After a difficult summer, a new-look Australian line-up defeated Sri Lanka by more than an innings at the Gabba. Here are my thoughts on the match.
1. While winning is never to be taken for granted, especially for a team who haven’t sung Under the Southern Cross for far too long, you can’t help but feel for the Australian selectors.
Surely, in a private moment, they would admit that they could have done with a comfortable fourth innings victory which would have allowed another innings at the crease for Australia’s beleaguered batsmen.
With an Ashes series coming into view, Marcus Harris and Travis Head would be the only batsmen content with their summers.
Much of that will only be because their colleagues have offered such meagre contributions in comparison.
Usman Khawaja too, will rest easy based on reputation and potential but Joe Burns, Marnus Labuschagne and Kurtis Patterson would be acutely aware that they have two more innings at most to prove they are Test-worthy.
The selectors dearly would have loved another innings to build a case for or against on the big stage.
2. Jhye Richardson’s agent should be hitting the phones of all the division one County teams to get his hands on a Dukes ball under English skies when the season starts in April.
Mitchell Starc has gone from one of the first on the teamsheet in permanent ink to being only pencilled in, to the present day where selectors are reaching for the pencil sharpener to buy themselves a few more seconds to decide whether they can really back him on recent form.
There’s an opportunity for Richardson to play four County games between Australia’s ODI tour of India and their first ODI World Cup match against Afghanistan on June 1.
3. Tim Paine, for all his gentlemanly chirping and guy next door charm, is averaging 22.27 since the start of the Pakistan series (12 innings). He’s had plenty of starts – many times much sooner in the innings than he’d hope, admittedly – and scored 22 or more in half of those outings.
When an inexperienced team is struggling to find their identity, it’s often the captain who needs to drop anchor and show some resilience. Paine needs to move from being the captain who decides who bowls when and who stands to where, to being the leader of the team.
4. Full credit to Geoff Lemon for exposing the extent to which Kurtis Patterson was determined to keep his place in the Test side.
Patterson sought to add gun fielder to his repertoire on Saturday by taking a screamer of a catch to dismiss Dilruwan Perera. However, eagle-eyed Geoff was able to identify that Patterson had actually swapped with a body double – everyone’s favourite Hollywood hero, no less.
Amazing catch by… Nicholas Cage? pic.twitter.com/pwoFrxRCR1
— Geoff Lemon Sport (@GeoffLemonSport) January 26, 2019
5. It should be music to our ears that Justin Langer is messaging a late squad selection for the Ashes.
After the premature choices made for the initial Sri Lanka Test squad, which required Patterson to leapfrog Matt Renshaw and Will Pucovski, the selectors should afford every red ball chance to aspirants.
They should allow them to complete the second half of the Sheffield Shield season with a Dukes ball, to be part of the County Cricket season and to join up with the Australia A team.
With a bit of luck, they may be presented with a multitude of strong cases – the absence of which more recently has resulted in second-guessing, awkward messaging, and dirty laundry being aired too often.
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