AUSTRALIA'S selectors have confirmed that the Sheffield Shield is irrelevant.

Almost no one takes any notice of it, particularly the selectors when they are choosing national sides.

Players are picked on hunches regardless of their statistics. This is not always a bad thing.

Any young player with outstanding potential should be promoted at the first opportunity so he is continually challenged and develops quickly.

Steve Waugh always said pick fast bowlers young because they are at their quickest, although Mitchell Johnson has proved an enormous exception to that rule lately.

The touring squad for South Africa chosen this week highlights why the Shield in an anachronism, an ancient invention built around arbitrary state borders which mean nothing in the modern age of international overload and Twenty20 franchises.

The selectors dropped George Bailey, 31, who was chosen on one-day form for all five Ashes Tests after averaging just 18 in the Shield last season. Then they picked Shaun Marsh, 30, on absolutely no form at all.

No one who had taken any notice of the Shield at any stage over the past three seasons could have chosen Marsh.News_Rich_Media: Have a look at the Australian squad to tour South Africa and Shaun Marsh's reaction to his call up, replacing out of favour George Bailey.

In 13 Shield matches for Western Australia during that time Marsh has made 595 runs with one century at an average under 26.

In five Shield matches this season another left hander, Phil Hughes, 25, has scored 549 runs at 61 with three centuries and a highest score of 204.

So the next time one of the selection panel, chairman John Inverarity, Rod Marsh, Andy Bichel or coach Darren Lehmann tell a dropped player to go back to Shield cricket and perform what should they do?

Should they laugh, poke their tongue out, raise their middle digit, produce a copy of Shaun Marsh's stats, or perhaps Bailey's from last season?

Marsh did make a Test century on debut in Sri Lanka two and a half years ago and was batting well in difficult circumstances against South Africa at Cape Town in the following series before suffering a back injury.

In his next series against India two summers ago Marsh made a total of 17 runs in four Tests at an average of 2.83.

Which Marsh will turn up in South Africa?News_Rich_Media: Mitchell Johnson insists he still has plenty to achieve in his career and will not be resting on his laurels after taking out the Allan Border Medal for his dominance on the international stage in 2013.

So let's dump the Shield, which merely clutters up the Australian season.

Greg Chappell once said that the Shield is club cricket in drag these days because so few international players represent their states.

This means the gulf between Shield and Test cricket is wider than in previous generations.

Chappell also once proposed that to bridge this gap and increase the quality of competition that the best 22 players in Shield cricket should play regular east versus west matches.

Let's ignore geography as well as statistics and simply pick two hunch teams.

We'll call them the green hunches and the gold hunches.

They can play a couple of games to start the season and then one before each Test at the Test venue in case the Green & Golds representing Australia need a replacement batsman, bowler, or wicketkeeper.

This would save cricket in Australia millions of dollars a year and the selectors the embarrassment of Shield statistics.

ELEMENTARY MITCH

For all those who want to know how Mitch Johnson won the Allan Border Medal last Monday night after playing just six of a possible 14 Tests during the past year, take a deep breath.

If you thought the Duckworth-Lewis method of deciding targets for rain-marred one-dayers was convoluted, here's the office AB Medal method. News_Rich_Media: All of the Allan Border Medal Awards night highlights as Mitchell Johnson takes out the Allan Border medal and Mark Waugh makes it into the hall of fame.

"In order to compensate for the uneven number and length of Test, ODI and T20 international matches, and to ensure that players from all three types of the game have a fair chance of winning the award, a weighting system will apply to all votes.

"Test Match votes will attract a "Weighting Factor" of 6, ODI Match votes will attract a "Weighting Factor" of 3 and T20 international Match votes will attract a "Weighting Factor" of 2."

All the players vote after each match and that is compiled into 3,2,1 and votes from umpires and the media are combined into a separate 3,2,1 for a maximum of six votes per match.

So while Johnson finished fifth in the Test award and Clarke first, Johnson was able to overtake Clarke in the one-dayers (Johnson 3rd; Clarke =10th). Johnson also received a T20 vote.

During the Ashes Johnson received 16 of a possible 30 votes, including a maximum six in each of the first two Tests, while Clarke received a total of three votes, for his century in Adelaide.

Hope that makes sense.

SPOT ON

Whatever the vagaries of the voting system Johnson was an enormously popular winner, which was obvious from the sustained applause.

The AB Medal night was moved to Sydney for the first time and downsized from a ponderous Brownlow Medal type production of dinner tables to a theatre presentation of highlights and awards which was over in little more than an hour.

All the winners and Hall of Fame inductees Mark Waugh and Belinda Clark received the appropriate recognition and there was plenty of time for a relaxed mix and mingle afterwards, a much more appropriate format for the award.