Hussey feels for Simon Katich

Australian batsman Michael Hussey says he is desperately disappointed for axed team-mate Simon Katich, who was not offered a new Cricket Australia contract on Tuesday.

While 36-year-old Hussey was himself glad to have made the list of 25 contracted players, he said he felt for the Katich, whose Ashes summer finished in Adelaide last year when he suffered a particularly untimely Achilles injury.

Speaking from Adelaide, Australian National Selection Panel (NSP) chairman Andrew Hilditch said selectors were aiming to bring youth into the side.

Hilditch would not comment specifically on who would open during the upcoming tour to Sri Lanka but it appears either Phillip Hughes or Shaun Marsh are the preferred options to partner Shane Watson at the top of the order.

Thirty-five-year-old Katich may have some reason to feel aggrieved, considering he had piled on 1539 runs at 46.64 since and including the Ashes in 2009, while Hughes has tallied up 297 at 22.84 during this same period, although from more limited opportunities.

Speaking from Perth, Hussey certainly felt for him, describing Katich's axing as a 'pretty tough call'.

"I'm desperately disappointed for Kato," Hussey said.

"His contribution to the Test team in the last two or three years has been enormous, so when I did hear that I was disappointed for him.

"His body has been in good shape in the last few years and obviously he's been performing well so it's a pretty tough call to make.

"I guess they've shown they want to go in a new direction. It's definitely a tough call on Kato. His performances have been fantastic and I think he was in the International Test team of the year last year."

"I know he'll be hurting. It was tough to take."

Hilditch agreed, saying that making the call to Katich had been a particularly difficult one.

"He was really devastated as you would imagine," Hilditch said.

"They're not easy phone calls for the player or for anybody but the reality is we've got a bigger role and that is to hopefully get it right for the future of Australian cricket.

"But he was really upset."

"Since he went out of the Australian side, then he came back in, fought his way back through weight of runs, he's been a really fantastic player for us and he's been extremely successful."

"So it was a big decision, obviously really hard on Simon, but in our view, the opening partnership is critical, it takes time to get a good opening partnership and we now think the time is right to make sure we got the right opening partnership come the Ashes (in 2013)." 

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