What happened to James Faulkner (MOM winner of 2015 WC final)?

[Titan24]

James Faukner got into radar by performing for Tasmania across the formats with both bat and ball. Eventually played BBL, where he performed well and got selected for Australia.

He produced 3 of the best finishes probably of the last decade or so. One in 2013 against Indian when Australia were 6 down (6/213) needed 93 runs in 53 balls, he came in and smashed 64* off 29 balls to win the match. Other in 2014 against England when he came in when Aus were 7 down (7/206) needed 95 off 91 balls and he scored 69* off 47 balls to win the match for his team. In 2013 against India he also made 116 coming at 5 down in a loosing cause when chasing 383 coming in at 5/132 and taking Aus over 300 run mark.

Interestingly during the same time he played his only test for Aus where he took 6 wickets @ 16.

Then in 2015 he took 10 wickets for Aus in 6 matches @19 and economy of 4.70 and in the final of that world cup won the MOM by taking 3 wickets for 36 in 9 overs.

So what exactly went wrong in a career with glimpses of magic. Why couldn't he develop into one of the best all rounders in the world? Did he become satisfied with his success and all the contracts he got in different leagues? Or maybe Australia discarded him too quickly?

 

[angrypathan]

He got injured and became ordinary. Never really had much pace to begin with. In fact never struck me as a particularly talented player, just someone who made the most of his limited talents.

 

[therealAB]

He was a solid but unspectacular bowler compared to Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood, Richardson etc
As a bat he got figured out as a leg-side slogger

 

[Forum363]

People who overrate Hardik Pandya should look at his career.

An amazing talent but for so many reasons could not succeed over a long term.

 

[Nikhil_cric]

https://www.wisden.com/stories/features/what-happened-to-james-faulkner

All you need to know about Faulkner's career OP. Personally never rated him highly, especially his bowling.

 

[Hasan123]

He lost form and was dropped. It happens a lot.

 

[topspin]

He would walk into Pakistan's team in all formats but to cement a place in Australia's first XI you have to be more than just decent/above average.

 

[Junaids]

He’s unselectable after his awful joke tweet last year in which he called his flatmate his boyfriend.

Making fun of homosexuality in Australia is career-ending for a sportsman. We are not a conservative society, but Faulkner is from a deeply conservative background - his Dad toured South Africa at the height of Apartheid. So the son grew up thinking that certain things were ok which are not ok in this country.

He’s basically radioactive at state level, let alone national team level.

 

[Hasan123]

He’s unselectable after his awful joke tweet last year in which he called his flatmate his boyfriend.

Making fun of homosexuality in Australia is career-ending for a sportsman. We are not a conservative society, but Faulkner is from a deeply conservative background - his Dad toured South Africa at the height of Apartheid. So the son grew up thinking that certain things were ok which are not ok in this country.

He’s basically radioactive at state level, let alone national team level.

But he wasn't even getting selected before that tweet. I don't understand why you always try to bring a controversial angle to every topic.

 

[Bhaijaan]

Virat Kohli happened to him.

Frankly speaking, he's never been the same ever since

 

[King_Kohli]

Good player, don't know why couldn't succeed.
Kohli literally hammered.

 

[Rayyman]

He would walk into Pakistan's team in all formats but to cement a place in Australia's first XI you have to be more than just decent/above average.

Lol even Sohail Tanvir at his current age is better then Faulkner who would struggle to make a PSL team.

 

[Walawalkar]

Virat Kohli

 

[jeeteshssaxena]

I remember a match where he sledged kohli and kohli said "i have smashed you enough in my career, now go and bowl"

Always a great pleasure to watch an aussie being dominated and our players have done that quite often this decade.

 

[MMHS]

I think, he is both lucky & unlucky to be an Aussie. Lucky in a sense that, it earned him a World Cup and a MoM in WC finals (an elite company indeed - Lloyd, Viv, Amarnath, Boon, Wasim, Hari De, Warne, Ponting, Gilchrist, MSD, Faulkner, Stokes). Unlucky in a sense that it’s only because of Australia, he didn’t have a 12+ year career and 500+ caps in three formats combined.

At 23, he was debuted in an Ashes Test at Oval and took 6 wickets, scored some runs as well. But, his bowling was not good enough to be a specialist Test pacer and his batting wasn’t good enough to replace Watson as 5th bowler all-rounder AND, Aussies don’t play bits & pieces all-rounders in Test. If he was English, probably would have played more Test by now than the English man debuted in same game - Woakes. His FC stats suggests guy was brilliant at just a shed lower level than top tier Test arena - but that’s not good enough for Australia, you have to be Noble, Gregory, Miller, Davidson, Gilmore, or at least MoJo class to be a Test bowling all-rounder - he wasn’t, just like Mitch Marsh.

He was & still is a brilliant LO player, barring injury - brutal hitter at the end and an effective 3rd/4th pacer. His another strength for LO cricket was his unconventional bowling, which was effective even on dry Asian surfaces. A batting stats around 35/100+ and bowling stats of 31/5.5 is like a gold combination in modern era. Extremely flexible cricketer who could be fit into several roles in LO game both with bat or ball, but I think he was best fit for No. 7-8 with bat and specialist finisher in last 10-12 overs.

Injury and loss of form at wrong time didn’t help him and unfortunately, being Aussie, his chances of making a comeback was too narrow - that homosexuality taunt probably sealed his fate. Aussies maintain a high standard in selection policy and if a player at the wrong side of 25 is to make a comeback, he has to be good, very good; otherwise they’ll move to the next U23 player with potential.

Still can be a brilliant T20 player coming back from injury - at Australian 30 means in some other places, he easily can be sold as 25, officially. Don’t think he has any future in Test and won’t play ever a second one in career, but can make a comeback, considering that next WC is in India and he can be effective at his best for role, but unlikely.

 

[Titan24]

https://www.wisden.com/stories/features/what-happened-to-james-faulkner

All you need to know about Faulkner's career OP. Personally never rated him highly, especially his bowling.

Good read, thanks for sharing.

 

[Titan24]

He’s unselectable after his awful joke tweet last year in which he called his flatmate his boyfriend.

Making fun of homosexuality in Australia is career-ending for a sportsman. We are not a conservative society, but Faulkner is from a deeply conservative background - his Dad toured South Africa at the height of Apartheid. So the son grew up thinking that certain things were ok which are not ok in this country.

He’s basically radioactive at state level, let alone national team level.

Now I remember that incident and add to it a drunk driving ticket. His attitude definitely didn’t help him much as well. With so much money available outside of international cricket, tendency of some cricketers being less serious about their international careers has decreased to an extent.

 

[Titan24]

I think, he is both lucky & unlucky to be an Aussie. Lucky in a sense that, it earned him a World Cup and a MoM in WC finals (an elite company indeed - Lloyd, Viv, Amarnath, Boon, Wasim, Hari De, Warne, Ponting, Gilchrist, MSD, Faulkner, Stokes). Unlucky in a sense that it’s only because of Australia, he didn’t have a 12+ year career and 500+ caps in three formats combined.

At 23, he was debuted in an Ashes Test at Oval and took 6 wickets, scored some runs as well. But, his bowling was not good enough to be a specialist Test pacer and his batting wasn’t good enough to replace Watson as 5th bowler all-rounder AND, Aussies don’t play bits & pieces all-rounders in Test. If he was English, probably would have played more Test by now than the English man debuted in same game - Woakes. His FC stats suggests guy was brilliant at just a shed lower level than top tier Test arena - but that’s not good enough for Australia, you have to be Noble, Gregory, Miller, Davidson, Gilmore, or at least MoJo class to be a Test bowling all-rounder - he wasn’t, just like Mitch Marsh.

He was & still is a brilliant LO player, barring injury - brutal hitter at the end and an effective 3rd/4th pacer. His another strength for LO cricket was his unconventional bowling, which was effective even on dry Asian surfaces. A batting stats around 35/100+ and bowling stats of 31/5.5 is like a gold combination in modern era. Extremely flexible cricketer who could be fit into several roles in LO game both with bat or ball, but I think he was best fit for No. 7-8 with bat and specialist finisher in last 10-12 overs.

Injury and loss of form at wrong time didn’t help him and unfortunately, being Aussie, his chances of making a comeback was too narrow - that homosexuality taunt probably sealed his fate. Aussies maintain a high standard in selection policy and if a player at the wrong side of 25 is to make a comeback, he has to be good, very good; otherwise they’ll move to the next U23 player with potential.

Still can be a brilliant T20 player coming back from injury - at Australian 30 means in some other places, he easily can be sold as 25, officially. Don’t think he has any future in Test and won’t play ever a second one in career, but can make a comeback, considering that next WC is in India and he can be effective at his best for role, but unlikely.

Completely agree and I think you have covered all the angles of his career as an Australian cricketer which led to where he is now. As you have said with all his cutters and back of the have slower balls he can be effective in WC taking place in India but that is only if he is even in the radar and might be unlikely.

Regarding Mitch Marsh I think he was given much more oppurtunities in test arena which one expects from Australia as the guy averages 25 with bat after 32 tests and close to 40 with the ball. Mitch was rated highly in Australia since young age but I think he was given a longer run then one would expect and to an extent Watson’s career was cur short as Aussies wanna have Mitch Marsh in.

 

[Slog]

https://www.wisden.com/stories/features/what-happened-to-james-faulkner

All you need to know about Faulkner's career OP. Personally never rated him highly, especially his bowling.

I think regardless he has had a good career and will be remembered always for his match winning WC Final performance.

And I think his stats arent that bad either. 34.4 average @ 105 SR with 30 bowling average.

 

[Nikhil_cric]

I think regardless he has had a good career and will be remembered always for his match winning WC Final performance.

And I think his stats arent that bad either. 34.4 average @ 105 SR with 30 bowling average.

He used to get taken apart by strong batting sides. His records, with the ball, against India and SA, in particular, are very poor. Post 2015 CWC, the likes of England and Pakistan got better batting lineups and he would have been consistently destroyed . The real travesty for Australia was that Mitch Marsh had the potential to be a genuinely world class all-rounder but they ended up having to rely on the likes of faulkner and Stoinis.

 

[Bhaijaan]

I remember a match where he sledged kohli and kohli said "i have smashed you enough in my career, now go and bowl"

Always a great pleasure to watch an aussie being dominated and our players have done that quite often this decade.

Yes, even before that in 2016 world cup QF vs Aussies I remember Kohli played a legendary chasing knock.

Faulkner was King of T20 bowling and Kohli stepped out to hit him for six purely with wrist power.

That and some verbal phainty from Kohli later burst the bubble that was James Faulkner. He's not been the same ever since Kohli toyed with him with the bag and verbally .

 

[Bhaijaan]

Kohli will go down as one of those batsmen who smashed the hype of many fast bowlers.

Wahab
Steyn (ODIs)
Faulkner
Rabada (ODIs)
Johnson
Mallinga

These are some of the bowlers whose prime ended with a Kohli phainty.

In some cases, surely the bowlers were getting old but Kohli just happened to be there to officially declare them unfit for international cricket.

Kind of what Zaheer Abbass and Miandad did to legendary Indian spin quartet in 1970s

 

[shah_1]

He’s unselectable after his awful joke tweet last year in which he called his flatmate his boyfriend.

Making fun of homosexuality in Australia is career-ending for a sportsman. We are not a conservative society, but Faulkner is from a deeply conservative background - his Dad toured South Africa at the height of Apartheid. So the son grew up thinking that certain things were ok which are not ok in this country.

He’s basically radioactive at state level, let alone national team level.

Before reading this post, I thought he was gay