India v Australia: Cameron Green in serious doubt for second Test

Many may have thought this walk-up starter was a lock to come straight back in the side for the second Test in Delhi, but a worrying training session suggests otherwise.

The sight of all rounder Cameron Green going through a tentative fielding drill using only a soft ball indicates he is still not guaranteed to play the second Test.

The situation raises questions about the decision to bat again in the Melbourne Test with a broken finger, but the team is adamant it did not lengthen his recovery time.

Green, who bats in the top six and is a top class seam bowler, is critical to the makeup of the side.

He is bowling and batting against spin bowlers and he may still play given there are three days until the second Test, but his recovery has taken longer than first expected.

Cameron Green has his finger checked during the Boxing Day Test. Picture: Getty Images

Finger injuries can recover quickly and can sometimes be just a matter of a player becoming confident to take a knock in the area.

Green was struck on the finger by a 145kmh ball from South African quick Anrich Nortje at the MCG.

The injury drew blood and the young all rounder retired hurt with what the team said was a “small fracture”.

Australia was 7-440 when Nathan Lyon was dismissed and he resumed his innings and batted another 157 balls, scoring 51no and helping Alex Carey to his maiden Test century.

“I actually didn’t think he was going to walk out the race today,” Carey said at the time. “But to see him put on a brave face, bat beautifully and allow me at the other end to bat as well...allowed us to put on a really good partnership.”

A spokesman for the team said on Monday that Green’s recovery was advancing according to expectations.

Former Test players were surprised that he did bat again.

“I’m sure when Cameron Green came to the ground this morning, he would not have been expecting to bat,” Justin Langer said in commentary for Channel 7. “He would have been hoping that Travis Head would have gone on his merry way, David Warner would have come in and continued his form from yesterday and just sat back, not have to bat. We know he’s not going to bowl.”

Mark Waugh was equally surprised on Fox Sports, saying: “If you happen to get another blow on that finger, that could cause real damage. I’m surprised he’s come out, I’ve got to say.

“At 258 runs in front, if he’s just going to defend like this, what’s the point? He can only get hit again.”

X-rays after the innings revealed a the bone was completely broken but the team said it had not extended his recovery time and he was expected to be ready for the first Test in India.

Green was celebrated for his bravery at the time.

Green is vital to Australia’s chances of turning the series around.

“You try to not show the pain straight away,” Green told cricket.com.au.

“I marked my guard again and walked a couple of steps, and I was like ‘I reckon my finger is out of place here’.

“I checked on it – it looked a little bit inverted is the only way I can explain it. It already had a big cut in it, then I got the bad news after the scan.”

While original X-rays before he batted revealed a fracture later ones showed the bone displaced.

The advice was at the time, however, that this did not extend his recovery period.

Mitchell Starc, who has flown into India and will meet the side in Delhi, also injured his finger in Melbourne but was expecting to be later returning than Green.

“The irony is (Green) will be back before I am,” he said. “Bones are a bit quicker in the healing process, the tendon is a little bit different. I think we’ll both be seeing the same specialist.”

Green went for $3.15m in the IPL auction, but has an enormous workload this year with the Ashes and a possible World Test

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Selectors appear unlikely to backflip on their decision to axe Travis Head, which should ensure David Warner plays the second Test.

Australia will make changes for the must-win match in Delhi starting on Friday, but coach Andrew McDonald insisted no discussions had taken place about Head replacing Warner as an opener “at this stage.”

Former Test fast bowler Mitchell Johnson said he would make the shock call to axe Warner for Head at the top of the order after the calamitous 91-all out collapse in Nagpur.

But former Australian captain and opener Mark Taylor said that move would be too premature.

Not having Cameron Green and Mitchell Starc available for the first Test was a major blow to Australia’s pre-series plans – and that’s why both men are would immediately return for the second Test starting on Friday in Delhi if fit, probably at the expense of Matt Renshaw and Scott Boland.

However, the reasoning behind dumping Head was that conditions might be too extreme for him, and that’s not a decision that’s easy to go back on based on McDonald’s strident belief that Australia must believe in its original convictions and strategies if it’s to turn around the first Test disaster.

Mitchell Starc is poised to play the second Test. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

“It’s a four-Test match series. If you feel as though your preparation was good and the way you want to go about it is good, then you re-commit to that,” McDonald said on Sunday from Nagpur in the wake of Australia’s record innings and 132 run loss.

“If you shift and try to change too much that’s when you get lost as a touring team. We’ve seen teams come to Australia and try to do the same.

“We need to be committed to what we want to achieve.

“Will there be changes? Potentially. We have Green and Starc back on the selection table so that will totally change the balance of how we want to go about things.

“However, we feel as though when we come here we had a clear vision of how to play, how we want to go about it and we need to reinvest into that.

“We feel as though it can work and the players within the change room are very capable for the challenges ahead.”

Another pre-series plan of Australia’s was left-arm spin, and even though Ashton Agar has faded out of the picture due to poor form, another left-armer Matthew Kuhnemann has been added to the squad and is now a live chance to play in Delhi.

But Head’s predicament is different.

The fact McDonald expects conditions to remain “extreme” for the remainder of the series does not help Head’s cause for an immediate recall, even though those picked ahead of him in Nagpur failed to live up to expectations themselves.

Andrew McDonald (right) says there will be changes. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

“We valued others skill sets in those extreme conditions,” McDonald said about the Head dropping.

“I think the discussion point that we went through in the process will be different to the hindsight. And the hindsight is that those people that you will compare the competition for (his) place around, didn’t perform the way that we’d probably expected.

“He (Head) had different thoughts on that and that’s fair enough. And he’s entitled to have different thoughts on that along with others.”

Warner averages 22.16 from nine Tests in India, but has scored three Test centuries elsewhere in Asia.

Head - who has never played in India – averages 21.30 from his seven Tests in Asia.

Australia’s 36-year-old openers Warner and Usman Khawaja are at an age where pressure will come after any period of underperformance, although both men did finish the Australian summer with big centuries.

“I would drop David Warner and bring in Travis Head for second Test against India,” Warner’s former teammate Johnson wrote in The West Australian.

Back in December, selectors had discussed the prospect of Head as an opening option – or at least top order option – in India based on his ability to score quickly and take the ball on when the ball is still hard.

Mark Taylor said Warner deserved faith, and that promoting Head up the order wouldn’t necessarily help him.

“David’s been around long enough, and I know he’s had plenty of opportunities [but] I think you’ve got to give him at least the next Test match to get it right,” Taylor told Wide World of Sports.

“As Warner and Usman Khawaja found out, they bat at the top of the order and faced Ravi Ashwin with the new ball, and then four overs later got Ravi Jadeja.

“So it doesn’t really matter where you bat; you’re going to face the same stuff. So I would be sticking with the top two at the moment.”

Originally published as India v Australia: Cameron Green in serious doubt for second Test