Controversy? What controversy?

Rogers won’t last forever, Clarke’s back won’t go away, and there are still question marks over Watson, Smith and Bailey, though Smith may have done enough to be relatively safe.

That’s what I said, or rather wrote yesterday.

Actually I’ve been saying it for a while, and announcements over the last twenty-four hours have clarified matters slightly.

The big one in that department is the Test squad for South Africa, which removes a question mark, with the Alan Border Medal and announcement of the T20 side clarifying matters around the fringes.

I didn’t find the Test squad surprising, and when it came to the top gong at the AB Medal it was always a question of which way the votes have gone.

Personally, I would have tipped Haddin, but when asked for a selection yesterday over the dinner table I hedged my bets by nominating Haddin as my choice, Clarke as most likely and Johnson as a big show. Johnson comes as no surprise given the voting side of things.

Neither, for that matter, does Jordan Silk taking out the Young Player or Emerging Talent award. I took note of the name when he came on as a substitute in the Hobart Test last season. Kerry O’Keefe was commentating and rated him as the best fielder in the country, which was a rather big call for a fringe player in the Tasmanian Shield squad, but he got a guernsey shortly thereafter and scored runs in the Shield final.

So maybe it wasn't just O’Keefe’s Bluebag bias operating at the time. He’s just outside the top ten run scorers in the Shield this year (421 at an average of 35.08 and a strike rate of 44.12) and opens the batting.

You might care to pencil in the name beside the current Test squad with a question mark after possible replacement for Rogers.

Shield Player of the Year went to Cameron White, which might bring cries of why isn’t he in the Test side from the other side of the Murray. He was probably glanced at, but very briefly.

Four reasons why:

Age, Role, Vacancy and Best Suited As.

You might look at other players on the circuit around the same age (30, but I thought he was older than that) who are being touted as some chance and wonder why that’s a factor, but then we come to Role and Vacancy.

Middle order bat. Four, Five or Six? Clarke at Four, Smith at Five, Question mark at Six. He has been known to bowl occasional leg spin. As a matter of fact, that’s where I reckoned his future lay. Middle order bat who bowls the occasional leggie. We’ve got one of those in Smith. Do we need a second?

And then there’s Best Suited As, which seems to be where he is at the moment. Senior player for Victoria, batting Four or Five, getting a bowl when Fawad Ahmed’s not in the side. He’s the sort of bloke you want around on the edges to sort out the up and coming bowlers, but you never know, a vacancy might emerge.

And, somewhere down the track there may be a vacancy for Bailey, whose Limited Overs Player of the Year came the same day as his axing from the Test squad.

In his case Best Suited as looks to be captaining the T20 side and playing ODIs and captaining when Clarke gets a rest. He’s got a T20 World Cup coming up, there was a question mark over his spot in the Test lineup, he hadn’t done very well against England, and, actually, he might be better off not going to South Africa to deal with Philander, Steyn and Morkel.

Detailed scrutiny there could have consigned him to the also rans for good.

As it is, he’s got the World T20, the possibility that Clarke may not be there for the next ODI World Cup, and the chance to make a case with a mountain of Shield runs while others are, quite possibly, being tried and failing.

But he’ll need big runs and a vacancy.

Which, of course, brings us to the Test squad, where eleven out of fourteen were certainties.

Since the only question marks were Three and Six, and Watson was always going to be on the plane. Marsh and Doolan offer a couple of options.

First, we assume that Watson is fit and playing. He can bat Three, with Doolan at Six. Ideal spot to blood a new player and move him up the order a little further down the track if he survives.

Alternatively, Marsh (or Doolan, but probably Marsh) at Three, Watson at Six.

If he’s not fit, Marsh at Three, and Doolan at Six with just the four bowlers (three quicks and Lyon, with part timers rolling the arm over a bit more than they would have).

Alternatively Marsh or Doolan at Three, Haddin at Six, Faulkner at Seven. On that basis, it’s probably Marsh at Three.

As far as the bowling is concerned, you look at the Watto factors as above, go in with Johnson, Harris and Siddle if fit, with Lyon to clean up South African bats who probably don’t rate him after the draw in Adelaide.

No Watto or non-bowling Watto at Three opens the possibility of using Faulkner at Seven as the extra bowler.

The only possible controversy as far as I can see comes with Pattinson and Bird ahead of the rest of the pack for the spare bowler spots, remembering that Coulter-Nile lives in Perth, just across the Indian Ocean with regular flights in that direction. There are other potential replacements (if needed) who aren’t that much further away.

Pattinson and Bird are both coming back off injury. Their progress can be monitored, and if there’s remedial or strengthening work required as part of their recovery that can be watched as well.

They’re probably not going to be doing that much bowling unless one of the other three break down.

Meanwhile, without having to bowl to a handy South African order  the other contenders have a chance to advance their case when the Shield resumes, knowing that two of their potential rivals are probably spending the couple of Tests sitting on the sidelines.

So, really, not very controversial at all.