Shane Watson: The Cricket Promise that Remained Unfulfilled

Last week’s match between England and Australia will probably be the last one for one of the most controversial Australian cricket players.

As cricket fans in England are making retrospectives of the last weeks match from the Ashes 2015 tournament against Australia, the Australians are concerned with somehow different issue.

• Shane Watson ends his career
• Fans uncertain about his contribution in the national team
• A secure place for Watson between the outsiders

The match between England and Australia was, according to online sportsbooks in Australia, probably the last match of a player that for years provoked lots of controversies in the Australian national team: Shane Watson. This seemed to be quite a reason for the daily newspapers and sports portal to devote several pages on the one of the greatest talents in Australian cricket that unfortunately was never fully realized.

The young talented batsman, Shane Watson

His career started with lots of promises. The six-foot tall blond-haired Australian was considered by many cricket experts to have a boundless natural talent. Alan Davidson, Richie Benaud, Steve Waugh and many others were seeing the young Watson as the next messiah of Australian cricket. However, seen from today’s perspective, we know that nothing of this have happened.

All that did happened was the nude calendar work, the frightened night in Brett Lee’s bedroom after seeing a ghost in Durham, and the immense publicity about whatever he did. What we saw in the past decades was only a player who has stubbornly refused to be the golden child that many predicted about him. The injuries have definitely played a great part in the failure of his career, but far from being the main one. What did played the major role was his specific character of an outsider that never fitted the national team.

In one occasion the former coach of the Australian team Mickey Arthur have even said that Watson was “the cancer of the team”. It was common to see him with the hands in the pockets at slip and the uninterested look, which, as gambling news reports, to many gave the impression that he was only pretending to enjoy himself even on the post Ashes celebration in 2014. His huge potential remained somewhere outside the court, absolutely unrealized. The big achievements and the bright future never came. This is why many Australian cricket fans these days are continuously criticizing his role in the national team stressing that there is no need to cry for Watto.

Shane Watson, the special one in the series of eccentric Australian cricket players

But there is no need to decry him either. Many supporters of Watson ask to give him the place in the Australian cricket history he deserves. And this history is full of outcasts, who played the highest level of cricket, but never really fitted in the national team. At one period in the history of the Australian team there were strong, hot tempered individuals like Keith Miller, Neil Harvey, Ian Chappell, Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh, who were celebrated as role models for cricketers in the country.

After the 70-es, however, a new kind of players became in the focus of the Australian audience. Don Bradman for example was everything Chappell was not: remote, formal, very intelligent organizer that give the impression that he needs to spend lots of time deliberating before any action. He was also criticized by many but his talent won the battle in the end, making him a key figure in Australia’s cricket history. Although in the one of the non-conformists.

Shane Watson belongs to this history. But, as online gambling sites in Australia report, he is not only one in the series that goes through Bradman, Stuart MacGill, or Simon Katich. What makes him special in this company is that unlike the others he had some visible physical characteristics that set him up for success. But, unfortunately, as a player he never found himself. He was moving from one to another position being famous for his bowling in the beginning, then becoming an all-rounder and ending as a specialist opening batsman.

In this process of changing the position of the field he also become a stranger to the Australian dressing room. In his memoires form 2011 he even stresses the fact that he has always felt as an outsider in the team. What made him pursue career in cricket and continue in the national team his self-centered ambition that was always mixed up with what-ifs, self-pity and regret that did not allow him to make the most important moves in his carrier. When fans sum up all this they ask themselves how to understand Watson’s carrier? An the answer is not as a beautiful disaster but as a career fully lived, filled with volatility that reserved a special place between the outcasts in the Australian cricket history.