“No. I know there’s been a lot of speculation around that,” Bailey said. “We view every Test tour and Test match as really important.
“For us, it was more around structuring up two or three different ways of what we thought the first XI may look like … once we were sort of clear on the direction we thought that first XI may take, then the squad sort of took shape after that.”
Still, if Australia had desperately needed to beat Sri Lanka to secure a World Test Championship final spot, fast bowler Josh Hazlewood (calf) could well have been rushed back from injury.
Test call-ups Cooper Connolly, Matt Kuhnemann, Todd Murphy, Nathan McSweeney.Credit:
Travis Head had been slated to open the batting in Sri Lanka with Usman Khawaja, but there is every chance 19-year-old Sam Konstas could retain his spot at the top.
Konstas could fail four times in a row in Galle and it wouldn’t be a disaster. Australia will consider it a price worth paying if experience in subcontinental conditions helps Konstas’s development ahead of a five-Test tour to India in 2027. Australia haven’t beaten India in India since 2004.
“I guess what we have seen is he is a quick learner,” Bailey said of Konstas.
The same applies for 21-year-old West Australian batting all-rounder Cooper Connolly.
Connolly has a highest first-class score of 90, but any fears he has been promoted to Test cricket too soon should be offset against the fact he made that score on his Sheffield Shield debut, batting at No.7 in a final that his side won by 377 runs. He is a classy player.
“I think he is the best young talent in the country in terms of being a full package,” one state coach told this masthead.
According to cricket statistician Adam Morehouse, the last Australian top-six batter to play a Test without a first-class hundred or wicket was Ron Archer in 1953.
Connolly has played four first-class matches, three of those being this season. Only six Australians – George Bonnor, JJ Ferris, Walter Giffen, Tom Horan, Sammy Jones and Bill Watson – made their Test debuts with exactly four first-class matches to their names. Five of the six did so before 1877.
Cooper Connolly hits out for the Scorchers.Credit: Getty Images
Pat Cummins had played just three first-class matches when he debuted, and look how that turned out.
Even if the likes of Konstas and Connolly don’t play, it will be a worthwhile exercise sending them to train on spinning tracks. The chance to learn off old-timers such as Usman Khawaja (six Tests in Sri Lanka) and Steve Smith (five in Sri Lanka) will be invaluable.
“I don’t think there’s any way to replicate the types of conditions you get in Sri Lanka, specifically within domestic cricket in Australia,” Bailey said.
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Selection will be fascinating. Will Australia play just one frontline fast bowler? Is Sean Abbott a better chance of playing than Scott Boland due to his ability with the bat?
What does it all mean for the Ashes? Very little. This is a conditions-specific squad with more than a hint of forward planning at a time when selectors have been criticised for a perceived lack of looking to the future.
Remember that the injured Cam Green will come back into the mix. He will be available to play as a batter in the World Test Championship final and is sure to be in Ashes squad calculations.
Australia also have three Tests against the West Indies in the Caribbean to get through before Ashes previews can be written up.
This squad is more about India in 2027 than it is about England next summer. In that context it is, in the words of former Test opener Ed Cowan, “perfect”. That will be especially true if the bold selections pay off in two years’ time.
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