The Great Australian Bat Off: 3 fall but 1 lives to fight another day

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Four Australian Test hopefuls walked to the wicket on Wednesday afternoon, but only one was left standing at the end of the first day of the first round of The Great Australian Bat Off.

Rarely have so many been so focused on an A game, but there’s a lot at stake for a number of the participants in the match between India A and Australia A.

While all eyes were on the competition at the top of the order for the Test place, it was a bowler, Brendan Doggett, who stole the show with a career best 6-15 from 11 excellent overs.

Phil Jaques, who has been in these situations himself, joked at one point on the commentary that it was more of a duck off than a bat off.

Sam Konstas, the kid we were all gaga about after his double century in the first round of the Sheffield Shield, nicked off for a three ball duck.

Cameron Bancroft, who had been pushed down to first drop, copped a poor decision and was also gone for a duck. The West Australian, who made a pair in the first round of the Sheffield Shield, visibly slumped when the umpire’s finger went up. He now has 10 runs from five first class innings this summer _ the summer when the opening spot that was once his became vacant.

Marcus Harris made a slightly better fist of it, but was dropped on eight and then out to a hesitant flirtation at a ball, short and wide of his stumps, for 17. Harris, at least, has had a better time of it in the Shield than his long time rival for that position.

Three down and one to go.

Which left us with the South Australian captain, Nathan McSweeney, who has been shifted one place down from his usual spot at first drop.

I wrote here recently that there’s a lot of love for the South Australian and Australia A captain and got another message yesterday to suggest he comes to this contest with the wind in his sail.

McSweeney made it through to stumps undefeated on 29 having survived 110 deliveries on a pitch that saw 14 wickets fall in the day and one where no other batter had lasted more than 77 balls.

India A had earlier been bowled out for 107 in 47.4 overs on a pitch that had both seam and bounce. Doggett thrived in front of the Australian coaches and selectors who have trekked up to Mackay. Jordan Buckingham, a 24-year-old South Australian quick who comes highly rated by his former coach Jason Gillespie, bowled well to remove both Indian openers: Abhimanyu Easwaran (7) and Ruturaj Gaikwad (0).

The endless conjecture about who will take the opening spot has moved past the debate phase and from here it is performance that counts.

McSweeney showed in his undefeated second innings century against NSW that he knows how to dig in and tough it out.

Modern Test cricket thinking is a little too obsessed with scoring rates. Everyone wants that sports car England had, but series losses in India and Pakistan suggest you might need a more reliable model in different conditions.

Inside the Australian camp they firmly believe a Test is scheduled for five days and the patient are rewarded. With a five Test summer they will be hoping for a batting line up that can keep Indias three seamers on the job for as long as possible.

If that is the case then Nathan McSweeney is your man.

He’s had more experience than Konstas but counterintuitively has not had the exposure of Harris and Bancroft whose foibles are known.

Anyway, the selectors tell us there will be no decision until after the second Australia A game which means we are one down and three to go on a day where it was three down and one who goed (sorry).

Earlier in the day Andrew McDonald had this to say about the situation:

"I think sometimes you're pushed into a space where you can't give certainty a long way out," he said. "There is a balance in that we prefer to be more settled coming for the summer, no doubt. If you have certainly that's fantastic, but there'll be moving parts in the summer as well that create discussions and decisions about who's going to play the next Test. Whilst we want to give clarity and certainty, sometimes that's not always able to happen.

"There's a lot of context and consideration around body of work for those senior players in Marcus Harris and Cameron Bancroft. Clearly Sam Konstas hasn't been able to have that body of work behind him because of the limited Shield cricket that he's played, and Nathan McSweeney is somewhere in the middle of that.

"You take Sam for example, he's had limited experience in Perth, and then obviously up to the Gabba, so there's incredible challenges for players who haven't played in those conditions before, but it's not to say that he can't do that either - he's a fast learner."