Our downright thrashing in India has become even more likely with the enforced absence of Usman Khawaja, Mitchell Johnson and the one effective bowler we have had so far in James Pattinson.
Shane Watson, who had been stood down for disciplinary reasons, has left the India tour for the birth of his kid and is apparently weighing up his cricketing future.
Anyway I decided to turn my head to some more. Unconventional thinking about our current top six batsmen and who should be out in or out of the Australian line-up and how we should look at Ashes time.
I came up with this
Out: Watson, Moises Henriques
In: Khawaja and ?
Given our complete lack of viable options, I was, as I said drawn to some unconventional thinking.
Given the weakness of the Sheffield Shield and the dominance of County Cricket and South Africa’s scene, I swiftly realised that perhaps Watson might have to be picked due to the sheer unavailability of replacement options.
I then started looking at England county cricket and knowing the conditions over there looking at how our batsmen would suit.
Suddenly a name hit me. Ladies and gents would you believe that plying his trade in the County cricket scene, averaging in the region of 60 for the past five consecutive years and with a first class average of 49 would be eligible to play for Australia?
Would you further believe that he has played 11 Tests for Australia averaging 49 from 19 innings, with three centuries and six fifties in out of them?
I bring to you perhaps the most unconventional and potentially brilliant selection in recent history, that of Phil Jacues for the 2013 Ashes series.
Although he retired from the Australian first class scene to continue playing for England. He never actually ruled himself out of Test cricket, and given his ability and experience in England could perhaps be a far better option for the series, much more so than David Hussey in my mind.
The reason I’m bringing this issue to the fore is that even though the Shield has dropped in standard, we still feel inclined to use it as our measuring stick for international selection.
On the other hand, county cricket has risen in quality and attracted some brilliant players from Australia to play over there. We never really considered to take its form into account, with the exception of Starc this year when everyone used it to push his claims.
But if we did use it we could see a marked improvement in the Australian side.
My Ashes XI
David Warner
Phil Jacques
Ed Cowan
Usman Khawaja
Michael Clarke
Phil Hughes
Matt Wade
James Pattinson
Mitch Starc
Ben Hilfenhaus
Nathan Lyon
To me that looks much better than our last India team which featured Glenn Maxwell, Xavier Doherty, Henriques and Watson (to a lesser extent) who all shouldn’t be in the Australian Test team at the present time.
Sadly Mark Cosgrove didn’t make the cut. I’ve always thought he had potential but he’s let himself down in the sense that he could’ve been an international standard player, he’s just lacked the discipline for it.
So thats my XI for England. On the plane would be:
Joe Burns
Callum Ferguson
Brad Haddin
Jackson Bird
Peter Siddle
Shane Watson/Andrew Macdonald
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