The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Australia's under-24 Test XI makes the future look bright

1st January, 2015
Advertisement
Tasmania's Jordan Silk. (AAP image/Rob Blakers)
Expert
1st January, 2015
70
1601 Reads

Australia’s Test side is on the cusp of massive generational change, with as many as seven regular players likely to be gone within two years. Which young players are in line to replace these veterans?

In considering this hypothetical question I decided to answer it by selecting an Australian youth Test team made up only of players aged 24 or younger. This is the team I would select right now in such a hypothetical situation.

What do you think of the side I selected Roarers? What would your team look like?

• Jordan Silk (22 years old)
• Ryan Carters (24)
• Chris Lynn (24)
• Peter Handscomb (23)
• Mitch Marsh (vc) (23)
• Sam Whiteman (22)
• James Faulkner (c) (24)
• Ashton Agar (21)
• Mitchell Starc (24)
• James Pattinson (24)
• Jason Behrendorff (24)
• Close calls: Josh Hazlewood (23), Pat Cummins (21), Gurinder Sandhu (21), Travis Head (20), Nic Maddinson (23), Cameron Bancroft (22)

Silk and Carters are my favoured openers, although 22-year-old West Australian Bancroft is a strong contender. Like Carters, he is also a wicketkeeper but has given up the gloves to concentrate on his batting.

The results have been stunning so far, with Bancroft dominating in the Shield this season.

Carters has a similar story. After switching from Victoria to the Blues last summer and shedding the gloves to become an opening batsman, Carters had an astounding 2013-14 season, creaming 861 Shield runs at 54, including three centuries.

Since making a rousing start to his first-class career two years ago, Silk’s form has been indifferent. But his game looks perfectly suited to Test cricket, which demands the kind of patience and circumspection that are hallmarks of his play.

Advertisement

With four centuries inside his first 11 first-class games he has displayed a proven ability to make match-winning scores. Significantly, two of those hundreds came against Queensland attacks led by one of the world’s best bowlers Ryan Harris.

Harris’ Bulls teammate Chris Lynn is the man for the job a three. Although he is a middle order batsman, for the purposes of this exercise he will bat at first drop. Lynn was pressing hard for Test selection until a serious shoulder injury ruled him out of a large chunk of this summer.

Lynn also was on the fast track to the Test side in 2011 when he was named in the Australia A squad to tour Zimbabwe after a scintillating start to his Shield career, which included a ton in just his second match.

Then he was left crestfallen when a finger injury forced him to withdraw from what would have been his first senior international tour.

A versatile and at times destructive strokemaker, Lynn’s first-class average of 43 has him poised to earn a baggy green in the near future. Batting behind him at four in my team is yet another wicketkeeper-turned-batsman in Peter Handscomb.

Matthew Wade’s control of the gloves for Victoria has forced Handscomb to focus on his efforts with the blade. It could turn out to be the making of him as a first-class player. The free-flowing middle order player has smashed attacks in the Shield this season.

At five is a man who has already cracked Test ranks in Mitch Marsh. Despite modest first-class batting figures he has shown during his brief Test career that he has an enormous future at the highest level.

Advertisement

His Warriors teammate Sam Whiteman could be alongside him in the Test team before too long. A wonderfully gifted left hand batsman and neat keeper, Whiteman is a leading contender to replace veteran Brad Haddin, who will likely retire or be moved on in the next 12 months.

At seven I would select the combative James Faulkner. While he is a bowling all-rounder, Tasmania have been batting him in the top six the past two Shield seasons and he has the temperament, technique and talent to push his first-class batting average well above its current mark of 32.

This side would have a phenomenally strong tail, with Agar, Starc and Pattinson all boasting Test batting averages of 30-plus, albeit from small sample sizes.

Agar’s batting may have stolen the show on his Test debut but he is an immensely talented finger spinner who uses his height and overspin to get steep bounce.

Starc and Pattinson pick themselves in the side. If they can stay fit they have the skill to become one of Australia’s best-ever new ball combinations.

The final bowling spot was the most difficult selection in this team. Australia have a wealth of prolific young pacemen.

Cummins has such ability he could turn out to be a better Test player than anyone else mentioned in this story. But, for now, he needs to stay healthy and then demonstrate he can be a consistently potent first-class bowler.

Advertisement

Behrendorff has done exactly that and deserves his place. Since the start of last summer he has been arguably the most consistently effective quick in the Sheffield Shield, alongside South Australian swing merchant Chadd Sayers.

The fact that none of Cummins, Hazlewood or Sandhu can make this side is an indication of the extraordinary depth in pace Australia possess.

close