Never had fitness issues before England. Ill advised podcasts shouldn't be a selection criteria, and nor should being a bit of a throbber. Cricket has been littered with such types, but a good Management Team would work out how to get the best out of such talented players, not discard them for their golf buddies.
Clearly he can’t cope with the fitness levels required for elite cricket, and a poor attitude should absolutely be a selection criterion. The team environment is the single most important thing to the culture of this team. When you look at how many players they have managed to get the best out of, it’s certainly not Stokes and McCullum that Robinson’s failures reflect poorly upon.
What happened here again?
And then he played a key role in Australia winning that test.
He was picked for this game: https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...ia-vs-england-4th-test-1389402/full-scorecard but bowled 13 overs of absolute tripe and well below pace in India's 1st innings, then didn't bowl at all in their second innings with the game very much on the line. The line publicly was that he twinged his back while batting but I think it doesn't take much to guess that that was just the public line and the truth behind closed doors is much less flattering. Either way, there doesn't seem to have been so much of a whisper of him being in selection frame again aside from people wondering why he's been blacklisted.
got picked in ranchi after some good showings in the nets but was so unfit his pace went into the 60s (mph) at certain points.
Bowled mid 110s IIRC. Dropped a catch too and just looked horrifically unfit. Was RP singh 2007 England tour vibes.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's quite a bit more to the story than it seems too tbh. There often is with stories like this in professional teams. I guess though it may have been as simple as that he assured them that he'd done all the required work, he was fully fit etc - and they were so pissed off at the truth of it that they decided to draw a line through his name thereafter.
Good on him for publicly outing management errors and wasting of funds.
That's why I'm wondering if he was picked on the basis of assurances he'd given as to the training and conditioning work he'd done that maybe he'd been asked to do as a condition for selection, then in the game it became obvious that he'd been doing nothing of the sort. Otherwise yeah why on earth was he even picked?
That was the 4th Test, he'd been there all Tour. Surely they'd have known what state of fitness he was in from the nets? He had one bad innings, it can happen to blokes who haven't played for a while (look at Tongue this morning) and then the pitch changed and there was no need for seamers.
It's probably a swap in a **** team with a great player in it, like an injury to Hadlee or Flower.
He'd definitely had professionalism problems and fitness question marks pre England. For his whole career basically.
Yeah he's not a world beater but I don't mind his white ball selection. Strange pathway there but we're not abounding in options.