Victoria’s Cameron White has taken a veiled dig at national selectors for having all but settled on the side for the first Ashes Test before the Sheffield Shield season.
White, fresh off being named the player of the series in the one-day domestic competition, carried that form into the four-day format with a near-faultless 83 against Western Australia at the MCG on Wednesday.
It helped the Bushrangers to 312, with WA 0-18 in reply at stumps on day one.
But asked if he harboured any hope of pushing his way into Ashes calculations, White said based on the public statements of national selector John Inverarity, there was no chance.
“No. It sounds like the team’s already picked anyway, so it’s pretty hard to get a game when it’s already picked,” White told reporters.
Inverarity said on Tuesday selectors’ minds were already “well made up”.
“We know who is going to be in the Test team. It’s probably the last one or two places, that’s all,” he said.
White questioned that stance.
“It just seems a little strange when there’s three Shield games to go (before the first Test) that they would have it picked now, but that’s the selectors’ choice.”.
White’s elegant and powerful innings helped the home side to a strong position at 4-254 during the final session.
It took a fine delivery from tall paceman Michael Hogan to remove him, Hogan extracting some movement from the pitch, causing White to feather a catch behind, in what was his first false stroke.
His fall sparked a collapse of 6-54 to end the innings and swing the game back slightly WA’s way.
Left-arm paceman Jason Behrendorff, who dismissed openers Rob Quiney and Chris Rogers, also cleaned up the last two wickets to claim 4-62.
Left-arm spinner Ashton Agar took 2-93, but copped some punishment from White and David Hussey (44).
But the Warriors were pleased with their late fightback.
“Once you get in on that sort of wicket it’s quite hard to get out and we got some crucial wickets at the right times and we certainly got ourselves back in the game,” Behrendorff said.
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