Ashes 2019: Australia’s selectors set to axe Mitchell Starc for first Test at Edgbaston

Australia’s best bowler at the World Cup is set to be dumped as selectors pick a new-look side.

Mitchell Starc is set to be left out of the first Test team. Picture: Getty Images

Australia’s selectors will wait until the last moment to decide the last piece of the selection puzzle for the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston tomorrow, the brains trust unable to decide whether to play Peter Siddle or Josh Hazlewood.

Mitchell Starc is understood to have been dropped despite turning in the best performance of any bowler in the World Cup and being a mainstay of the attack for many seasons.

Justin Langer revealed yesterday that the trio was shooting it out for one place, which meant Pat Cummins and James Pattinson were assured of a start.

Cameron Bancroft has unseated incumbent opener Marcus Harris and will play his first Test since the traumatic unfolding in Cape Town in March last year.

Matthew Wade’s brilliant first-class form through the summer and into the Australia A series will be rewarded with a recall after two years out of the game battling a series of injuries.

Marnus Labuschagne was extremely close to selection but has missed out. The value of his part-time spin undermined by the return of Steve Smith, who is playing for the first time since his ban, and the presence of Travis Head.

Both batsman can offer support to Nathan Lyon if needed.

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Matthew Wade.

David Warner.

Coach Justin Langer did not announce his side but confirmed the 17-man squad had been whittled down to 12.

“We’ve got a really good idea, but we’ll keep it as long as we can,” he said. “Don’t want to give England all our secrets. We’ve got a good about the final 12, but will leave it as late as possible for you guys to find out.”

He continues to maintain that Harris, who scored a century for Australia A this month and more runs than Wade in the Sheffield Shield, is still in the race.

Langer would only say that Bancroft was “very close”.

“He’s one of two openers we could pick, I reckon,” he said. “A great story if he comes back into the team, from where he’s come from — his learnings over the last 14 months. He’s gone away and played really good Shield cricket — he’s averaged 57, 58 at the back end of the Shield season, averaged 40-odd for Durham, played really well last week, brings energy to the team.

“His development over the last 12 months, after what happened in Cape Town, has been absolutely extraordinary. We’re that proud of him. If he gets the nod, he’ll be very excited about playing for Australia again.”

Bancroft’s 93no on an extraordinarily difficult wicket against the bowling of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Peter Siddle was a towering performance when needed most.

It brought to mind Phil Hughes’s 151 and 82no in a Sheffield Shield “bat-off” with Phil Jacques at Newcastle for the chance to open the batting in the Test series against South Africa in 2009.

That wicket, however, was nowhere near as challenging as the one at the Rose Bowl. Tim Paine said in The Australian today that practice games would generally be called off in such dangerous conditions.

Cameron Bancroft during the nets session at Edgbaston in Birmingham.

Langer admitted, however, that he was unsure how Bancroft would handle the notorious Edgbaston crowd.

“We’ll find out,” he said. “But we’re very hopeful. The work he’s done on himself the last 12 months has been outstanding. And he’s a good kid, a really good kid. He’s physically as tough as anyone you’ve seen in your life.

“Mentally, he’ll have to be strong. But to endure the scrutiny of the last 14 months, especially the first part of it, I think he’s had a pretty good dress rehearsal as well.”

Smith, David Warner and Bancroft are set for some rough treatment.

“I know what the reception’s going to be,” Langer said. “We all do. But it is what it is. There’s nothing we can do about that. It’s 100 per cent out of our control and their control, and that’s OK. We’ve been to lots of Ashes series and they’re all the same.

“England are the same when they come to Australia. It’s tough. That’s just the environment we’re in. You go to Cape Town or Johannesburg, it’s like being in the Gladiator movie.

“Steven and David have had a pretty good dress rehearsal during the World Cup. I thought they were brilliant how they behaved and responded to it with bat and in their behaviours. They kept smiling their way through it and it will be no different in the Ashes series.”