Pace crew could be ultimate hat-trick
AUSTRALIA are so confident their fast bowling brigade are cherry ripe for the Ashes they does not want them to bowl a single ball under match conditions before the first Test.
Trio Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood have been stood down from next week’s Sheffield Shield match between NSW and Queensland but will head to Brisbane to train at the National Cricket Centre.
They will be joined by Jackson Bird who appears to have won the battle to be 12th
man for the Test, which starts at the Gabba on November 23.
Starc and Cummins were always likely to be spared from the Shield match starting on Monday at Allan Border Field but Hazlewood has joined them after bowling splendidly against Western Australia over the weekend.
Though Starc got two hattricks
against WA, Hazlewood’s work was just as impressive and he feels right to go for the first Test.
The prospect of Starc, Cummins and Hazlewood being part of the same attack is one Australia have craved for years. In time, injury permitting, they may be regarded as one of the finest trios
ever assembled by Australia. Cummins made his Test debut six years ago with a stunning performance against South Africa in Johannesburg but has never played a Test in Australia because of a long injury list.
The resting of Australia’s first-choice pace trio from the Shield match means there will be no shootout between the trio and Australian batsmen Matt Renshaw and Usman Khawaja who are preparing for the first Test.
The first three days of the Gabba Test are sold out and sales around the country for the five Tests are excellent.
Australia will name their side next Friday with West Australian coach Justin Langer believing Hilton Cartwright is still strongly in the reckoning for the No.6 spot despite a pair against NSW.
“I think he got 100 runs for the game in the first game (against Tasmania) in really tough conditions with the pink ball,” he said.