You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows

PL attempts to read the wind

Australia 4-161 trails Bangladesh by 67 runs

At lunch on the third day, as we chewed our food and tried to digest the meal Australia has made of this match to that point, the general consensus was that this selection panel isn’t one to panic. Its track record suggests it was likely to have guaranteed those close to sentencing that they’d have both Tests before handing down a decision.

‘But, if they lose this one, will it force their hand?’ Someone who's played a bit more Test cricket than the person typing asked. We decided, without conviction, that the selectors would hold their nerve. Better to give them one Test too many than one too few, as ‘experts’ are wont to say in such situations.

Then, with Bangladesh bundled out for a lazy 426 runs, Jake Weatherald (0) twitched the third delivery of his second innings onto the stumps. Fourth stump line, no need to play.

Pick the bones out of that one, eh?

"You are required to make runs all the time when you go out there,” Weatherald told Cricinfo on the way to the game. “And I've got a good opportunity to play two games, hopefully, and make runs in four innings to do that. If I don't do that, then yeah, I'll put fate in someone else's hands."

Hopefully.

Weatherald, unfortunately, inspires no confidence. He has re-engineered his technique to fix bad habits which had crept in, but the resultant, alarming bounce from front foot to back foot as the bowler approaches appears to be the dance of a man oscillating between fight and flight.