Ashes 2023: Pressure mounts on Cameron Green to deliver on talent

Cameron Green has been nursed through dry spells with the bat and ball – but it is pressure from within the team that may finally oust him from Australia’s Test XI.

Life has come in a hurry for Cameron Green. That will tend to happen when you stand at 198 centimetres, can bowl at 140 km/h, might be even better with the bat and are a generationally strong fielder at gully.

Green took a Sheffield Shield five-fer before he could legally drive. He then reached five first-class centuries when just 21, the same age he got a baggy green. Before he was 24 Green had played for his country in all three international formats, had a Test five-wicket haul and century, and had been picked up in the IPL auction for $3.15 million.

Oh and he was a state under-16 footballer who had a reasonable chance to be drafted had he persisted with the winter game.

Green went his entire debut Test summer without taking a wicket and yet there never seemed any real prospect of him being dropped. For one thing he was making steady contributions with the bat, and such was his immense promise that Australia would give him every chance.

Cameron Green of Australia walks off after being dismissed by Chris Woakes of England during Day One of the Ashes 4th Test Match. Picture: Getty Images

Those early investments reaped rewards and pretty quickly too, because in the next World Test Championship cycle, Green averaged more than 36 with the bat, less than 30 with the ball and was an important part of the Aussies’ WTC winning side.

No doubt there have been setbacks in Green’s sporting life, most notably the stress fractures that ruled him out of bowling for extended periods. Still, it has been largely linear progress to this point, Green ticking off milestones as though collecting stamps.

But for the first time in his Test career, Green’s spot is genuinely endangered. As occurred when Usman Khawaja made twin tons when Travis Head missed the Sydney Test last year because of Covid-19, Australia has found another serendipitous star in the form of Mitch Marsh, whose assured and powerful batting threatened to take the game away from England on day one at Manchester.

Mitchell Marsh looks poised to oust Green from the starting XI. Picture: AFP

It took a rare piece of wizardry from Jonny Bairstow to end Marsh’s innings on 51, by which point Green had gone for a much less convincing 16, trapped LBW by Chris Woakes, losing an umpire’s call decision on height.

When the pair of West Aussie all-rounders were batting together, it was hard to think they weren’t also auditioning for what is almost always just one spot in the Test side. That they were almost involved in a mix-up, saved by a Ben Stokes fumble, added to the battle within the battle.

It is a mark of how much Australian selectors rate Green that they threw out longstanding team balance customs to squeeze him back into the XI for this Test. It is the first time the Aussies have gone without a frontline spinner in more than 11 years.

But it was also a decision made in a very specific set of circumstances, with England needing to win, Nathan Lyon absent, rain looming and the hosts not batting for more than 81.3 overs in an innings thus far in the series.

Cameron Green burst onto the scene as a prodigiously talented teenager. Picture. Phil Hillyard

Green will have chances later in this match to vindicate the panel’s faith. As it stands he hasn’t gone past 38 in seven knocks on this tour, and his bowling performances across the first couple of Ashes Tests were similarly modest.

Though David Warner will be gone within months, Green has himself said it would be a stretch for him to open. Marsh has never opened in first-class cricket either.

Much will happen between the end of this series and the start of Australia’s home Test summer in December, not least the 50-over World Cup in India.

However once Lyon comes back, if not earlier, the selectors will have to make a more definitive choice about the all-rounder pecking order.

Sooner or later there will only be room for one, and for the time being that is clearly Marsh.

Boy wonder might have to go back to the classroom for a bit.