Pick a number, any number - Australia needs a three for ultimate Test

Bradman, the Chappell brothers, Ricky Ponting – Australia has a rich history in the crucial No.3 role and yet the position is vacant just months out from the Ashes.

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Two-year cycle, two-year shmycle. Australia’s village of Test cricketers are on a five-month cycle that blows all other cycles out of the water.

The first Ashes Test begins on November 25. Nothing else matters. World Test Championship, World Test Shmampionship.

While we’re ranking various series, upon India’s next visit to these golden shores, can we go easy on the mumbo jumbo about the Border-Gavaskar Trophy being our ultimate contest? Recycling the flaky old line might help the PR machine whip up a creamy lather of hype, but let’s be fair dinkum about our top order of rivalries. Australia versus England for ye olde terracotta urn will forever stand handsome head and broad shoulders above every other contest in Australian sport, let alone cricket. Border-Gavaskar Trophy? Border-Shmavaskar Trophy.

A three-Test series against the West Indies for the Frank Shmorrell Trophy begins at Barbados on Wednesday night. Or Thursday morning. Details are sketchy.

I’ve spent a good portion of time trying to work this out. Is midnight June 26, the same as 12am? Yes? No?

Does the Test start Thursday night and run through Friday morning? Wait. It starts Wednesday night and spills into the early hours of Thursday?

Yes, no, wait, sorry, it seems the latter is the case.

I’ll set the alarm and hope for the best.

The Cameron Green move to No.3 in the ICC World Test Championship final against South Africa did not work. Picture: AFP

We perfectly understand Australian captain Pat Cummins licking his wounds after the World Test Shmampionship defeat and saying, “Fast forward a couple of years, you start thinking about who’s going to win. Hopefully if we make the final, who’s going to be in that?”

The answer for now amounts to, who cares? Who’s going to be in the first Ashes Test? That’s the one and only question worth pondering.

The Frank Shmorrell Tests are Australia’s last dances with the red ball before the Ashes and so they’re one-part rehearsal and one-part audition for the next instalment of the 143-year-old conflict with the Englishmen.

Australia’s leather-flingers choose themselves, of course, as does the neat and tidy gloveman, but the most important, tone-setting position among the batsmen, the prestigious No.3 slot, the pinnacle of the profession, the pillar of strength, defining a batting line-up, the appointment traditionally going to the finest, most upstanding, most authoritative and most inspirational run plunderer in the land, is so vacant they might end up picking a squatter.

Wanted for 2025 and beyond: A Don Bradman please, pictured here in August 1938 during the fourth Test at Headingley, Leeds. Picture: Fox Photos/Getty Images

Steve Smith should be there. Bradman batted No.3 right up until Eric Hollies cleaned him up at The Oval in 1948. Smith is Australia’s greatest since Bradman and he averages 67.07 at first drop, and yet he’s bludging a spot further down.

Your No.3 is your kingly batsman, your rock, your man for all occasions. If you cheaply lose an opener, it doesn’t matter because your main man is standing taller than a lighthouse in stormy seas, striding out to steady the ship.

If the openers put on a ton, look out, your best is yet to come. The decorated, debonair, diehard Smith can play hardball when needed, and flog loose balls when there’s no scoreboard pressure, and he has the regal aura of a larger-than-life No.3, but he feels more comfortable at No.4.

Good on him, I suppose. You can bat where you like when you’re a living legend. I also wish someone would give him a copy of Steve Magness’s book, Do Hard Things.

Without Smith, why isn’t Travis Head up there? Third drop is where you start before cracking a few hundreds and earning a promotion. He’s too much of a mad dasher.

Which meant Cam Green, a No.6 through and through, was in the money slot for the World Test Shmampionship final. This didn’t go well.

He’s a notoriously slow starter and vulnerable to a swinging, seaming ball. He needs time to settle before pulverising attacks. Here’s what you don’t want in your Test No.3. A slow starter vulnerable to swinging, seaming balls. They’re surrogate openers in emergency.

Green around the gills, he lasted all of four minutes and five deliveries across two innings at Lord’s, contributing just four runs.

Smith might as well have been the No.3 – he was called to duty when Green nicked off at 2-16 and 2-28.

Josh Inglis is in line for a big role in the Windies. Picture: Getty Images

It’s remarkable that in an Ashes year, so close to the end of the most important cycle, Australia is in a muddle over its No.3 batsman. Only the Prime Minister and Cummins hold more distinguished positions in the land.

The latest candidate is Josh Inglis. Where will he bat against the Windies? It’s like a guessing game at the Easter Show. Pick a number between one and six!

He’s a hustling, bustling, proactive player with a gorgeously tight technique, the sort of player to get audiences to the edges of their seats when he shuffles out, a rugged competitor who can do hard things, and he just might be the bloke to fill the role considered an honour by Bradman, Clem Hill, Neil Harvey, the Chappell brothers, David Boon, Ricky Ponting … but unwanted by Smith.

Inglis has been the Hank Snow of Australia’s white-ball batting – he’s been everywhere, man – but on the eve of the Frank Shmorell Trophy, he still didn’t know where he would be used. Again, extraordinary. We’ve all rocked up to an Under-12s game without knowing where the coach might give us a hit. You’d reckon the Test mentors would be on it by now.

“I feel comfortable batting in different positions,” Inglis said. “Obviously I’ve batted at the top in white-ball cricket and in the middle, so I’ve become accustomed to a fair bit. It’s something I pride myself on.”

South Africa’s Lungi Ngidi successfully appeals for the wicket of Steve Smith on day two of the ICC World Test Championship Final at Lord's. Picture: Getty Images

Inglis reckoned he’d bat somewhere between three and five. He made a dazzling 102 on Test debut against Sri Lanka in Galle in January, at which point he proved himself a batsman of soaring calibre and was forgiven for being born in Yorkshire.

He’s a quietly spoken fellow downplaying the pressure he can place on selectors by scoring big during the Frank Shmorrell series. And he shied away from his trademark approach of always taking a game on. Long handle, long shmandle.

“I don’t know about, ‘take it on’, Inglis said. “I’d say Heady takes it on. I’m obviously looking to score at all times, but we’ll see. You’ve got to be weighing up the conditions and the bowlers and that sort of thing.

“I mean, if I score runs, that (selection pressure) will be the case, but I’m not really thinking too much about it. If you’re thinking like that, you’re probably going to come unstuck. My focus is on playing this game and focusing on the game situation. I’ll just play when I’m picked and go from there.”