Opinion
While opener Usman Khawaja is being forced to sit out a Sheffield Shield match, it appears Australia are going to run his multi-format Test teammates into the ground.
Despite all the euphoria over Australia’s rousing win over Pakistan to leap into fourth spot in the World Cup standings, they are still just four matches into what will be at least nine, potentially 11, matches for the tournament.
Wednesday’s clash against the only non Test-playing nation in the tournament, the Netherlands could be the ideal time to rest some of the fatigued stars who have been playing virtually non-stop for the past 12 months.
But chief selector George Bailey has rubbished the suggestion of rotating the line-up around by saying over the weekend “there is no workload management, it’s just the World Cup”.
“And hopefully they can push through. It feels like it’s been a busy start to the tournament, but we’ve got a couple of gaps now.”
With Travis Head a chance to return from his broken hand against the Dutch, he will return to the top of the order and with Cameron Green, Sean Abbott and potentially even dropped wicketkeeper Alex Carey keen for game time after riding the pine, the Aussies could use this match to give their squad a mid-tournament refresh.
It’s a fine line to tread.
The danger of course is that the Dutch upset South Africa last week so they cannot be written off as easybeats but the team can’t be running on fumes by the time the semis roll around.
Australia’s World Cup chances will probably be defined by their two matches that follow – against New Zealand and England – before they finish the group stage by taking on Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
There are several Australian players who could benefit from taking a game off, headed up by the pace trio of captain Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood.
Of the other Test stars in the ODI line-up, openers David Warner and Mitchell Marsh are in form so they wouldn’t both necessarily be needed against the Dutch while Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne would be reluctant to miss out on any game time.
Smith has been scratchy since returning from a minor wrist injury recently – he has only passed 50 twice in his nine most recent 50-over outings and one of those was in a warm-up hit-out that didn’t have ODI status, coincidentally against the Netherlands.
Pat Cummins leads the Australian side off. (Photo by Matthew Lewis-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
Leg-spinner Adam Zampa has been bothered by back spasms but as long as he’s capable of wheeling down 10 overs, the Aussies won’t rest him even though Head could complement Glenn Maxwell in the spin department.
Eyebrows were raised on the domestic front last week when Khawaja was told to put his feet up instead of padding up for the four-day clash with Victoria in Mackay even though he has the lightest workload of any member of the Australian Test XI.
Bailey’s comments suggest the multi-format players in the World Cup squad will get little to no respite in India even though they have racked up a T20 World Cup, a home Test summer, a gruelling Border-Gavaskar Trophy tour, a World Test Championship final, draining Ashes series in the UK since this time last year with a few players also jamming in two months in the IPL.
In what is clearly yet another cash grab by administrators, Australia will stick around after the World Cup to play the host nation in a three-match T20 bilateral series in the last week of November.
It begs the question – when will the multi-format players get a rest?
There is a five-Test home summer getting underway soon after that with three matches against Pakistan followed by the West Indies returning for a second straight summer in the worst scheduling decision since the Melrose Place reboot of 2009. Really – once was more than enough.
Adam Zampa with Marnus Labuschagne. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
The endless summer for Australia’s top-liners continues after that with a two-Test tour to New Zealand before the IPL window is followed by the next T20 World Cup (the third in less than four years) in the Caribbean and US.
In light of the Sydney Morning Herald’s report that Cricket Australia has broken from recent tradition and handed out multi-year contracts to the likes of Cummins and Labuschagne – who were given three-year deals – and six others, it’s clear the governing body is concerned about T20 leagues and their bulky chequebooks.
With the emergence of competitions in South Africa, the US and the UAE fuelled in large part by Indian Premier League owners, there is concern in CA corridors about household names not being available for national duty.
Smith, Green, Head, Starc, Hazlewood and Carey are reportedly the other players with an extra year on their contract.
While central contracts are important, they are not a bulletproof method to keep elite talent on board with several international stars like Trent Boult and Jason Roy knocking them back in recent years to be freelance guns for hire.
And the best way for CA to lose their stars in the future will be to overwork them into the ground to the point where they think the better option for the rest of their career is to play short-form tournaments while travelling the globe.
Australia have reclaimed top spot in the ICC's Test rankings, replacing India. Despite not playing since winning 2-0 in New Zealand in March, Pat…
This series’ twelfth and final team has a distinct West Indian flavour at the top of the order, and a domineering captain.
Mitch Marsh has been appointed as Australia's men's Twenty20 captain, set to lead a squad to the World Cup that does not include Steve…
Australia are set to turn their back on rising star Jake Fraser-McGurk’s whirlwind IPL form and drop Steve Smith in their T20 World Cup…
It seems franchise cricket has forgotten about the great battle between bat and ball. In fact, this season in the IPL there is no battle at all.
The mammoth rise of Jake Fraser-McGurk - his enormous potential and the destructive shot-making that he possesses makes him a very tempting option.
