(UTV|COLOMBO) Aaron Finch, who has never played Tests, and Peter Siddle, who last played in late 2016, have been included in Australia’s squad of 15 for the two-Test series in the United Arab Emirates.
Finch, now 31 and a respected and well-travelled limited-overs player, finally gets a chance to make his Test debut.
Long thought of as best suited for short-format cricket, where he has stacked up some incredible numbers over the years, Finch has had a good time with Surrey in the English county circuit of late. His overall first-class average of 36.15 from 76 outings might not sound like much, but his experience as well as the fact that the ball might not move around too much on the tracks in the UAE made him a top pick once David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, the regular Test openers, were out of the equation.
Indeed, the sense of anticipation around the Australian Test team is due, in large measure, to the absence of Warner, Bancroft and Steve Smith, all serving bans after the ball-tampering episode in Cape Town earlier this year.
If that wasn’t enough, two of the three frontline pacemen – Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins – are also out of the reckoning with injuries too, leading veteran paceman Siddle to say, “This is the most opportunity in one team being selected that there’s ever been in the last 20 years” on the eve of the announcement of the squad, to be led by wicket-keeper batsman Tim Paine.
Siddle, a star for Essex in England, was another senior player making the cut, and if in the XI, he will play his first Test match since November 2016, when he played the last of his 62 matches in Perth against South Africa.
Squad: Tim Paine (c), Ashton Agar, Brendan Doggett, Aaron Finch, Travis Head, Jon Holland, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Michael Neser, Matt Renshaw, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc
Courtesy :icc-cricket
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