Ashes summer: Selectors ‘set on a couple of guys’, says Harris

All the partisan advocacy on behalf of the players hoping to fill the last two spots in the Ashes side might be for nought.

Ryan Harris speaks to the media at the Adelaide Oval yesterday. Picture: AAP.

All the speculation and partisan advocacy on behalf of the players hoping to fill the last two spots in the Ashes side might be for nought.

Because the selectors might have already seen all they need to see. Move on from the train wreck batting. Nothing to see here.

Ryan Harris yesterday said the selectors were close to finalising the XI for the Ashes opener, which starts tomorrow fortnight.

The Test aspirants had been told the three pre-Ashes Shield rounds were opportunities to nail down a Test berth.

But as the second act of the three-part Ashes audition wound down at the MCG and Hurstville yesterday, Harris said Trevor Hohns’ panel had a “pretty good idea of who they want to pick”.

“I’m pretty sure they’d be set on a couple of guys,” Harris said in Adelaide ahead of England’s day-night tour match against a Cricket Australia XI starting today.

The side for the Gabba Test starting on November 23 will be ­finalised during the third shield round starting Monday and is to be announced late next week.

The two-and-a-bit Shield matches have been put up as auditions for the No 6 batting spot and the keeping berth, but many of the contenders have succumbed to stage fright.

More than that, even matinee idols such as Matt Renshaw have failed to impress.

“We’ve seen some good scores from some players (but) I’m sure Darren (Lehmann) would’ve liked to have seen a few more scores from other players,” Harris said.

But he said it might not matter: “I’m sure they’d know. They’d have an idea of who’s going to be picked, definitely.”

Harris is coaching the CA XI — essentially a bunch of up-and-comers led by Tasmanian keeper Tim Paine — and says his young side is out to make some early inroads in the Old Enemy’s stocks of confidence.

“We’re not here to make it easy for England. We want to make sure it’s a tough prep going into a big series,’’ he said.

“I know being on these sort of tours, your warm-up games can set the tone for the tour.

“You don’t want to lose. So I guess our job is to make it as tough as we can.”

But not too tough. Harris wants to deny England’s batsmen a look at the pink ball when the going gets hard at dusk.

In this he is taking a longer view; today’s match is ostensibly to give England practice against the pink ball ahead of the day-night Test here in a month’s time.

“It’s pretty important for them with this being a day-night fixture,” Harris said.

“I don’t think they’ve played too much day-night cricket, ­especially with the Kookaburra ball.”

Harris said if the day-night games in Adelaide had proved anything, it was that the pink ball tended to go rogue at dusk.

“The grass seems to stand up. It zips around. We saw in the shield game last week (Mitchell) Starc seemed to make it talk when the sun goes down.

“Hopefully they’re not batting around that time, that’s my plan. (Because) they’ll have to get used to that real hard seeing time.”

With fellow quicks Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle, Harris powered the Australians to their 5-0 triumph in the last home Ashes series.

He said the current Australian attack was just as good and as such held the key to the Australians’ chances.

“(Josh) Hazlewood’s doing the job I probably did and he’s quicker than me and he gets more bounce.

“And you’ve got Starc who can definitely do a Johnson role. And you’ve got (Pat) Cummins as well, with an extra bit of pace.

“The key’s going to be working as a team, as a bowling unit.

“That’s what we did last time well.”

The Australians will also use today’s game to gather intelligence on an England line-up that remains far from settled.

“I had a conversation with Darren last week,” Harris said.

“Not too much was said. He just said let the boys go out and enjoy themselves.

“And make sure that we’re observing what England do.”

CA XI squad: Jake Carder, Jackson Coleman, Michael Cormack, Daniel Fallins, Ryan Gibson, Nick Larkin, Simon Milenko, Tim Paine, Will Pucovski, Gurinder Sandhu, Jason Sangha, Matthew Short