Selectioneering

GH on George Bailey

Genial George

It’s almost fifteen years since George Bailey undertook his selection task for Australia. He was then captain of Tasmania, and of Australia A - a popular player being thought of for future leadership roles. John Inverarity, newly-appointed chair of Australia’s selection panel, gave him an unusual assignment: could Bailey, from his extensive experience of first-class cricket, furnish a list of the ‘best blokes’ playing at domestic level?

It was an interesting thought bubble from Inver - an intimation that there might aspects of a player’s game beyond statistics and aesthetics material to their selection candidacy. It was an even more interesting person to choose for the task. This, however, was Bailey’s reputation - that he had an unusual feeling for people, that he was in touch with cricket in a thoughtful way. Inver must have liked what he saw, because two months later he anointed Bailey as Australia’s T20 captain in his first international game, initiating a relatively short but also fruitful career at the top level.

Today, of course, Bailey has Inver’s job, and is unlikely to need the counsel once sought from him. Where Inver became an Australian selector in his late 60s, Bailey became one in his late 30s, still actually playing domestic cricket. In his four years as chief selector, he has been an intriguing study, very much his own man, likelier to be seen in a track suit than a lounge suit, and occasionally providing an extra pair of hands in the warm-ups. He is, after all, a year younger than coach Andrew McDonald, against whom he played a great deal of interstate cricket, and was Tasmania’s captain when seventeen-year-old Pat Cummins played his first Sheffield Shield final. In other words, he has leaned in to those personal qualities that served him as a player and captain - his interest in cricketers as people.