Another last chance arrives for Hussey, North

Australia is back in the familiar position of carrying passengers in its batting line-up. It is unbelievable that positions five and six are so shaky, and allowed to be so shaky by a selection policy that favours continuity and team cohesion over such out-dated criteria as paying your way in actual production of runs. The Test team is now in the ludicrous position of coming under critical pressure when it loses its second wicket. Clarke at four is overly conscious of the statistical desert that Hussey and North inhabit: he knows he holds the key to a good score, Ponting knows that too, and is overly conscious of exposing Clarke too early. Speaking of ‘exposure', I read with amazement that Hussey's dismissal on Friday was considered a bad thing because it "exposed" Marcus North. I know that reference was specifically to the 17 minutes of play left in the day, but is this what we have come to, that one of our top six - the six best batsmen in Australian cricket - can't be relied on to survive a quarter of an hour? Yes, North was unlucky to lose a bail to Zaheer Khan, but again, what was he doing leaving the ball on that line, with Zaheer reversing it? If his confidence is shot, take him back to Sheffield Shield to regain it. I cannot understand Australia's selection policy, which discards Phil Hughes for a handful of streaky dismissals, yet gives Hussey and North life after life. We are consistently getting nothing from Nos. five and six, we handed back the Ashes because of it, and I am sick of it. If we're resigned to failure from those positions, put Hughes there and let him work on his game. Or put in Khawaja; or finally reward Michael Klinger for making truckloads of unwatched runs in Sheffield Shield. The team is very fortunate that Tim Paine has Test temperament written all over him: in fact, at 25, I actually see no reason to discard him when Brad Haddin is fully fit. We lose nothing with either bat or gloves with Paine. On the bowling front, kudos are due to Mitchell Johnson for a lion-hearted effort with the ball: I was not impressed with the way the bowlers allowed Sehwag and Gambhir to tee off and give India the start they did, and while statistically it looked as though Hilfenhaus and Hauritz were taken to the cleaners by the Indians, I'm prepared to accept Johnson's contention that the bowlers bowled tenaciously well on a tough track. The Test looks set for a draw, but a positive display with the bat could yet give India a nasty last day to navigate.

Still worth playing the 2011 and 2012 seasons

It is said every year after the Grand Final .... ''there's no reason why they can't win the next couple''. Collingwood has become the latest team to have this written about them, with dire warnings of an unbeatable dynasty emerging at the Westpac Centre. Yes, well, good luck to them. Play like they did on Saturday consistently, and it's highly likely that Collingwood will win the flag again in 2011. Play like they did in Round 9 - when they kicked 6.14 and lost by 36 points to Geelong - and they won't. Admittedly there were many more performances like Saturday's from Collingwood in 2010 than the Round 9 kind, which is why they are premiers. But if they don't bring their A-game, they lose. If the hunger is off, they lose. Remember, it is only nine days since this Collingwood team, looking out on its feet, held on for grim life for a draw, having kicked only nine goals for the game. So I wouldn't be handing over the next couple of premiership cups just yet. Repeats, let alone threepeats, are very, very difficult to achieve. Immediately after a dominant Grand Final win, it is hard to imagine anyone beating the premiers, but somehow it isn't that straightforward a year later. Injuries can hit, flag hunger can unconsciously decline, while the motivation of the hunters can surpass that of the hunted. There will be new strategies developed to defeat Collingwood's ‘box' formation: even now, the 15 other clubs are excitedly studying how Hannibal and his Carthaginians encircled and annihilated the Roman legions at Cannae in 216 BC with a double-enveloping pincer movement; and how Rommel was lured into over-exposing his precious tanks and over-stretching his fuel supply lines at Alamein II. (Seriously, what was that about? Sure, war and football are identical, with the tiny difference that in one, people are trying to kill you.)

Dog dynasty marches on

If you want to see an actual as opposed to theoretical dynasty, look no further than South Australia, where Central District, the machine from Elizabeth, celebrates its ninth premiership in 11 seasons, after beating Norwood by one goal at AAMI Stadium on Sunday. The Bulldogs have almost outgrown the SANFL: its dominance over the past 11 years is such that it has built a 22-2 record in finals in that time. That includes a 15-0 record in minor (non-Grand) finals: in each of its nine premiership years Central District has moved straight to the Grand Final from the Second Semi Final (the SANFL uses the traditional final five system, with six finals matches). Sturt beat Centrals in 2002 and Woodville-West Torrens triumphed over them in 2006, but apart from that, it has been a red, white and blue mortgage on the SANFL flag for a decade. SANFL games record holder, former Glenelg ruckman Peter Carey, was on the money when he said last week that Central's record should shame the other eight clubs in the competition. Port Adelaide great Russell Ebert said the other clubs had to match Central's hard work on and off the field: "It's up to the other clubs to come up to Central's level, not wait for them to drop off, because they're not going to," he said. Yesterday Norwood, despite a strong second quarter with the wind, became the latest challenger to succumb to the SA Bulldogs' incredible will to win. The question that has to be asked around South Australia today is, could Adelaide handle another AFL club? Because Central District has become too strong for the SANFL.

Lock it in, Eddie

Yes, he can be annoying if you don't barrack for Collingwood. Yes, as host of The Footy Show he was able to spruik Collingwood's sponsors ad nauseam and tilt the sponsorship playing field so far that some other clubs were in danger of falling off. Yes, he tried to alter Australia's system of government for the worse (I think). But seeing Eddie McGuire crying on Saturday afternoon I could think of nothing but admiration for him. You could see what it meant to him, to have delivered a premiership as President of Collingwood. Plenty of people are passionate about their AFL clubs, but McGuire has taken it to a whole new level. Having taken over when the club had sunk a long way from its 1990 glory, McGuire made it his life's ambition to put Collingwood back on that pedestal. The standard of professionalism that he has instilled and overseen at Collingwood has re-set the bar for the rest of the AFL. He is not the only person who has worked hard for this, but none could have worked harder. On Saturday afternoon we saw a bloke who has made a lot of sacrifices see it all made worthwhile. His wife's face, too, spoke volumes as to what it meant to that family. It is a moment that I hope Essendon chief David Evans one day gets to have.

Good news out of Afghanistan

I'm currently reading Sebastian Junger's ‘War', a harrowing account of the author's experiences as a reported embedded with a US Army unit in the most lethal part of Afghanistan, the Korangal Valley, in 2007 and 2008. It's a good read: it's not about geopolitics, Junger is solely concerned with showing how the men he is with react to their circumstances and what happens to and around them. For the guys of Second Platoon, Battle Company, young Afghan men are to be considered Taliban fighters unless proven not to be. Immersed in his book, it was strange to be idly browsing Cricinfo on the weekend and to be reading about another group of young Afghan men: the nation's cricket team. I knew they had one - they played in the ICC World T20 Championship in the Caribbean in May, where they played their first internationals against the ‘big boys' - losing to India and South Africa - but I was not up with the progress they're making. Formed in 2001, the team has earned ODI status - the first of the ICC's affiliate countries to do so - although it did not qualify for the 2011 senior World Cup. Afghanistan is currently playing first-class cricket in the ICC Inter-Continental Cup: they're in Nairobi, where yesterday, at stumps on day two, they lead Kenya by a whopping 470 runs with five wickets in hand. Afghanistan was sparked on day one by a thumping 168 (from 187 balls) by the skipper, 25-year-old Nawroz Mangal, who like most of the team, learned the game in a refugee camp in Peshawar in Pakistan. Mangal's is a great story: talent-spotted in the camp by the national coach, Mangal and the coach had to convince his father that cricket offered the chance of a career. Mangal now travels the world leading the national team. The team is not yet able to play home games in Afghanistan, but has played them in Sri Lanka before settling in Sharjah in the UAE, which has been designated as Afghanistan's home ground. The Afghan team has nominated its greatest ambition as playing full ODIs against Pakistan and Australia. Over to you Cricket Australia: we play enough meaningless ODIs, let's play a meaningful one. Australia has troops in Afghanistan on a mission of helping to bring about a stable civil society. Here is one unarguably good story to have come out of that society - let's help it along.