Surprising Stoinis selection could lead to Test success

The timing of Marcus Stoinis’ Test call-up to India may be curious, but the Victorian all-rounder does have the ability to succeed at Test level.

Although I rate Stoinis highly as a Test prospect, it came as a shock when he was selected to replace the injured Mitch Marsh given he has endured a rotten summer at domestic level.

The 27-year-old is having the worst Sheffield Shield season of his career, with just 197 runs at 18 from seven matches to go with eight wickets at 44.

Stoinis is very fortunate to have received the national call-up ahead of fellow batting all-rounders Hilton Cartwright from Western Australia and Moises Henriques from New South Wales.

While Stoinis is mired in a form trough, Henriques has struck the richest vein of his career. The 30-year-old NSW skipper has clattered 659 runs at 66 this year, including a monster knock of 265, but has bowled himself sparingly, claiming only three wickets at 62 from eight matches.

It is possible that Henriques’ lack of bowling this season may have hurt his chances of Test selection, with interim national selection chairman Trevor Hohns saying it was Stoinis’ bowling that got him over the line.

“When we looked at the various options we had to replace Mitch there were two or three people that came to mind of course,” Hohns told the media.

“Marcus was one, Moises was another (and) another young fella by the name of Jack Wildermuth was considered as well, he’s had a terrific season too.”

The name strangely missing there was Cartwright, who made his Test debut in Australia’s last match before heading to India. The 25-year-old Sandgroper was unfortunate to miss out on the initial squad for India after making a solid 37 in his only Test innings and bowling just four overs.

After a breakout Shield campaign last summer, Cartwright has again been in fine form for WA, with 621 runs at 41, including one ton and four 50s. Cartwright’s bowling is not as incisive as that of Marsh or Stoinis, both of whom can reach 140 km/h, and that appears to have hindered him.

Stoinis is surprisingly sharp with the ball considering he began his professional career as a specialist opening batsman and only began bowling in domestic cricket four years ago.

In the recent ODI series against New Zealand, Stoinis was consistently in the mid-130 km/h range and pushed as high as 141 km/h. In the first match of that series, he produced an astonishing performance which clearly helped earn him his Test selection despite his poor Shield form.

Stoinis was Australia’s best bowler with 3-49 from ten overs, including the massive wickets of Kiwi superstars Kane Williamson and Martin Guptill. Then he rescued Australia from 6-67 and almost hauled them to an impossible win with a jaw-dropping knock of 146 from 117 balls, including 11 sixes.

Hohns said the selectors had been swayed by this innings, in which Stoinis had showcased an “ability to perform under extreme pressure”. He also suggested Stoinis had been picked because his batting would be suited to Indian conditions. Stoinis is known in domestic circles as being an assertive and competent player of spin.

After spending time around Stoinis during last year’s Australia A matches, former Australian batsman David Hussey described the all-rounder as “very good” against slow bowling. Against India A on a Chennai dustbowl 18 months ago, Stoinis ground out 77 from 179 balls against a star-studded India A attack boasting Umesh Yadav, Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha and Abhimanyu Mithun, who between them have more than 250 Test wickets.

While Stoinis has laboured in the Shield this summer it must be said that until then he had experienced a long spike in form. Over the previous two years, Stoinis had blossomed as a batsman, making 1700 runs at 45 in first-class cricket. He also bowled quite well for Australia A in his seven first-class matches in that period, taking nine wickets at 35.

The key difference between Stoinis and Marsh is the former is a specialist batsman who just happens to bowl, rather than a bits-and-pieces player. Stoinis has either opened or batted at first drop throughout his Shield career – unlike Marsh, who has batted at five or six.

Against spin, Stoinis is nimble and confident. Of course, it is one thing to execute such plans on true Australian pitches – it’s another challenge altogether to flourish against India’s gun spinners on dry decks – yet Stoinis could well find himself vaulted straight into the starting line-up for the third Test at Ranchi.

My instinct is that the number six spot will be a shootout between him and specialist batsman Usman Khawaja. Glenn Maxwell appears to be completely on the outer with coach Darren Lehmann and captain Steve Smith. Both of those men have publicly criticised Maxwell in recent times, and Smith has bizarrely refused to bowl the all-rounder in his past eight ODIs.

The only other option is Ashton Agar, the 23-year-old spinner. But Agar is a bowling all-rounder and Australia patently need to strengthen their batting, so I would think it more likely they would pick one of Khawaja or Stoinis.

Which one of that pair plays at Ranchi will depend on Australia’s reading of the pitch. If the surface appears as bowler-friendly as the last two Tests, I think they will pick Khawaja given there was no need for an all-rounder at Pune or Bangalore.

Stoinis’ best chance of making his Test debut lies with the Ranchi strip appearing to be a road. Although the first two Tests were very low-scoring, Australia will be wary of the might of the Indian batting line-up, which averaged 550 in their first innings across their recent series against England, which was played on flat surfaces.

Should the Ranchi deck look like one of those pitches, Stoinis’ stocks will rise, as Australia will feel they need a fifth bowling option to reduce the strain on their front-liners. If Stoinis does get picked, he has the talent to hold his own. What he doesn’t have, though, is good form.