Northern exposure

Test cricket's back, thank goodness. Where to now for the Australian side?

Dhaka is an oasis at the far end of Test cricket’s dead zone.

Wisden has crunched the numbers: Outside of Covid-19 breaks and gaps allocated for ODI World Cups, the 124 days between the most recent Test, Australia vs England at Sydney, and the Bangladesh-Pakistan Test in Dhaka, constitutes the longest Test-free zone in 50 years.

We all know why. The money-men need space for their IPL, PSL, BBL, LOL, ROFL and all the other slogathons.

Proper cricket returned on Friday at a venue where Australia was humbled by Bangladesh in one of the great Tests -- the 2017 epic in which Nathan Lyon took nine wickets, David Warner made one of his best hundreds, Usman Khawaja bowled an over of doorknobs, and Australia lost by 20 runs.

Nine years later, only three players remain for Bangladesh: The Little Master, Mushfiqur Rahim, who celebrated his 39^th birthday with a 71 in the first innings on Saturday; Mehidy Hasan Miraz, taker of 215 Test wickets and maker of 2000-plus runs; and Taijul Islam, the left-arm spinner who trapped Josh Hazlewood in front for a duck to seal the famous (in Bangladesh, at least) win in 2017.

All three will be here in August for a two-Test series in Darwin and Mackay.

But who will be in the Australian XI?

Gather rotten tomatoes, grab your pitchfork and loop a noose or two – I’m having a crack at picking the side.

Selection is a fraught task and a thankless pursuit – everyone has an opinion.

Anyway, *gulp*, here we go. Australia will likely make four changes to the XI that beat England by five wickets at the SCG in January.

Opener Jake Weatherald will retain his spot after posting a 95 and 62 in Tasmania’s last two Shield matches of the season.

Weatherald averaged only 22.33 in the five Ashes Tests and failed to make a first-class hundred in the 2025/26 summer, but has the advantage of incumbency and is helped by the fact no-one has made enough runs to usurp him.

(The Darwin-born Weatherald will be a PR weapon for Cricket Australia during the first Test in the Top End since 2004. Imagine the NT News’s fury if the local boy is dropped?)

See previous paragraph (before the one with brackets) for why Weatherald’s opening partner will be Travis Head. Ergo, there’s no-one else.

The national runs drought is a dire problem for the Test side and will force the selectors to make contentious calls.

Incumbent first drop Marnus Labuschagne has had a lean time since his moderate Ashes (259 runs at 28.77).

Following his 48 and 37 in the fifth Ashes Test, Labuschagne made 10, 41, 8, 2, 0, 13, 20 and 29 for Queensland in the Shield. On those numbers, it’s hard to justify retaining him at No 3.

Labuschagne’s most recent Test hundred was at Manchester in July, 2023 – 37 completed innings ago.

There is little point in him filling his boots against Bangladesh – and in doing so buying another 10-15 Tests -- when the two-Test series can be used to refresh an ageing side.

Granted, Labuschagne’s fielding – especially his brilliant slips catching – will be missed, but Cameron Green and Beau Webster can pick up the slack.

Even if they can’t, Labuschagne might well be replaced by a player who’s at least his equal in the cordon – Peter Handscomb.

Chief selector George Bailey has indicated his panel might turn to older players – Handscomb is 35 – while waiting for young stars to emerge. The Voges option, if you like.

“You don’t necessarily replace 100-Test players with the next bloke who’s going play 100 Tests,” Bailey told the ABC last month.

“If we find a group of players that play 20 to 40 Tests, it might be 10, then that gets you through a year or two years.

“That can be particularly important at the right time as well, depending on their skill sets.

“So understanding that it’s not necessarily about unearthing generational talent every time.”

Handscomb’s “skill sets” include a proficiency against spin that has aided in his selection for two tours of India. Australia tours India in the new year.

He scored the most runs in the Shield this past summer and took 28 catches in his 11 matches – one catch short of Cameron Bancroft’s 2023/24 record for a Shield season.

So don’t be surprised if Handscomb is recalled to bat at No 3.

Another option is moving Green back up the order. You might not recall, so long ago was Australia’s most recent Test, but Green batted at seven in the fifth Ashes Test in Sydney. Perhaps it’s time to return to No 3.

Yes, yes, we know he’s not the ideal No 3, but as coach Andrew McDonald has said, and as Pat Cummins has repeated, and as Travis Head has shown, positions in the order are over-rated – pick your best batsmen and bat them where it best suits the team.

Green is clearly one of the best six batsmen in the country. He makes hundreds. Of the 31 times he’s passed 50 in first-class ranks, he’s made 15 centuries.

Granted, Green has not fulfilled his rich potential. But he’s still only 26, has a first-class average of 45.52, is a brilliant gully fieldsman and can tear an opposition apart with the ball (when he’s not charged with prosecuting the team’s bouncer strategy).

Steve Smith bats four. Enough said on that.

Alex Carey bats five for South Australia so there’s no reason why he can’t do the same for Australia. This breaks up the right-handers – Smith at four and Webster at six.

Next we come to No 7.

If Ollie Peake had performed better in the back part of the season, making more than one 50 in four completed innings (he retired hurt in the fifth when hit in the head in Perth), then a Test cap was his.

But he didn’t make enough runs and no number of rave notices changes the fact he averages 26.00 after 20 completed first-class innings. Without a hundred.

Some point to the example of Steve Waugh, who was given an extended run as a ‘project player’, yet the 20-year-old Waugh was averaging almost 50 when he made his Test debut, and was fresh from making two hundreds for NSW.

Nevertheless, Bailey’s panel will cop flak for giving a Baggy Green to a player without a first-class hundred.

Let them.

Desperate times and all that, and no-one is demanding a spot. Smith, Warner and Khawaja have been the mainstays for 15 years, and now only Smith is left.

Australia has to find batsmen; the best time to start was yesterday and the next best time is against Bangladesh in Darwin in August.

But batting Peake at No 7? You can’t pick a batsman at seven? Well, Bradman and Greg Chappell both debuted at seven. Smith debuted at No 8 (don’t come at me with the ‘started as a leg-spinner’ myth).

Carey batting in the top six allows the 19-year-old Peake to be eased in at No 7. Just as the all-round abilities of Charlie Kelleway, Jack Ryder and Stork Hendry allowed Bradman to start at No 7. And how Shane Watson’s and Marcus North’s bowling made room for Smith against Pakistan in 2010. (Watson took 5-40 in the first innings of Smith’s debut Test and North 6-55 in the second.)

Yes, Peake is a contentious pick. But he is an impressive young man – he captained the national under-19s in the recent World Cup – and is a beautifully balanced left-handed strokemaker.

The selectors might have shown their hand by picking Peake for the ODI tour of Pakistan at the end of the month.

Thereafter the rest of the XI falls into place like coins in a slot: Cummins, Starc, Lyon and Hazlewood, each accompanied by the ‘if fit’ asterisk, with Boland the obvious next-man-in if any of the seamers are injured.

And if two quicks are unavailable, there’s always everyone’s favourite player, Michael Neser.

Adages are often accompanied by the world ‘old’ because adages – like cliches – are tested and true. Well the old adage of ‘selectors don’t pick sides, players do’ no longer applies given Australian cricket’s runs drought. It needs to ring true again, as the Indian tour looms large on the horizon.

And after that, the Ashes.

Possible team for Darwin (from August 13):

Jake Weatherald

Travis Head

Cameron Green

Steve Smith

Alex Carey

Beau Webster

Ollie Peake

Pat Cummins ©

Mitchell Starc

Nathan Lyon

Josh Hazlewood

Scott Boland (12^th

Michael Neser (13^th)

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