ll probably see Brad Hodge ferret like head popping around the nets again.

Really we should be sending an SOS for the Son Of Swampy, he’s an awesome opening batsman and deserves a shot on his own merits. Roy will have to wait for his redemption.