SYDNEY (Reuters) – The debate over the vacant slot at the top of the Australia batting order continues to captivate the nation’s sports media a month before the opening clash in a blockbuster five-test series against India.
Selection debates have been in short supply in Australia in recent years and while the bowling attack still all but picks itself, a season-ending injury to all-rounder Cameron Green has triggered an outpouring of opinion around the batting.
With Green out of the picture and Steve Smith already confirmed to be moving back down the order to replace him at number four, there is no consensus on who should come into the line-up and open with Usman Khawaja.
Khawaja’s erstwhile opening partner David Warner even threw his battered baggy green hat into the ring his week, the 37-year-old offering to come out of his nine-month retirement and ride to his nation’s rescue.
Captain Pat Cummins made it clear that the offer would not be taken up and pundits were soon back to parsing the numbers from the oft-ignored domestic Sheffield Shield competition to decide whose red-ball statistics demanded inclusion.
Unfortunately, the handful of experienced contenders have not exactly been battering down the door with a torrent of runs for their states.
Cameron Bancroft and Marcus Harris have been the most consistent openers at state level in recent years but both have previously been tried out at test level before being discarded.
Matt Renshaw played 10 tests as an opener in 2016-17 but his last opportunity, replacing the injured Green down the order early last year, ended with him being dropped again.
With the experienced contenders stumbling, many have been calling on the selectors to give youth a chance and bring in a fresh face.
Those calls have mainly centred on shaggy-haired New South Wales teenager Sam Konstas, who caught the eye with twin centuries against South Australia but has only six first class matches to his name.
AUSTRALIA “A” AUDITION
Konstas will get his chance to audition alongside Bancroft and Harris when an Australia ‘A’ side captained by Nathan McSweeney take on their Indian counterparts in Mackay and Melbourne from late October.
Queenslander McSweeney is another relative youngster who has been mentioned in despatches as a potential top order test batsman, although his opportunity is unlikely to come as an opener.
The 25-year-old could still get a chance if the selectors revert to the formula for test selection they used last season, namely to put the best batsmen in the country on the team sheet and sort out which order they play in afterwards.
That still leaves them to decide who would partner Khawaja, with Marnus Labuschagne the latest to be touted for an elevation up the order following similar pitches for Travis Head and Mitch Marsh.
There is plenty of time for the guesswork to continue before the first test starts at Perth Oval on Nov. 22 but Cummins, who has input into team selection, suggested that much of the commentary has been wide of the mark.
“I just love seeing it all play out,” he told an episode of the Grade Cricketer podcast released on Thursday.
“I woke up the other day and read in the paper that Trav Head was firming as favourite to open the batting and thought ‘that’s the first time I’ve ever heard of that’. It’s just hilarious.”
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Peter Rutherford)
