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Matthew Renshaw could miss the first Test against Pakistan on Sunday due to concussion, with former Australian coach Darren Lehmann yesterday suggesting he may be replaced by rookie batsman Marnus Labuschagne.
During a commentary stint on the JLT Cup match between Queensland and New South Wales yesterday, Lehmann implied Renshaw may struggle to recover in time from the nasty head knock he suffered in Australia’s tour match.
Renshaw, who was struck on the helmet while fielding at short leg, has been withdrawn from that warm-up match as a precaution, with Labuschagne coming into the side.
What makes Renshaw’s injury particularly serious is that it’s the third time in the last two years he’s had to be withdrawn from a match due to concussion.
In March this year, Renshaw was withdrawn from a Sheffield Shield match under Cricket Australia’s concussion policy after suffering a head knock in a collision with a teammate during a warm-up drill.
In January last year, he was pulled out of the third Test against Pakistan in Sydney due to concussion after suffering not one but two head blows in the match – one at short leg and the other while batting.
It’s been a tough run for Renshaw. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
After Lehmann’s on-air comments on Renshaw yesterday, fellow commentator Brett Lee then chimed in, saying Renshaw’s recovery could be complicated by the extreme heat in Dubai, the venue for the first Test.
Some medical research on mild traumatic brain injuries, like concussion, has found that exposure to high temperatures has the “strong potential” to affect a person’s recovery from such an injury.
This could be of significant concern for the Australian medical staff, given the temperature is forecast to nudge 40 degrees (Celsius) for all five days of the first Test.
Combined with Renshaw’s worrying history of concussions, there seems to be a significant chance he won’t play that Test, which starts in just five days from now.
Lehmann said on air he believed Renshaw had been set to open with debutant Aaron Finch in the first Test and that, if Renshaw couldn’t play, Usman Khawaja would partner Finch, Shaun Marsh would bat at three and Labuschagne would come into the XI.
This would mean Australia would likely be in the extraordinary situation of fielding four Test debutants – Finch, Labuschagne, middle-order batsman Travis Head, and paceman Michael Neser.
Australia are already missing five players, with gun quicks Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins unavailable, and batsmen Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft banned due to the ball-tampering fiasco.
If Renshaw, too, was unavailable that would leave Australia with a remarkably inexperienced lineup. Their top six, in particular, would be the greenest and most vulnerable they have fielded in a Test match in many years.
The good news for Australia is that their remaining batsmen have all had good hit-outs in the warm-up match against Pakistan A.
After dismissing Pakistan A for 278, Australia churned out a massive total of 4/494, with each of their six batsmen getting generous time in the middle.
Openers Finch (54) and Khawaja (36) put on a stand of 82, before the Marsh brothers combined for a marathon 207-run partnership which spanned five hours. Shaun Marsh fell six runs short of his century, before Mitch Marsh went on to pile up 162 from 298 balls – the second-longest innings of his first-class career.
That knock carried on a run of good form for Mitch Marsh, who has made 1,282 runs at 47 in first-class cricket over the past year, and has now made centuries in each of his past two red ball matches. Also continuing a rich vein of form was Travis Head, who went to stumps on 90* from 200 balls.
Head, who looks set to bat at five or six in the Tests, has piled up 2,018 runs at 45 over the past two years in first-class cricket. At the other end when stumps were called was Labuschagne, who finished the day on 39*.
Pakistan A made the odd choice of not playing a specialist spinner in this match on a pitch which favours tweakers, as evidenced by Nathan Lyon’s eight-wicket haul. While that strategy has denied the Australian batsmen the chance to fine tune their play against quality spinners, the visiting batsmen have all got plenty out of the match thus far.