Wins have dried up and the international production line slowed to a trickle. ADAM PEACOCK analyses the numbers behind NSW‘s decline.
Australian cricket’s powerbase has switched coasts.
While New South Wales’ international conveyor belt slows and domestic wins prove hard to come by, Western Australia is vying for an historic back-to-back title three-peat and supplying the Australian team with 31 debutants across three formats in the last decade.
By contrast, NSW has produced just two of the last 42 one-day international cricketers in the last decade.
TEST TEAM
Victoria has provided the most since 2013 with eight, followed by Western Australia. Queensland and New South Wales have each produced six.
But parity between NSW and Queensland is broken down when you consider when those players have made debuts.
Queensland currently has four players in contention for Test representation in the form of Labuschagne, Michael Neser and spinners Mitch Swepson and Matthew Kuhnemann.
NSW, meantime, haven’t had a Test debutant since Kurtis Patterson in 2019, who scored a century in his second Test. He was unlucky to be dropped for the Ashes tour, with Steve Smith and David Warner returning from ball-tampering suspensions, but Patterson has found it hard to recapture his best form of late and was recently dropped from NSW’s last Shield game of the season.
Nic Maddinson, in 2016, is the second last NSW player to make a Test debut and has since moved to Victoria to revitalise his career.
The total of six debutants for New South Wales from 2013 contrasts starkly to the previous decade, during which time the state provided 14 Test debutants.
South Australia has provided five Test debutants since 2013, including current first choice options Alex Carey and Travis Head, while Tasmania have produced just three, with Alex Doolan the last in 2014.
ONE-DAY INTERNATIONAL TEAM
The 50-over format is where the biggest disparity exists when it comes to developing Australian players.
Western Australia has provided the Australian one-day international team with 12 players in the last decade, ahead of Queensland with ten.
Eight players – including Adam Zampa, Carey and Head – have debuted for Australia while under contract with South Australia, while Victoria have provided six players, most notably recently retired captain Aaron Finch.
Tasmania has provided four ODI debutants in the last decade, the latest being hardworking quick Nathan Ellis, who left NSW to get a go at state cricket on the Apple Isle, and has emerged as a genuine contender for the 2023 World Cup squad.
Astonishingly, only two NSW players have debuted for Australia in the last decade: Sean Abbott in 2014 and Gurinder Sandhu in 2015.
Sandhu left NSW in 2018 for other opportunities, firstly in Tasmania then Queensland.
T20 INTERNATIONAL TEAM
Western Australia has produced the most Australian players in the 20-over format with 12 internationals produced in the last decade.
Queensland and NSW are next with nine, although the Blues have provided two of the last 22 in Daniel Sams and Ben Dwarshuis.
Victoria are next with five, followed by Tasmania and South Australia with four each.