Watson's merry-go-round decade

In the last week of 2004, Darren Lehmann played his final Test for Australia. Come the Sydney New Year's Test of 2005 he was replaced by a 23-year-old allrounder named Shane Watson. Big things were expected of Watson. "An exciting young talent," the chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns said of Watson at the time. "His inclusion in the squad gives us some variety".

A decade later, variety is still the best word to describe Watson's offerings. He has batted in every position from 1 to 7. He has opened the bowling, has been used as first change, second change, third change, fourth change and fifth change. He has played 54 Tests since his debut, and missed 56. He has served as Australia's 44th Test captain. He has been everything and nothing.

Tin is the traditional gift for a tenth anniversary and Watson has spent his ten years in the Test team turning into Australian cricket's Tin Man. Watching him lumber rigidly to the crease to bowl these days, he might as well be staggering stiff-limbed out of the woods to meet Dorothy and Toto on the Yellow Brick Road. Had he fulfilled his all-round potential, he could have been cricket's Wizard of Oz.

But there aren't enough oil cans in Australia to help Watson keep his body in good order. Injuries have accounted for most of his missed Tests. They have also contributed to his changing roles. When Watson has spent a week, a month or a year out of the team, others have come in. He returns to find someone else sitting in his old place. Nor have his performances made one spot his own. With Watson it has always been a question of potential, of what he could do. But what has he done? A decade in and out of the Test team has brought a batting average of 35.51 and a bowling average of 32.71. Pretty good for an allrounder, on the surface. Australian cricket would be happy if James Faulkner played the next ten years and ended up with those Test averages.

Watson is an allrounder but must be judged as a batsman, for only a quarter of his Test innings have been played outside the top three. And the only Australians with more Test runs than Watson's 3480 for a lower average have been Rod Marsh and Ian Healy, both wicketkeepers who mostly batted at Nos.7 or 8. As a batsman alone, Watson has underwhelmed.

As a bowler, Watson is shrewd. He lacks the pace of his youth but has compensated with accuracy and subtle swing, including reverse. He is a valuable fifth bowler. But ten years after his debut Australia, 70 Test wickets is a paltry tally. Bob Simpson took 71 from only eight more Tests than Watson has played.

As a batsman, Watson is far from clever. He thumps boundaries, can take one-day attacks apart. Occasionally does so in Tests as well. But dumb shots are played, mistakes are repeated, starts are squandered. In Australia's chase of 128 at the Gabba he was out top-edging a hook when he was yet to score. In the first innings, he failed to clear mid-on, going too hard on 25.

Often, his medium-pace has saved him from the axe. But not since the infamous 47 all-out Cape Town Test of more than three years ago has Watson taken more than one wicket in an innings. His constant soft-tissue injuries have discouraged the Australians from over-using him. The irony of seeing him bowl so much in Brisbane because of Mitchell Marsh's injury was lost on nobody.

At 23, Marsh is the future. Australian cricket has not seen the best of him yet. At 33, Watson is the past. His best days are behind him. We have not seen him fulfil his potential. We have not seen Watson's best in Test cricket, and yet we've seen the best we will see of him. He is a fading force, though one that never fully materialised.

On ESPNcricinfo's Match Point for the Gabba Test, Stuart MacGill noted that Australian cricket had failed to get the best out of Watson by mishandling him. He should, MacGill argued, have been used as a Test allrounder batting at No.6 or 7 and providing a valuable fifth bowling option. It was in that role that Watson made his Test debut back in 2005. MacGill played in that match at the SCG.

His Test averages would look quite good for a No.7. But Watson has often said his preference is to open, and as an opener he has scored 2049 runs at 40.98. That is not evidence that Watson should open, it is simply proof that 2009-10 were his best years. His peak coincided with a time when he opened.

But consider Watson's final year in the role, up until the 2011-12 home summer, when injury forced him out of the side. In the preceding 12 months, Watson opened in every Test innings and averaged 34.27. In 19 innings he did not score a century. If Chris Rogers or Ed Cowan had a similar run, they would be under pressure.

Watson briefly returned to the opening position at the start of last year's Ashes in England, when Lehmann joined the side as coach, Warner was suspended and Cowan demoted. In six innings he averaged 25.66. His scores were 13, 46, 30, 20, 19 and 26. It is the story of Watson's career: get a start, then get lazy. Warner returned, and Watson had to adapt to a new position again.

Australia have never known what to do with Watson. He started at No.7 in 2005; Australia's great batting line-up was still together, and it was the logical place for him. Injuries hampered him over the next few years, and when he came back in 2008 he was used at No.6 on a tour of India, when Andrew Symonds and Cricket Australia were "on a break".

When Symonds returned against New Zealand at home the next month, Watson was No.7, then was dropped. Then he had stress fractures in his back, and missed the tour of South Africa, where Andrew McDonald played instead. His chance to open came on the 2009 Ashes tour, when Phillip Hughes was axed. That was the beginning of the golden age of Shane Watson.

In 2009, he averaged 65.09 in Tests. In 2010 it was 42.71. A couple of centuries came, as well as four scores in the 90s. The feeling was that this was a sign of things to come. Watson was just starting to bloom, just beginning to fulfil his potential. In fact, it was his peak - everything since then has been downhill.

There was a leaner 2011 as an opener, then he missed the whole 2011-12 Test summer with calf and hamstring problems. When he got back for the 2012 West Indies tour, Cowan and Warner were a settled opening pair. Watson had to slot in at No.3, where Shaun Marsh had failed. Then came a move to No.4 so Hughes could be groomed at first drop.

On the tour of India in 2013, Watson played at No.4 and did not bowl, in an attempt to prevent further injuries. It was a disaster. The No.11 Nathan Lyon faced more balls in the series than Watson. All the same, Watson was promoted to open in the Ashes, and failed. He did make 176 in the dead rubber at The Oval batting at No.3, but it was a tease.

In the home Ashes he stayed at first drop and his only innings of note were 103 in the second innings in Perth, where Australia had a huge lead and he had license to slog, and a more worthy 83 not out in the chase in Melbourne. Then he was No.6 and No.4 in South Africa, was injured again, and is No.3 in this series against India after Alex Doolan was dropped in the UAE.

And that all brings us back to the coming week, and Watson's approaching ten-year anniversary as a Test cricketer. It has been a ride, but an unsatisfying one, more merry-go-round than rollercoaster. His best days have come and gone, and were barely recognised as such. He has been mistaken for a batsman, but has always been an allrounder.

This week in Melbourne he might have to move down the order again, to let in Joe Burns. What might the past ten years have brought if Watson had simply batted at No.6 or 7 and bowled? Nobody knows. Perhaps he'd have broken down even more often. Whatever the case, Watson and Australian cricket together have failed to draw out his best.

Ten years. Four centuries. Seventy wickets. Less than 50% of Tests played. The man whose place he took back in 2004-05, Lehmann, is now the coach. The then chairman of selectors, Hohns, is back on the panel alongside Lehmann. They know Watson is no longer "an exciting young talent". They know that Mitchell Marsh is. So is James Faulkner.

They hope the next decade brings great things from their young allrounders. Marsh has an injured hamstring, but should be back for the Sydney Test. What then for Watson is a mystery. But for at least this week at the MCG, Australian cricket's Tin Man will have his rigid shell of a body oiled up and given one more chance.