Border-Gavaskar Trophy is less than a month away but Australia’s opening debate is nowhere near settling. Following David Warner’s retirement, Steve Smith was promoted to the top position after his keenness to try his luck there. This reshuffle opened a spot at No. 4, which was quickly filled by Cameron Green who struck an unbeaten 174 first thing after his return to the side. However, Smith could not quite work his characteristic magic at the top spot. A paltry 28.5 batting average across four innings, saw many calling for restoring Smith to his original position. This shift became inevitable when Cameron Green was ruled out of the team for six months with a back injury. With Smith back to his long-occupied No. 4 position, the opening debate is keeping the Australian selection committee awake at night.
It is not that Australia have no options available. They do, in fact, have plenty of options but none as good as David Warner. As per the Aussie Test captain who brushed away Warner’s offer to take a U-turn on his decision, not even David Warner himself is good enough. Some are calling to try the tested players again, hoping time has improved them. Cameron Bancroft, Marcus Harris, and Matt Renshaw are the names that remain the most frequently mentioned among this crowd.
New South Wales coach Greg Shipperd recently pitched Josh Inglis as an opener along with Usman Khawaja. Shipperd went on to call him the ‘right-handed Warner’, rating him above his team’s rookie batter, Sam Konstas.
“Let’s not forget Josh Inglis as well, who I think is probably a smokey in terms of the opening batting spot. I’d have Inglis and Konstas in the conversation as one-two, two-one, and let the Australian selectors mull over those two.” the NSW coach opined.
Inglis is yet to make his Test debut, though he has been phenomenal in the current Sheffield Shield, scoring 297 runs in four innings so far. He is also a regular in Australia’s white-ball side as a wicketkeeper batter. However, Australia’s chairman of selectors, George Bailey, said that Australia will leave Inglis out of the opening debate for now.
“I’ve spoken to Josh on this,” Bailey said in a press conference.
“Not in the short term. I don’t think that he’s someone that we’d be looking to place at the top of the order. But there’s no doubt that the form is really fantastic at the moment, as we’ve seen when he has been playing for Australia. And then the ability to jump back into domestic cricket and dominate, as he has been, has been fantastic.”
Bailey also noted that whenever Inglis makes his way into the team, he will do so as a specialist batter since Alex Carey is still thriving with the mitts behind the stumps.
“I think different series at different times of the year, he would firmly come into the mix purely as a batter, the way he’s been going. And I think if the right opportunity opened up throughout the summer in the spots where we think he’s most capable of performing, then I think he’d be fairly in that conversation as well.”
The first match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy will start on November 22 at Optus Stadium in Perth.
