Alex Carey is ready to step up as permanent Australian one-day keeper if required.
Why Alex Carey is ready to step up as permanent Australian one-day keeper should skipper Tim Paine focus on Test duties entering a heavy duty contest with No.1 ranked India this summer.
Alex Carey is ready to step up as permanent Australian one-day keeper should skipper Tim Paine focus on Test duties entering a heavy duty contest with No.1 ranked India this summer.
Paine, 33, struggled with the bat while leading Australia to an unprecedented, 5-0 one-day series defeat against England last month.
Paine won’t be World Cup keeper next June in England but selectors wanted their respected leader at the helm for coach Justin Langer’s first series in charge.
Cricket Australia contracted Carey is happy to bide his time but could be bedded down as one-day keeper as early as Australia’s three-match one-day series against South Africa in November.
“It was nice to get a start there and feel a bit more confident I can do it at the next level,” said Carey of making 6 and 44 as a specialist batsman against England in one-day games at Chester-le-Street and Manchester.
“I felt pretty good out in the middle and it just makes you want more of it regularly.
“Painey is still a really good leader around the group. I am not sure what they want to do going forward. It has been really good to be in the Twenty20 team.
“I will leave it up to JL to decide but hopefully there is more opportunity in T20 and the one-day format for me.”
England keeper-batsman Jos Buttler topped the one-day series aggregate with 275 runs at a phenomenal 137 average which contrasted with Paine averaging seven commanding an Australian unit without six first choice stars. The common sense call will be for injury ravaged Paine to concentrate on filling Steve Smith’s captaincy role against Virat Kohli’s men in the Border-Gavaskar series.
Carey insists Australia won’t be scarred by its 5-0 loss that saw four England batsman - Buttler, Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow and Alex Hales - average 55 or over. Australia was without injured Mitch Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitch Marsh while Smith and David Warner are serving 12 month bans for ball tampering.
“I know 5-0 is not acceptable but we will learn a lot and have a lot of experience to come back in,” Carey told The Advertiser.
“I took so much away from the tour. It’s 12 months until the World Cup and we know we have to be on our A game.”
Having returned from being Aaron Finch’s lieutenant in the T20 tri-series against Pakistan and Zimbabwe in Harare this month, Carey will be vice captain to Travis Head and Mitchell Marsh on Australia A’s one-day and four-day tours against India A in September.
Langer has circled the series against India A as a showdown for Test slots on the October tour of the United Arab Emirates against Pakistan. Batsmen Head, Peter Handscomb, Matt Renshaw and Usman Khawaja are in the four-day squad.
“There is definitely opportunity for guys that do well. I want to go over there, keep really well and put my hand up as a batter with Painey as the Test keeper at the moment. With Dubai coming up there is a huge focus in players doing really well to get into that Test team. It is a big tour, really exciting,” said Carey.
“I will use domestic cricket to press my case for the Test matches as well which is always the goal.”