Rod Marsh suggests restricting T20 game to 30-above players to stop batting decline

Australia national selector Rod Marsh has reportedly suggested restricting the Twenty20 game to players who are over the age of 30 in order to put a plug in the team's batting decline.

As England travels to Australia seeking a fourth consecutive Ashes victory, the Australian selectors scour the country for a batsman for the vacant No.6 spot although there are a precious few heavy-scoring first-class cricketers to choose from.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Marsh said that he believes a player should not be allowed to play T20 cricket until he is over 30, adding that the shortest form of the game should be the topping on the cake for a player after he has given his everything to the real form of the game and has fought his guts out for his country.

The report mentioned that retired Test batsman Michael Hussey is an example of a cricketer who developed his game with years of first-class toil in the pre-T20 era but then became one of the country's most adaptable players, excelling in all three formats.

According to the report, however, India has kept producing quality batsmen like Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan despite being at the centre of the T20 revolution.

Agreeing with Marsh, Cricket Australia's (CA) national talent manager Greg Chappell said that it has become much more difficult to develop the skills and the adaptability required to succeed in all the formats.