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Now that Cameron Green is out for the summer and Steve Smith is easing back down the batting order, both a place and a vacancy have arisen in the Australian Test team, but with room only for one inclusion.
Part of the new world order? From left: Sam Konstas, Mitchell Marsh and Aaron Hardie.Credit: Artwork: Marija Ercegovac. Photos: Getty Images
For the selectors, this is a conundrum. Do they bring in a specialist opener, the next best all-rounder, the next best batter, or the next best young batter?
All of Australia’s standing Test team are 30 or above, except Green. Thirty is not old for a cricketer. For many, it’s prime time. But a whole team of 30-somethings quickly becomes a team of 30-plenties. There needs to be another layer, lest stability become stagnancy, then rot.
Cameron Green bowling in the UK in September.Credit: Getty Images
This is the selectors’ brief – to pick the best team for the occasion while keeping an eye out for ways to renew it at the same time. Australia’s two great tumbles down the rankings in the past 40 years have followed the mass retirements of great and long-established players.
It’s hard to avoid. A cricket team is small and all the places in it are specialised, so it’s not as simple as injecting a big dose of youth for its own sake, as you might in a football team. It’s not as if you can start a kid on the bench.
Really, the time to update was last summer, against notionally inferior New Zealand and the West Indies. Then the Windies knocked off the full-strength Australian team in Brisbane anyway, and a bell tolled. Now it’s India, for whom Australia no longer holds fears; they’ve gone home with the spoils from their two previous visits here.
It’s an article of faith in Australian cricket always to play an all-rounder. It’s how and why Green got into the team in the first place. It used to be said that four bowlers won’t do what three can’t. Nowadays, it’s more that five are needed so four don’t get overstretched. Since wicketkeepers now are expected to make good runs, bowling has become the key to the all-rounder’s worth.
An all-rounder must be capable not only of bowling, but in long, tight stints. A less-remembered feature of Ben Stokes at Headingley in 2019 was his unbroken 15-over spell to play England back into the game the day before his mind-numbing century to win it. He was two for the price of one.
Mitch Marsh is not ready for that sort of heavy-duty load, so Australia can either bumble through with him for now or bring in late-blooming Tasmanian Beau Webster or Green’s WA contemporary, Aaron Hardie. Webster is 30, Hardie 25.
The India series begins in Perth, with a week’s break before the second Test under the Adelaide Oval lights. That sequence might encourage the selectors to think they could get away with mocking up a fifth bowler out of Marsh, Travis Head, and Marnus Labuschagne before introducing Webster or Hardie later in the series if needed.
Whatever happens, an opener must be installed. Either Marsh or Head could be promoted. Both have excelled there in short-form cricket, and their naturally attacking styles would work with the timeless Usman Khawaja as foil. But would the selectors rob middle-order Peter to pay new-ball Paul? It’s doubtful.
The opening specialist candidates include usual suspects Marcus Harris and Cam Bancroft, both 30-somethings. We know what they can do and what they have and haven’t got.
Mitch Marsh bowling for Australia.Credit: Getty Images
Then there is the tyro Sam Konstas. If he’s not familiar to you, don’t worry: he’s new to most, but coming fast. He has a happy knack for making hundreds. Some blokes can bat, but can’t make runs. Konstas makes big scores.
When Lyon played his first Test, Konstas hadn’t yet started school. He’s only 19 now.
But that should be no impediment. Australia used always to turn to youth. Neil Harvey toured England at 19. Ian Craig was picked for Australia at 17 and was made captain at 22. More recently, Craig McDermott debuted at 18, and Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting at 20. Not all worked out immediately, but had ample time for second chances. The point is Australia dared in a way that has gone out of fashion. Green is the latter-day exception.
South Australian No.3 Nathan McSweeney will have done his prospects no harm with his final-day century to save South Australia in the same match as Konstas made twin tons. At 25, McSweeney fits the bill. If he’s not first cab off the rank, he might be second.
Australia still top the Test rankings. Counter-intuitive as it seems, it’s the right time to begin modernising the team when the opportunity presents. By the time the slide begins, it will be too late.
