Unexpected events

Last year, Nathan Hauritz was called up from club cricket to the Test team, over once NSW and Australian spinner Beau Casson. This week, the ongoing string of injuries to Australian cricketers led to a tour call-up for Hauritz and Katich's club-mate Burt Cockley, despite the fact that not quite all of the NSW Champions League pace attack has been called up in this series. While this trend may seem inexplicable, it is enough to wonder how soon will Usman Khawaja be seen in the national green and gold.

I'm pretty sure noone expected Burt to be plucked from the middle of the Shield game against the Sandgropers. While Hauritz has been known to open the batting for the Randy-Petes and play for the state on the same day, Cricket Australia rules mean that NSW were given the opportunity to replace Cockley with an all-rounder at a point in the match where their bowling attack was no longer important. Apparently WA weren't too impressed with this unpredicted result, but in any case Lambert was kept to number 11 and the Cornstalks fell well short of first innings points on the final day.

The much more unexpected result of the exploits of the strange (and large) collection representing Australia is of course the fact that they somehow managed to win the series. Several players, veterans and call-ups, have put in some impressive performances, but not enough to change the impression on paper that they shouldn't have been able to beat India. What is going on?