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Tour ending injuries to Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Marsh has given the national selectors the perfect chance to correct original wrongs.
Starc is a loss, no doubt about that. His bowling and late order batting have been one of the tour’s highlights.
But the emergence of Pat Cummins from over-protective cotton wool as Starc’s replacement will give the Indian batsmen a right royal hurry up in the remaining series deciding two Tests at Ranchi and Dharamsaia.
Both are new Test venues, described by locals as “slow and low”
That won’t bother Cummins, who is just off his first Sheffield Shield game for NSW after almost six years to the day since his debut.
In that game Cummins celebrated his return to four-day cricket with 4-57 off 18, and 4-47 off 18 against South Australia at the SCG where he let it rip.
So Cummins will be an automatic Starc replacement for Thursday’s third Test with the series locked at 1-1, with the added bonus he is no mug with the bat.
But here’s the chance for the selectors to correct the original wrongs.
Shaun Marsh should never have replaced Usman Khawaja for the first two Tests, The Australian team wasn’t “broke” after winning four Tests on the trot, so it didn’t need “fixing”.
Khawaja was an important cog in that winning machinery.
Matthew Wade should never have been first-choice keeper with his inferior glovework, while Mitchell Marsh and Glenn Maxwell had done nothing in the Sheffield Shield to warrant selection.
Peter Nevill was the obvious keeper, but was axed because his didn’t chirp enough from behind the stumps, and couldn’t “bat”.
Since selection chairman Trevor Hohns made that batting comment, Nevill has score two centuries back to back for NSW in the Sheffield Shield with 118 against the Vics at the MCG, and 143* against Queensland at the SCG.
While Nevill isn’t in India, Peter Handscomb is, and a ready-made replacement keeper for the final two Tests.
All-rounder Marcus Stoinis should have been in the original touring party, but that wrong has been corrected as the recent replacement for Mitchell Marsh.
Now the baggy green team for Ranchi is taking shape.
Shaun Marsh is a casualty after digs of 16 and a duck at Pune, followed by 66 and nine at the Bangalore debacle.
Marsh was dropped at 14 in his 66, so that dig loomed larger than it was worth in true terms.
That being the case the first of two lineups available to the selectors reads:
1 – David Warner (vc), overdue for runs.
2 – Matt Renshaw.
3 – Usman Khawaja.
4 – Steve Smith (c).
5 – Peter Handscomb.
6 – Marcus Stoinis.
7 – Pat Cummins.
8 – Steve O’Keefe.
9 – Nathan Lyon.
10 – Josh Hazlewood.
11 – Jackson Bird.
An alternative lineup would be Mitchell Swepson to make his Test debut at the expense of Jackson Bird.
That would give Steve Smith three pacemen in Cummins, Hazlewood, and Stoinis, with three very different spinners on a slow low track – offie Lyon, left arm orthodox O’Keefe, and loopy leggie Swepson.
There’s little doubt Swepson is in India after glowing support from the world’s greatest leggie Shane Warne, so it’s time that support was made a reality.
I have full confidence in either of those lineups to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, not like former captain Michael Clarke who has adopted the “Australian team won’t ever be as good as it was under my leadership” attitude as a television commentator.
Continually criticising Smith’s bowling changes and field placings has become a very swift reach for the remote silence.
One thing for sure, the current Australian team is a lot happier and closer under Steve Smith’s captaincy than it ever was under Clarke.