Bancroft’s focus on positive
BACK among the runs, Cameron Bancroft is taking comfort from some useful Test opening partnerships with David Warner, despite his modest Ashes series return.
Profiting from two dropped catches, Bancroft secured his highest T20 score of 75 not out for the Perth Scorchers in their BBL clash with Sydney Thunder on Thursday night – his first innings since a duck in the final Test at the SCG.
It was a welcome return after he failed to pass 27 in his seven-Test innings following an unbeaten 82 in the first Ashes Test at the Gabba, where he debuted.
He was dismissed three times in the 20s and finished with an average of 25.77, the lowest of all the Australian specialist batsmen who played the entire series.
“I definitely didn’t get the runs I would have liked to in the Test summer, but I certainly feel like I was doing some things well, I just wasn’t going on enough,” Bancroft said. “I’ll learn from that.
“I was able to put on some pretty good partnerships with David at the top of the order and set up for some of our really good cricketers to come in and really plunder the English attack.
“While I didn’t go on and get those big hundreds, I was involved in a couple of really big partnerships with Davey and I think that’s a really positive sign.”
Bancroft is relishing the potential challenge of dealing with South Africa’s formidable pace attack.
“You always want to be able to test yourself against the best bowlers,” he said.