Cooper among five axed as Redbacks look to rebuild

South Australia have moved quickly to overhaul their playing stocks after a winless summer, with experienced batter Tom Cooper among five players today cut from the Redbacks contract list.

Cooper, who scored more than 8,500 runs for SA in first-class and one-day cricket and captained the State in the Marsh Sheffield Shield, joins fellow veterans Callum Ferguson and Chadd Sayers in retirement as SA look to revive their fortunes under recently appointed coach Jason Gillespie.

In addition to today culling the 34-year-old former Australia under-19 representative, the Redbacks confirmed fellow batters Will Bosisto, Conor McInerney and Brad Davis along with seamer Luke Robins would not be offered new contracts for 2021-22.

The changes were announced to the playing group at last week's end-of-season awards function in Adelaide and formalised today ahead of this week's release of Cricket Australia's central men's contract list which will enable states to finalise their playing stocks over coming months.

Having finished bottom of the Sheffield Shield ladder each of the three previous seasons, the SA Cricket Association last year commissioned a review of its men's program with the explicit aim of addressing the Redbacks' recent inability to win trophies.

That examination, conducted by former Test great Michael Hussey, recommended SA target highly credentialled fringe and under-age players from interstate and that need has become even more urgent after the Redbacks finished at the foot of the Shield and Marsh One-Day Cup ladders this season.

Gillespie did not take up his appointment until after the 2020-21 season had begun, which meant he had no input into the formation of SA’s squad for the past summer.

It is understood SA officials have been in talks with several players from rival states, with commentators at a recent Shield match in Perth citing WA left-handed batter Jake Carder – who has played just 11 first-class matches in five years – as a potential target for the Redbacks.

With seven names gone from their 2020-21 player list and Australia representatives Travis Head, Alex Carey and Kane Richardson expected to retain their CA contracts, Gillespie and SA high performance manager Tim Nielsen have scope for some aggressive recruiting.

"We felt that these difficult decisions had to be made with a focus on improved results going forward," Gillespie said.

"This announcement will afford us the capacity to take a renewed approach to recruiting this off-season, as we hunt positive results in the coming years.

"We thank Tom, Will, Brad, Conor and Luke for their fine efforts on and off the pitch and wish them well for the future.

"Tom, Callum and Chadd have all made top-class contributions to this State, and again we thank them for their efforts over a long period of time.

"It is now time to for us to assemble a rejuvenated list and continue to shape Australian cricketers."

The revamp represents the loss of more than 300 matches of Shield experience, led by Ferguson (124 matches), Cooper (86), Sayers (71), McInerney (14) and Bosisto, Robins and Davis (each five).

With the exception of Robins whose most recent Shield appearance was in 2019-20, all of the players exiting the Redbacks featured in the first XI during the past summer.

Ferguson announced his retirement prior to the mid-season break, Sayers did likewise on the eve of SA's final Shield match against Victoria in Melbourne while Bosisto, Davis, McInerney and Cooper were all tried in the Redbacks top-order during the summer but discarded as the season progressed.

It is understood Bosisto, who relocated to Adelaide from Perth in 2019 after being de-listed by WA and with no guarantee of earning a Redbacks' contract, is keen to pursue his first-class cricket aspirations and is weighing up his next move.

In accepting a bulk of SA's end-of-season awards at last week's event having finished the summer as second-highest runs scorer in the Shield and One Day Cup competitions, Head spoke of his deep dislike of losing having led the Redbacks to two (unsuccessful) grand final appearances in each competition from 2015-17.

And upon receiving the Neil Dansie Medal as SA's outstanding men's cricketer, Head declared how much "he loves playing for this state" before being overcome with emotion and abandoning his speech.

In 2020-21, SA became the first men's team since Tasmania in 1985-86 to finish a season without a win in either the Shield or domestic one-day competitions.

However, the Redbacks did finish the summer as the highest-scoring team in the Marsh One-Day Cup and second-highest in the Shield (behind WA) across the competitions' preliminary rounds.

They also were without the services of seam bowler Joe Mennie who was unavailable due to personal reasons, but has returned to Adelaide and was present at last week's awards ceremony with an expectation the 32-year-old will turn out for the Redbacks in 2021-22.