Ashes stunner as Paine recalled
AUSTRALIA has sacked Matthew Renshaw and pulled a selection stunner by plucking Tim Paine from the Tasmanian wilderness to keep in the first Ashes Test.
Cameron Bancroft will make his Test debut against England as an opener, but the earth-shattering shock is that 32-year-old Paine will pull on the gloves despite not keeping for his state all season.
Paine played the last of his four Test matches back in 2010, and after a devastating finger injury suffered in a charity game a few years ago it seemed as though a promising career had been cruelled.
But the experienced campaigner has now leapfrogged Peter Nevill as well as Tassie teammate and Australian incumbent Matthew Wade to keep wicket for Australia in the biggest series of them all.
After a week of toing and froing, the great white hope from last summer Renshaw has fallen by the wayside.
The 21-year-old was the beacon for a new Australia when picked out of the crisis that engulfed the team 12 months ago, but after a lean patch where he has scored just 70 runs in six Shield innings, selectors have decided that he doesn’t have the form to go into battle against English quick Jimmy Anderson.
It’s an enormous blow to the confidence of a young player, but the form of West Australian Bancroft cannot be ignored and he will be given an opportunity in his best position at the top of the order.
Renshaw is not the first young star dropped from the Test side and Australia will hope his axing proves a turning point as it did for the likes of Matthew Hayden and Steve and Mark Waugh before him.
Shaun Marsh is a strong chance to return as Australia’s No.6, unless selectors decide they want an all-rounder.
From Australia’s last Test, against Bangladesh in September, Wade, Glenn Maxwell and possibly Hilton Cartwright are the casualties, although Ricky Ponting believes Cartwright is firmly in the mix to play.
Paine has given a taste of what he can do against the English, making a solid 52 for the Cricket Australia XI in Adelaide last week in a tour match.
Paine looms as a gigantic bolter, given he only kept in three matches for Tasmania last year and has made just one first-class century in his career.