Australian Test cricket opener: make a hundred for Australia A and you’re in the team
Sam Konstas versus Marcus Harris versus Cam Bancroft versus Nathan McSweeney is the biggest bat-off in the history of bat-offs. And it’s still on.
Make a hundred and you’re in the Test team. It’s that simple, dear reader. Cricket selections aren’t rocket surgery. Nor are they brain science. Make a hundred at the MCG this week and one of these duffers will be on the plane to Perth.
I say duffers with the greatest respect. They’ve duffed their way to the highest echelons of Australian cricket. But Sam Konstas, Marcus Harris and Cam Bancroft poked, prodded and faffed around so much in round one of their bat-off that the winner was Nathan McSweeney, arms in the air like Steven Bradbury after Ahn Hyun-Soo, Mathieu Turcotte, Apolo Anton Ohno and Li Jiajun stood on their own stumps at Salt Lake City.
Perhaps Bradbury should present McSweeney with his baggy green if things continue down this road. There’s parallels, mostly positive. Bradbury’s triumph was tinnier than a soup can but importantly, he had put himself in the race. Stayed on his feet when the others fell over. McSweeney wasn’t even in the frame a week ago but he’s in the right place at the right time while Konstas, Harris and Bancroft go down like Hyun-Soo, Turcotte and oh, no. Ohno.
Australia A faces India A at the MCG from Thursday. Australia’s selection chairman George Bailey keeps saying it’s not a bat-off. Pull the other one, gorgeous George, it sings Under The Southern Cross. This is the biggest bat-off in the history of bat-offs. Konstas versus Harris versus Bancroft versus McSweeney for a Test vacancy - there’s never been a bat-off like it. If it looks like a bat-off, and if it swims like a bat-off, and if it quacks like a bat-off, it’s a bat-off.
Really, the mother of all bat-offs began at the start of the Sheffield Shield season. For their respective states and Australia A, the contenders have played six innings each. Returns? Konstas has 318 runs at an average of 53. Harris has 290 runs at 48.3. Bancroft has 36 runs at six, travelling slower than Just Fine in the Melbourne Cup. McSweeney has 418 runs at an average of 104.5 … but he hasn’t done it as an opener. We went gaga for his 88 not out in Mackay and yet he had the luxury of arriving in the 25th over. Others had knocked the shine from the new ball.
If McSweeney quacks and fails when opening at the MCG, I reckon all bets are off in the bat-off. The on-again, off-again selection debate will be on for young (Konstas) and old (Harris) again. The chase for the baggy green cap will be tighter than the race to the White House. How to win it? Take this MCG game by the scruff of the neck. Go big or go home. Give the selectors and the Australian public something and someone to get excited about. don’t wait to be given a Test berth. Demand it. Take it.
Replicate the thrilling, daredevil couple of innings from the late Phillip Hughes in identical circumstances for NSW in Newcastle in 2009. Hughes knew he was in a bat-off. He knew he’d open for Australia in the next Test against South Africa if he made a hundred.
The beauty of a bat-off is that the batters know they’re batting off. Performing under pressure is half the challenge and the total victory. Hughes blasted 151 and 82 not out like he was slamming his fist on a table. You. Must. Pick. Me. Which they did. Because Test selections have never been rocket surgery, dear reader. Nor, brain science. Hundreds end all arguments.
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