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Should we bring back Australia A to help boost depth?

Should Peter Handscomb come back? (AAP Image/Richard Wainwright)
Roar Pro
10th October, 2017
21

In the good old days, there was once a ODI series involving Australia, England and Australia A.

In that year Australia and Australia A made the final, such was the depth possessed by Australian cricket.

In today’s day and age, the luxury of depth is not available to the same extent – but it is not as grim a situation as some people make out.

There are some good talents coming through, particularly batsmen, from the pathways program and the U17s and U19s cricket. Greg Chappell himself said that the quality of the batsmanship was really good in this year’s U17 championships.

Therefore, Australia should be well served into the future – which is especially great as batting has been a weakness recently.

What would happen today if we had an Australia A team play Australia in a three-Test series.

If I was fortunate enough to be a selector, I would choose the following line-ups.

Australia: Warner Renshaw Khawaja Smith Handscomb Maxwell Cartwright Shaun Marsh Wade Starc Cummins Lyon Hazlewood Bird

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Australia A : Harris Bancroft Dean Burns Patterson Head Lehmann Stoinis Carey J.Richardson Swepson Behrendorff Stanlake NCN

This would be a good even contest in my opinion, with the bowling quality of Australia maybe the clinching factor. Yes Smith is there in the Australian squad but the batting seems to be even outside of him, such is his dominance with the blade.

Such matches and series should be a regular fixture in the pre-season as it would give Australia a true challenge and some genuine competition, rather than the current situation.

What do you think, Roarers? Would there be an appetite for bringing back the Australia versus Australia A series?

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