Aussies in selection headache

IT isn’t your traditional selection headache but Trevor Hohns and his panel face a major challenge this month as they seek to settle a Test squad in one of Australian cricket’s most uncertain hours.

Chairman of selectors Hohns and coach Darren Lehmann are among the many stakeholders desperate for an end to the pay scrap between Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers’ Association.

The previous memorandum of understanding expired on June 30.

About 230 players are unemployed but none has walked off the job.

The cancellation of an Australia A tour that should have started in South Africa yesterday is the biggest casualty of the scrap so far.

It damaged the baggy green ambitions of many players.

It also made life harder for selectors Hohns, Greg Chappell and Lehmann, who will soon return to Australia from holidays in England.

The selection panel is yet to decide on which bowler will be added to the 13-man squad that was picked for the upcoming Test tour of Bangladesh. Mitchell Starc is unavailable because of a foot injury.

There is no recent evidence for selectors to study. The pair of four-day clashes in South Africa were meant to be a virtual bowl-off between pacemen Jackson Bird, Chadd Sayers, Jason Behrendorff and Chris Tremain.

It’s understood legspinner Mitchell Swepson, who had also been due to face South Africa A this month, also remains in the mix for a call-up.