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Jackson Bird is too similar in style to Josh Hazlewood to replace the injured Mitchell Starc in Australia’s line-up for the third Test.
Starc was yesterday ruled out of the rest of the four-Test series, which is deadlocked at 1-1, due to a stress fracture in his foot.
While Bird has been a fine performer for Australia across his eight Tests, Australia’s attack would benefit from having a second specialist quick who offers something different to Hazlewood.
Bird and Hazlewood are the same height, bowl the same line and length and seek to do the same thing – get the ball to wobble a little through the air and off the seam.
The great strength of Starc and Hazlewood, who have formed one of the greatest new ball partnerships in Australia’s Test history, is the way in which their styles contrast and complement one other.
While Hazlewood nags away on an in-between length on or just outside off stump, Starc tends to be either full and targeting the stumps or aiming at the batsman’s chest or helmet with nasty short balls.
With Bird partnering Hazlewood I think Australia would lack variety. This would be particularly so if they replace injured all-rounder Mitch Marsh with Marcus Stoinis, giving Australia a third right arm paceman who bowls in the mid-130kmh range.
Starc should be replaced with a strike bowler who has an approach which is distinctly different to that of Hazlewood. The four men who best fit that bill are express quicks James Pattinson and Pat Cummins, wizardly swing bowler Chadd Sayers and in-from left armer Jason Behrendorff.
Unfortunately, three of those four men – Pattinson, Cummins and Behrendorff – have only very recently returned from injury layoff. But Australia will not fight their way to a massive upset in this series with safe selections.
Sayers has been the most consistently outstanding paceman in the Shield for the past four years and has hoarded 50 wickets at 18 this season. The short right armer is not quick – he bowls in the 125-130kmh range – but he has an astounding ability to swing the new and old ball in both directions. He’s also a master on unresponsive pitches, with his home deck Adelaide having been the flattest in the country over the course of his career.
Sayers and Behrendorff are the two best bowlers yet to play Tests for Australia. The latter has dominated since he returned from a fractured leg, snaring 17 wickets in two games to give him incredible season figures of 31 wickets at 16.
Pattinson, meanwhile, owns a brilliant Test record of 70 wickets at 26. The intimidating quick has played three Shield matches in his comeback and has been in hot form.
Pattinson has taken 13 wickets at 20, including a match-turning bag of 4-48 against WA yesterday, after also making 57 with the bat.
Then there’s Cummins, who yesterday completed a phenomenal first Shield game in six years, grabbing 8-104 and smacking 42 against South Australia.
Those two impressive knocks by Pattinson and Cummins highlight another major advantage that they hold over Bird – both are far more gifted with the blade. This is significant because Starc has been Australia’s third highest runscorer in this series, with 118 runs at 29.
By replacing him with Bird, Australia would have three players who are genuine number 11 batsmen – Bird, Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon – leaving them with a horribly long tail. Given Australia are also getting next to no runs out of numbers six and seven, such a weak tail would leave their batting line-up extremely vulnerable.
Cummins and Pattinson both have been in fine fettle with the blade. Pattinson was dominating with the bat in Victorian grade cricket this summer before returning to the Shield and averaging 25 across his five innings. Cummins, meanwhile, averages 31 with the bat in his brief first-class career, was a batting star in the recent Big Bash League, and batted well for Australia in their last ODI series.
While I know many Roarers hate the idea of factoring in batting ability when selecting Test bowlers, in this scenario it simply cannot be ignored. Of course, the big advantage that Bird has over his rivals is that he’s now been training in Asian conditions for more than a month, first in Dubai and now in India.
Bird also bowled tidily in Australia’s only warm-up match in India, taking 2-60 from 20 overs against India A. It would be a tough call to overlook him now in favour of Pattinson, Cummins, Sayers or Behrendorff. But my pick would be Pattinson.
A ferocious competitor who thrives under pressure, he has the ability to step straight into the cauldron of this blockbuster series and have an immediate impact.
Similar to Starc, Pattinson can take dead pitches out of the equation with his searing pace, full length and swing. One of the finest exponents of reverse swing in Australia, he was by far Australia’s best bowler on their last Test tour of India.
In that series he comprehensively outbowled fellow quicks Starc, Peter Siddle and Mitchell Johnson, taking nine wickets at 27 before getting injured. It’s time to unleash Patto once more.