Meyrick Buchanan's decision to turn his back on football is just the sort of good news that cricket in Australia needed.

The talented youngster recently took part in the AFL's draft combine, and showed enough promise to catch the attention of 15 AFL clubs. It is likely that this is not the first time you have heard that, and it is almost certainly not the last.

Buchanan is the younger brother of Amon, a member of the Sydney Swans' premiership team in 2005. He is also the younger brother of Liam, who represented Victoria in cricket. Meyrick, the youngest of six brothers, opted to follow in Liam's footsteps and has signed with the Melbourne Renegades ahead of the Big Bash league beginning next month.

And boy, couldn't Cricket Australia use some good news. Amid a string of dismal results at the top level - the dust hasn't quite yet settled on our infamous second innings of 47 in South Africa - and reports of collapsing relationships on and off the field, you wouldn't be alone in thinking the near future of cricket in this country is on thin ice.

But then along comes Buchanan, who is the sort of promising player that the powers that be will latch onto and milk for all the publicity he can yield. If all goes to plan, his face will bring swarms of children to In2Cricket, bolstering the talent pool from which the next generation of national cricketers will arise.

Buchanan has already proven to be a media hit, charming the media with modesty and humour - he quipped that he followed Liam over Amon because he preferred Liam's cooking.

All that said, though, it's not as though Buchanan has made his choice with Cricket Australia in mind. As a cricketer, he has a chance to represent his country, something that AFL players can't do (save for playing in the International Rules series, which is becoming more farcical with each series).

He will be playing a worldwide sport, with the potential to travel to all corners of the former British Empire should he earn a national call-up. He could continue to play overseas during Australian winter.

And then there's the money. I'm not sure what the 25th highest-paid player in the AFL earns, but in cricket, it's just shy of $1.5 million. On top of that, if he can perform semi-decently in this Twenty20 series, he has years and years in the lucrative IPL to look forward to.

We'll probably never know exactly why Meyrick ended up playing cricket (until, perhaps, his biography comes out months after his retirement in more than a decade). What we can be pretty sure of, though, is that Cricket Australia is thanking its lucky stars. At a time when both the sport's morale and prospects are lower than they have been for years, Buchanan arrives as a glimmer of hope.

Rest assured we will be seeing plenty of him in the near future.