The Ashes – First Test: Australian squad for the Gabba

Australian Squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Cameron Bancroft, Usman Khawaja, Peter Handscomb, Shaun Marsh, Tim Paine (wk), Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Jackson Bird, Chadd Sayers.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

Comments

  1. Paine has class. Wade spits on his grid.

  2. Tim Paine and Shaun Marsh??? Were Bert Oldfield and Peter Burge unavailable?

  3. Paine:
    He is an excellent keeper, but it is the manner of his selection which is disturbing. He played in only one of the much-vaunted 3-Shield-game-audition process, and in that he wasn’t even keeping. By going back to Nevill, the selectors would have been admitting they erred by dropping him after Hobart. That was never going to happen.
    S Marsh:
    Had he been belting down the door with runs, I may have been persuaded – but I guess 236 @ 39 is at the upper end these days. Interestingly Maxwell, the incumbent, has 200 @ 40. He hasn’t done a heap wrong other than not turning one of those 60’s into a ton.
    Bancroft:
    Renshaw was stiff given his o/s performances, but this is one selection that is difficult to argue with.

  4. Earl O'Neill says

    Pick a team, six batsmen, one keeper, four bowlers, stick with it.
    Shane Warne has a miserable record in Sheffield Shield, an unmatched record in Tests. Some players are like that.
    Renshaw made 184 in his latest Test. Now he’s another ‘what if?’
    I did a tree job yesterday, the client helped out. “Branches are gonna come down quick, Tony.” “That’s okay, I used to be wicketkeeper.”
    “Have you put your hand up for the baggy green?”
    We agreed that Nevill should never have been dropped.

  5. I was gunna nominate Sean Marsh and Tim Paine on that Almanacky thing. Just takin’ the piss, like. The office girl picked up the bloody wrong sheet. Regards, Trev from Nundah.

  6. I thought the Ashes was Weight for Age. The Committee have gone and made it a handicap.

  7. Tim Paine is probably the best keeper in Australia but surely one must earn their spurs by playing regularly with the State team? How disenchanting for any keeper on the way up.
    Paine has come from no where to win Peter B’s handicap and Shaun Marsh his eighth recall, Even Bruce McMaster-Smith did not have that many and he came from a team of 20 players. Marsh will make runs batting at six because the work has been done before him.
    Bancroft has the runs on the board so he deserves a spot. I feel for Renshaw his test record in Australia is very, very impressive and he could easily become Matt Who?
    i will be listening with baited breathe when one of my favourite commentators Ed Cowan hits the air-waves. Boy, has he got something to grumble about and rightly so!
    Anyway we will have our pens very poised (yes, I still use a pen) when the first ball is bowled next Thursday. See you at the Gabba?

  8. Citrus – my take on Shaun Marsh is that he is an eye player. (Very) poor man’s Hookes and Lehmann. Good on true decks where the ball doesn’t do a lot. The WACA hasn’t really bounced for more than a decade, and Shaun is effective where he can hit through the line – like in the IPL and Big Bash.
    Gabba is the last place in Australia I would pick him if there was any moisture around or juice in the deck – be it at 1,3, 6 or 11 in the order. Strange days.
    Thoughts?

  9. Mick Jeffrey says

    Anyone else think Marsh may well become the first Australian to get booed onto the park in an Ashes test, because I have a bad feeling that may happen on Thursday. Personally some may take the young Matt Hayden approach, unable to watch him play Shield cricket knowing he’d still be there 3 hours later and unable to watch him play test cricket because it may not be good viewing.

  10. Good point PB! Marsh will be found wanting in Adelaide (already picked) and I am not sure of his record at the G but then again he will probably be dropped before that game commences.
    Still puzzled over the Paine selection. There are no ethics in team selection any more is there? Let alone the selection of the selectors. How come Mark Waugh for example talks to all and sundry about everything?
    Only six days to go before all our hyperbole goes out the window and we can concentrate on the game.

  11. Shaun Marsh is now in his 8th incarnation as a test player. He’s played some fine knock, with a ton on debut, a match saving knock in the third test on the recent tour of India, plus some big scores against underwhelming attacks in the 2015-16 summer, the highlights of his test career. But consistency ?

    One can almost perceive how this stint will turn out. A big ton with a string of single figure scores to go with it. It could have been worse: both Marsh brothers may have been selected.

    Would it not have been a better option to retain Renshaw, bringing in Bancroft @ 6?

    Glen!

  12. Peter Warrington says

    Citrus I agree. Mark Waugh is out there speculating in public. STFU.

    Mind you when Lehmann talks, after the team is announced, it doesn’t make any sense

    as fro Nevill, just because Wade flopped doesn’t mean Nevill shouldn’t have been dropped. he couldn’t really buy a run.

    at this stage, I would have gone for Carey. best young keeper. so “they” say.

    Shaun Marsh – 37% of his test innings are 3 and under. what a farce.

    picked out of the blue for India – murdered Khawaja’s hared-earned sense of belonging. Marsh flopped – averaging 18 is flopping.

    now they’ve done it to Maxwell

    34 and there’s actually no more, old man….

  13. Gee whizz Peter, 37% of S Marsh’s test innings are under 3 runs. How does that measure up with G McGrath? As i’ve mentioned we can expect this eighth recall to have a decent size score with a lot of single innings ‘knocks’; primarily under 3, it seems. Happy to be proven wrong, but it’d be long odds.

    Re selection, the stories indicate Ben Stokes is not yet ruled out of appearing this summer, possibly around the time of the Perth test. Interesting, but what message is it sending ? Yes, you’re innocent until proven guilty but the footage is very damning. Not a good one.

    Glen!

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