Bruce Rondon worked out of a two-on, one-out jam in the eeight

In a recent piece in the Australian, the peerless Gideon Haigh described the life of a fringe first-class cricketer, Steve Cazzulino. The beauty of the story is that the most powerful words come from Cazzulino himself and not the wordsmith.It is that time of year in Australian cricket when representative careers are made or broken, sometimes forever. For Cazzulino, a damn fine cricketer who played 13 first-class games, it sounds like he harbours lingering regrets that his career did not kick on. In some senses, when you get close enough to being selected for Australia, the equation becomes simple. If youre in the frame, it mostly boils down to runs and wickets, allowing for incumbency rights. Shaun Marsh v Joe Burns v Usman Khawaja v Cameron Bancroft. Jackson Bird v Peter Siddle v Joe Mennie.Auditioning for the first-class stage, though, is not quite as straightforward as comparing apples with apples. For many talented youngsters, like Cazzulino when he was an elite junior, making it into the representative ranks and being selected in Under-17, U-19 and development squads can be make or break. If your card is not marked, if youre not identified in the talent ID pathway, if youre not looked at by the selectors, it is not as simple as just scoring big runs or taking wickets.Unlike, say, athletics or swimming, where your chances are determined by the clock or the tape measure, cricket selectors have more of a juggling act to perform. And at that crucial juncture in a players life, somewhere between 17 and 20 years of age, when they have to juggle choices like university, job prospects, or giving cricket a red-hot go, if they miss out on selection, it may be the last we see of that person.That could have been Matthew Haydens story. Overlooked at underage levels but burning with disappointment, he just piled on so many 1st Grade runs and then Shield runs that it became impossible not to pick him for the next level up. Not every cricketer can tell that story. For many (most?), trying to get noticed by the pathway selectors is often the fork-in-the-road moment. I witnessed the Hayden story first-hand (we were team-mates during that period) but Ive also seen the kind of heartbreak, doubt and sadness that Cazzulino so courageously opens up about.As the father of a young 13-year-old who has dreams of making more rep teams, Im forever torn between encouraging him to chase that dream with a single-minded determination and being fearful that he might take my advice and still fall short. Have I set him up for an almost inevitable fail or fall? I keep telling him that its all about putting numbers on the board, but I know my words are hollow - its not as simple as that. Its also about team balance, opportunity, luck, umpiring decisions and selectorial vision (or blindness). Yes, when it comes to Sheffield Shield cricket and youre in a straight shootout, it might come down to the pure numbers, but to get to that stage, how much of it is in the lap of the gods - the selectors? Spare a thought for Bird, possibly the first No. 11 batsman to be judged on his batting ability! One can only hope he gets another shot at redemption.Selecting Test teams must be hard but picking underage rep teams must be a nightmare. Every parent and district coach thinks their child has a powerful case and can quote statistics to prove their point. Selectors on the other hand have to weigh up whether 25 runs opening the batting in 1st Grade is worth more than a century batting in the middle order in 3rd Grade. What allowances do you make for a kid who nicks off to a peach of an outswinger, or gets a poor lbw decision in contrast to someone else who gets dropped early and can murder mediocre bowling? How do you allow for someone who plays on green seamers, which is reflected in their numbers, as distinct from a spinner who never really gets the chance to bowl on a wearing pitch because most junior rep cricket doesnt go for long enough to bring that skill into play?If youve got the luxury of time, years in some cases, you will eventually sort the wheat from the chaff. But when you have to balance that long-term view with a commitment to rewarding form and runs on the board, how do you walk the tightrope? I know of recent cases where someone who has opened the batting in 1st Grade and faced first-class bowlers (men) for an hour has been overlooked for a 3rd grade batsman who peeled off 80 against boys his own age. The numbers tell one story but anyone who has eked out a tough 20 on a green pitch in Brisbane in the first session will tell you that you sometimes need to be in good form to nick one.As a medium-fast bowler myself, when I was in form I almost preferred to bowl to better batsmen because there were more chances of them nicking the late outswinger. So often a marginally slower bowler will find that elusive edge because the batsman has that extra fraction of a second to catch up with the ball. When that same bowler gets selected to play at the next level up, a superior batsman will make him look ordinary. Which selector would have the guts and the vision to look past the numbers and pick the cricketer who is more likely to succeed higher up? When that does occasionally happen, they run the risk of getting pilloried for picking someone who hasnt performed well on paper. For every gut-feeling selection, theres an aggrieved cricketer (like Cazzulino) who wonders why the benchmark was not a tangible, measurable, justifiable number. As a parent with experience of all this now, I must force myself to look beyond the obvious when my kids miss out. I must confess that it is an easy statement to make in a hypothetical situation.Cazzulinos tale, brought to life so eloquently by Haigh, is going to be compulsory reading for my sons. Having gone through that same process myself 25 years ago, daring to dream but knowing in my heart that I wasnt good enough to crack it full-time, I yearned to reach out and claim every word of the piece as my own. In my case, I was never quite good enough but I was lucky enough to win a scholarship to Oxford, which satisfied some of that hunger while opening another door. If my sons have inherited anything from me, I hope it wont be my talent but rather the ability to have dreams that can be pursued in a non-mutually exclusive way. As Cazzulino opines when asked if it was difficult to be a rounded person at cricket: Absolutely. I think you either need to be incredibly smart or incredibly thick-skinned. Or in the case of Bird, you just need to score more runs at No. 11. Cheap Vans Shoes China . Louis Blues absence from top spot in the TSN. Fake Yeezy Wholesale . Jay Feely kicked a 41-yard field goal in overtime, and the Cardinals edged the Tennessee Titans 37-34 in overtime after blowing a 17-point lead late in the fourth quarter. http://www.fakeyeezyscheap.com/wholesale-air-force-1.html . With his new coach and six-time Grand Slam singles champion Boris Becker watching him during an official match for the first time, Djokovic appeared tentative early against the Slovakian player, who often appeared content to keep the ball in play. Cheap Air Max 90 China .J. Ellis hit two-run homers and the NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the San Diego Padres 4-0 Saturday night. Fake Balenciaga Cheap . The CFLs leading rusher kept adding to his gaudy numbers this season and scored the winning touchdown with just over two minutes to play. The New Westminster, B.C., native plowed three yards into the end zone for the last score of a heated, see-saw battle between the two teams with the best records in the CFL. DETROIT -- Brian Dozier reached a personal milestone amid another Minnesota loss.Hes having a hard time separating those contradictory feelings.Im sure when the season is over, it will mean a lot more, but I just wish this was happening in (first-place) Clevelands position or Detroits position, where we were making a run, Dozier said. Were still looking at losing 100 games. ... That takes something away from this.Dozier hit his 40th home run of the season, but the Twins lost 4-2 to the Tigers on Monday night. Ian Kinsler and Miguel Cabrera homered for Detroit.Dozier is the second Minnesota player to reach 40 home runs in a season. Harmon Killebrew was the other. He did it most recently in 1970.The Tigers scored two runs in the seventh on close plays at the plate.With Detroit down 2-1, Andrew Romine walked and Jose Iglesias hit a double to the corner in left field. Romine was waved around, and he made it home right as the relay was arriving. Catcher Kurt Suzuki had to move to his left to catch the throw, and he lunged back as Romine stretched his left leg toward the plate.He was called safe, and the run stood after a review. Iglesias moved up to third on the play at home.For me, that was the most important play of the whole thing, Iglesias said. Read the ball and get to third base on that.Kinsler flied out to center, Iglesias tagged up, and Suzuki had to reach to his right this time to receive Byron Buxtons throw home. Iglesias reached his left arm toward the plate and scored to give the Tigers a 3-2 lead.Shane Greene (4-4) got the win in relief, and Bruce Rondon worked out of a two-on, one-out jam in the eeighth.ddddddddddddCabreras homer in the bottom of the eighth gave Detroit an insurance run.Francisco Rodriguez walked two in the ninth but held on for his 41st save in 45 chances.Alex Wimmers (1-2) took the loss.Daniel Norris struck out a career-high 11 in 6 1/3 innings for the Tigers. Kinsler led off the bottom of the first with his 26th homer of the season, but solo shots by Dozier and Suzuki gave the Twins a 2-1 lead.Cabreras home run was his 32nd of the year.Ervin Santana allowed one run and three hits in five innings for the Twins. He was lifted after throwing 95 pitches.I felt great, but I was at 95 pitches so if anyone gets on, Im out of the game, Santana said. It made more sense to start the inning with a fresh arm.SLUGGERMore on Dozier: He extended his hitting streak to 16 games, and he now has 33 home runs in his last 76 games.QUALITY STARTNorris allowed two runs and five hits, throwing a season-high 106 pitches. This equaled his longest start of 2016, innings-wise. He also went 6 1/3 against the Twins on Aug. 25.TRAINERS ROOMTwins: 3B Miguel Sano left the game in the seventh with lower back tightness.Tigers: LF Justin Upton came out at the beginning of the fourth with a left calf strain.UP NEXTTwins: Minnesota sends RHP Kyle Gibson (5-9) to the mound Tuesday night in the second game of this four-game series.Tigers: LHP Matt Boyd (5-3) starts for Detroit. He won his previous two starts against Minnesota this season.---Follow Noah Trister at www.Twitter.com/noahtrister ' ' '