Is Marcus Harris considered more of an incumbent than Joe Burns who played the last couple of Tests and made big runs? And before you say that was just against Sri Lanka – they went over to South Africa immediately after and beat them in both Tests.
So I don’t see how Burns getting a 180 v Sri Lanka in a 2-Test series is somehow worse than Harris managing a best score of 80 odd across 4 Tests v India.
Burns has 4 centuries in 16 Tests and has a higher Test average, and First Class average than Harris, so why is he not a shoo-in?

The confusing thing about this “good bloke” paradigm is that Wade had a pretty long run in the ODI and Test teams and noone ever brought up whether he was a good bloke then but he seemed popular.
If anything, the assumption at that time was that he must be a great bloke because his keeping was always quite mediocre and he wasn’t making many runs for a while, until Nevill finally got picked.

From memory, wasn’t Wade then recalled against South Africa in Adelaide (after the Hobart debacle) based largely on his character? Smith said he wanted certain types in the team… I think grit was mentioned….the implication being Nevill was too quiet and not aggressive enough (but I’m sure it didn’t help that he couldn’t convert his excellent FC batting record to the Test arena, and then his keeping dropped off too).

Finch probably knows Maxi’s game better being a fellow Victorian. For all his failures with the bat, and our diabolical form I do prefer Finch as ODI captain over Smith.
Smith consistently underused all his all rounders…lack of imagination? Lack of trust? Always was a conservative captain.
Finch is aggressive, which is required to win a WC especially if the team isn’t the best around…

He’s a bolter because not a single person had him in their Test squads at the start of the summer. He probably wasn’t even in anyones top 10 or even top 15 most likely batsmen to play a Test before the Shield season started. Having a big and admittedly brilliant innings (243*) this summer and catapulted into immediate Test contention after 8 FC games, despite serious health concerns, is definitely a bolter.

As for his SS average of 49 – a 243* will do that. 2 single figure score and it would drop to 42, still solid, but not outstanding. Big scores are great, but consistency is important too. Patterson and Head are very consistent though don’t convert enough 50s to 100s.

Didn’t Hilton Cartwright have an average of 50 after a dozen or so FC games? Its too small a sample size. So he got 2 sporadic Tests across 2 series, and barely gets a mention since. Do we want to do the same with Pucovski if he doesn’t make a 50+ score when he debuts?

I don’t think the selectors or anyone else thinks Peter Siddle is the 4th best pace bowler for Test cricket, but he’s a workhorse, a safe pick, and he doesn’t really need to be playing any other cricket to further develop his game.
If they pick, say, any of: Tremain (28 W this season), Boland (36 W this season), Jhye Richardson (27 W this season), Pattinson or Jason Behrendorff (recently returned from injury) etc in the squad then they miss out on actually playing cricket (even if it’s BBL) which is more valuable for them as bowlers in their mid 20s (well Patto is 28, but coming back from injury, and Boland is 29 and the leading wicket taker this Shield season, so was probably the most sensible squad pick)

There’s plenty of depth amongst our pace bowlers. I haven’t even mentioned Jackson Bird (27 W this season), Joe Mennie (26 W this season), or Chadd Sayers (now injured) who have all dominated Sheffield Shield cricket for several years, but may be ‘past it’ in the selectors’ eyes (all at least 30 years old).

Problem with keeping youngsters in the squad is that it can cost them actually playing First Class cricket and thus improving their game.
E.g. Ashton Agar has not played much FC cricket this summer because he was in the squad for the ODI series vs South Africa, and the Test squad in UAE, and didn’t even play any international games.
Taking someone on an overseas tour when there’s no domestic cricket is on is fine in theory, but it hasn’t done wonders for the careers of, say, Mitchell Swepson, who was in the Test touring squad in India, 2017.
I’m sure there are plenty of examples where youngsters being a squad member has actually cost them playing cricket. If there’s no realistic intent to play someone, then they shouldn’t tour unless they’re not missing any other cricket.

Smith must be stood down as captain and suspended from representing Australia for 12 months. All other players involved (Bancroft and the leadership group) a 3-6 month suspension.
This is worse than performance enhancing drugs in cricket (which have a minimal effect anyway).
Less bad than match fixing though.

Good top 10 but I’d have Gray or JP Kennedy for Ablett based on recent/expected fitness in 2018.
Also had to laugh out loud at Chris Scott showing tactical flair in using Dangerfield as a forward. Patty played as a full forward or inside 50 quite a lot for Adelaide and kicked 4+ goals on multiple occasions. Everyone knew when he went to Geelong he could probably kick 50 or 60 goals as a full time forward.
Wasn’t the first time he went to FF in 2017 due to an injury that prevented him playing midfield (against Hawthorn)? Yeah that’s really tactical.
Wonder if Chris Scott’s tactical genius will extend to using Ablett as a forward this year? Never seen Gary play forward have we?

Sam said Curran not Crane, but along the same lines Curran is only 22 so he could still improve a lot.

*Ronan. My god, how embarrassing.

It’s an interesting point there that personality clashes can potentially prevent the best players from being selected, and it could have dire consequences in the future.
Maxwell has barely put a foot wrong since his century in India (amongst the best centuries of any Australian batsmen in the past 5 years) yet somehow he’s not even in the Australian squad in any format right now. In fairness, Maxi didn’t do so well in the 3 ODIs he played in India in October, but nor did Smith for that matter, averaging 28 across all 5 games. Only Finch and Warner really stood up in that series with centuries. Maxi hasn’t made many runs in ODI cricket in the last 20 games as the selectors said, but looking at the game situations, he’s been coming in very late (last 5 overs), batting at 6 or so…he’s actually just done the team thing and slogged rather than preserve his wicket like Smith would do. His strike rate has been around 120 in that period so it’s not like he’s not hitting the ball.

I suppose they’ll give Maxi a consolation tour to NZ for the T20Is if he misses Test squad selection (yes, there’s another T20I series scheduling clash with a Test tour). And then they’ll criticise him for playing funky shots in hit-and-giggle.

Strongly agree with what you’ve said about the conditions and being able to use them. Unfortunately it would be premature to drop players who have just performed well like Mitch Marsh but I wouldn’t be surprised if he is exposed in these conditions.
One correction I would make is that the Aus A matches against South Africa that Rohan (not Roland) referred to were not a tour of South Africa. It was actually the South Africa A team playing in northern Australia (Townsville etc). Not sure if you were saying tour in that sense, but I think it’s an important point that he didn’t have success IN South Africa, but rather, against South African players in Australia.

I agree with most of that except I’m not convinced Tremain is consistently any quicker than Bird. I have looked for video highlights of Tremain specifically to check what speed he bowls at, and most clips that show the delivery speed are Tremain bowling in the BBL. He’s generally clocked at around 133kmph, so if he can get to 140+ he must do it pretty rarely. I’m not sure that 148k is an accurate reading as all the videos I saw showed deliveries in the low 130s.
Note that most bowlers bowl quicker in the BBL than ODIs and especially Tests because they only have to bowl 4 overs for the match.

I’d be convinced about Tremain if anyone could show me a video of Tremain being clocked over 140k, especially more than 1 ball.

I think Don must be thinking about Burns’ dropped catch last night, which was one of the toughest sky ball chances we’ve seen this summer. Burns generally has very safe hands, I agree. He didn’t always look comfortable at bat pad in the Test team, but why should he have looked comfortable, when he doesn’t field there for QLD.
Bancroft is excellent at bat-pad but that’s because he fields there regularly. He is probably a slightly better fielder than Burns overall, but it’s very marginal and you’d rather your opener average 38 than 25 across a 4 Test series.

“the selectors have been proven right on every occasion this summer.”

“Marsh was brought in to replace Peter Handscomb ahead of the third Test and while his bowling has been ordinary, that’s not the reason he was selected.”

Two issues: First, the selectors have not been proven right on every occasion this summer because a) they picked Bancroft who has not performed well enough and b) they picked Handscomb at the start of the series, after all. They were right to make the change in hindsight, but noone knows how Handscomb or Maxwell would have done on those roads in the last 3 Tests. Doubtfully as well, but possibly more than well enough.

Secondly, Mitch Marsh was actually selected for his bowling according to Smith and the selectors before the WACA Test. If he had not got back to bowling for WA, he would not have been picked.
How quickly we forget that Marsh was not even expected to out-bat Handscomb (who batted in tricky conditions in Adelaide) but offered a 5th bowling option on a WACA road. We give due praise to Mitch Marsh’s batting on 3 flat tracks, but he WAS picked as a 5th bowler / an allrounder and it has so happened he performed (very well) as a specialist batsman.

Yep I acknowledged the run out in the text of the article which gave him an average of 33 instead of 30. With the duck today, it slips to under 30 even if you disregard the run out in Adelaide. And only 25.6 if you don’t (we dont disregard other players blameless dismissals).
I’m not against the selectors being patient with a young batsman but they haven’t been for a few years (except with the Marsh bros I guess).

Not sure why some people (not necessarily you) are using age against Burns, who is only 28 – far from being too old. That could still be 7+ more years as a Test player if you look at guys like Rogers.

Agree there’s not enough patience generally. If the selectors are going to privately (or preferably publically) back Bancroft until the next Aus summer, I’d be fine with that as a change in philosophy. But it would be inconsistent with how they’ve treated Renshaw and Burns so I think it’s quite unlikely (and unfair on the latter two).
Look at England: Vince and Stoneman have shown a bit, without starring, and they’ll probs both play the Tests vs NZ after this series. Their selectors will probably cop criticism for that same patience if that’s the way they go. Both are inexperienced but look talented enough.

I’d suggest anything over 80 runs (across 2 digs) at the SCG would guarantee Bancroft the first 2 Tests in SA. Otherwise he will need a century in the Shield or tour game. I’m hoping he does it but Burns is the best replacement if he doesn’t.

Then if Bancroft doesn’t make a 50 in 4 innings over there then we will need to change it up, especially if we are down in the series (which we would be if the opening partnership isn’t working).

If 33 is convincing – and I do acknowledge its not bad, but two pitches have been roads remember – then how do you describe Renshaw’s average of 36 and Burns’ 38?

Why are you so sure we would we take Agar to South Africa? Do you personally think we need him or just that the selectors will pick him?
As I wrote, we didn’t take a 2nd spinner in 2014 and Lyon’s spot is much more secure now. No prospect of playing two spinners in the XI and Lyon isn’t injury prone. If Lyon does get injured we can fly over a replacement from someone actually playing Shield cricket (Agar is first in line clearly) rather than sitting on the bench and bowling in the nets. Conditons won’t require much acclimatisation, so bowling in Shield matches will be more valuable to Agar than touring.

Correction it was in his first 9 Tests and he was 26 not 24. But it’s still 4.5 years ago and not relevant at all to the South Africa tour, nor his lack of runs in this Ashes series – which have not been problems against spin.

You mean in his first 6 Tests as a 24 year old? I didn’t specifically mention the Ashes matches he played in England as a very junior player, but I think they’re even less relevant than, say, Mitch Marsh’s technical problems in the last 2 or 3 years which have lead to a Test average of 27 after 23 Tests. Marsh has improved, so has Khawaja.

Thanks, I think. Not sure what you mean by “just away” but don’t think you’re being sarcastic with the compliment.

Most of our players of the past few years are the same – much better at home than away.
Don’t forget that Warner had a poor overseas record aside from 1 outstanding series in South Africa, up until his very successful tour against Bangladesh, which was more than 60 Tests into his career, as a 30 year old.

Khawaja had only played 15 career Tests at the start of the Sri Lanka tour in 2016, and hadn’t played First Class cricket in the subcontinent for many years.
Warner toured India early in his career (15 Tests into it without being dropped) and made 195 runs at 24.37. After the India tour (Mickey Arthur debacle), Warner played 3 Ashes Tests and made 138 at just 23.
This is simply the nature of overseas tours early in most young Test batsmen’s career.

Khawaja’s first 6 Tests were 5.5 years before the Sri Lanka tour, (then he played another 3 Tests two years later) so for at least his first 6 Tests he was a young (24-year old) player who was brought in because we had so little batting talent in the Sheffield Shield, and were desperate for a number 3 batsman.
Six of his first 9 Tests were away from Australia too, compared to Warner who played his first 6 Tests at home which enabled him to establish his spot in the side, then toured the West Indies for 3 Tests before another 6 home Tests (12 of his first 15 at home, all in a 14 month period).

Come November 2015, Khawaja was more mature and had been dominating the Shield for a few seasons. He also scored 140 in New Zealand that summer – which is ‘away’ by the way and much closer to South African conditions than India or Sri Lanka is.
He’ll be good this tour against South Africa – in fact he’s played 1 Test there before when he was 24 and made 65 in the second innings – top scored the innings when we had Ponting, Clarke, Hussey etc, up against Steyn, Morkel, Philander etc

” the 29 not out under intense pressure was by far the most important dig he’s played for his country – cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Can Glenn Maxwell do that?”

Well he made 104 off 185 (SR 56.21) when he came in at 4/140 in India in a live match (series was 1-1 at the time).
Context and conditions considered, this is a considerably more meritorious innings than either of Mitch Marsh’s knocks (whilst both of them were very good in different ways).

Maxwell’s century was also batting with Steve Smith who seems to be the common success factor for good partnerships (both M. Marsh’s 181 and 29 not out).

With Maxwell’s form and improved approach, I have almost no doubt that he’d have made as many runs as Mitch Marsh has this series across the 3 Tests, but the selectors went with Marsh for bowling reasons (not batting reasons) in Perth, and it paid immediate dividends.
I think Maxwell needs to be be in the XI against South Africa, whether that involves elevating S. Marsh or Khawaja to open, to bring about a middle order vacancy, I’m not sure.