Third time lucky for opener emerging from crowded pack to replace struggling Warner for Ashes

Whether you think he was unlucky or got what he deserved for the Cape Town ball-tampering scandal, Cameron Bancroft should now be on the verge of a rare third chance to become a long-term Australian opener. 

Bancroft is in career-best form and should be part of the Australian squad which heads to England in June for the World Test Championship final and subsequent Ashes campaign. 

Scoring a boat-load of runs at Sheffield Shield level is no guarantee of getting a call-up to the Test team but the wretched form of David Warner, plus Travis Head’s reluctance to open long term and Matt Renshaw’s torrid time in India all add up to Bancroft emerging as the favourite to partner Usman Khawaja in the UK. 

Plus, being a right-hander is another factor in his favour for the role up for grabs alongside Khawaja. Warner, Renshaw, Head and another potential candidate, Victoria’s Marcus Harris, are all southpaws in their stance.

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Head has done a serviceable job as a stand-in opener for three innings in India and will remain there for this week’s final Test in Ahmedabad but he indicated after his crucial 49 not out in the second innings of last week’s win in Indore that he wanted to return to the middle order.

Cameron Bancroft. (Photo by Steve Bell/Getty Images)

Australia coach Andrew McDonald backed that school of thought up on the weekend by saying Head “can shift the momentum of the game in the middle order and I don’t think we want to take that away from this team”.

Bancroft has mounted a surely undeniable case to be recalled for the tour to England by leading the Sheffield Shield run-scoring list, a massive 253 clear of the next-best batter.

The 30-year-old has hit four centuries, including a best of unbeaten 176 recently against Tasmania in Hobart, on the way to amassing 825 runs at 63.46 for Western Australia’s competition favourites. 

“I like to think that as the time goes by you improve and learn the lessons from your previous opportunities,” he told reporters after his latest ton. He was talking about on-field form but it could have wider meaning.

Before adding: “if an opportunity comes hopefully I’m in a better place to play well.”

Bancroft got his first chance at Test level in the 2017-18 Ashes home series but apart from an unbeaten 82 on debut at the Gabba, he was out in the 20s three times and failed to pass 10 in his four other trips to the crease.

He was starting to look more assured at Test level in South Africa with a couple of half-centuries and three more starts against the Proteas before his infamous ball-tampering incident at Cape Town. 

Recalled alongside Warner and Steve Smith after they had served their bans for the 2019 Ashes, he was cast aside after two Tests following scores of eight, seven, 13 and 16. He fell twice to spinners Moeen Ali and Jack Leach when they came on to replace the new-ball bowlers. 

Steven Smith and Cameron Bancroft at their infamous press conference after day three of the third Test against South Africa at Cape Town. (Photo by Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

It’s common for even Australia’s greatest batters to struggle in their first crack at Test level – Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke were all dropped before latching onto their second chance.

Some, like Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden, are in and out of the side a couple of times before shining in their third stint but they are very much the exception to the rule.

Once a player, particularly a batter, has had two shots at cementing their berth in the order, the selectors are usually reluctant to go down that path again, particularly with someone who averages a measly 26.23 from 10 Tests.

But at 30, Bancroft is hardly over the hill and is in the prime of his career.

Warner has failed to fire at Test level for the best part of three years and has struggled on English soil throughout his career. 

He and Khawaja are both 36 so aside from his form not being up to scratch, the selectors need to stagger their departures from the team to avoid a situation where two new openers are going to be tasked with taking over from the incumbent duo.

Renshaw, Harris, Bancroft’s WA teammate Teague Wyllie, South Australia’s Henry Hunt and hopefully, Will Pucovski, are the next cabs off the rank when it comes to Test opening candidates in a year or two when Khawaja’s twilight career resurgence comes to an end.

While Bancroft’s red-ball fortunes are looking up, spare a thought for his West Australian teammate Ashton Agar.

The left-arm spinner played his first Test in six years in January at the SCG Test, was then selected for the tour to India, overlooked for the first match, omitted again for the next match with selectors flying in a player who wasn’t even in the original squad to play ahead of him in Matt Kuhnemann.

Agar, who has been starved for opportunities at first-class level in recent years because of his duties with Australia’s two white-ball teams, was then sent back home along with Warner (fractured elbow), Josh Hazlewood (Achilles strain) and captain Pat Cummins (personal reasons).

Fully fit and with a rare gap in the calendar to play some first-class cricket, he was left out of WA’s Shield squad for the clash with Tassie so he can concentrate on white-ball cricket. 

The 29-year-old all-rounder got to play for WA in the Marsh Cup one-dayer at the WACA Ground, taking 1-38 from 10 overs but not getting a bat, but was not required for the Shield match a few days later at the same venue with off-spinner Corey Rocchiccioli taking 4-31 on day one of the nine-wicket win.

Agar’s chances of adding to his tally of five Tests were probably slim, particularly with the emergence of Kuhnemann and Todd Murphy in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, but if he’s not even going to get a chance at domestic first-class level, he might as well store his baggy green cap away now and become a T20 gun for hire, travelling the global circuit collecting lucrative pay cheques.