JACKSON BARRETT: Australia's batting musical chairs set to end after West Indies Test series

West Australian

4 hours ago

Five months out from the first Test of the Ashes, there are just two players with completely unequivocal claims to their spot in Australia's batting order.
It is Australia's great game of musical chairs.
Steve Smith is one of those men. His role is the No.4 position, which — barring injury — he is certain to take up when the series opens in Perth at the end of November.
Travis Head has his name in texter at No.5 for the Ashes.
But Smith's gruesome finger injury and the selectors' eagerness for Head to open the batting on spin-friendly wickets could mean neither of them bat in those spots when Australia begins a three-match series against the West Indies on Wednesday night.
On Tuesday, Smith's understudy Josh Inglis has revealed he doesn't know where he will bat when this series begins in Barbados.
Marnus Labuschagne has been dropped — at least for the first Test — but selectors will be desperate for him to find form in time for the Ashes and beyond, where he has a key role in bridging the gap between this generation and the next.
Usman Khawaja will open the batting with Sam Konstas against the West Indies, as selectors revealed in a rare move almost a week out from the first ball.
The veteran opener has serious flaws facing genuinely quick bowling. He gets caught on the hop, he loses his balance, his feet come off the ground.
He was superb in Sri Lanka on wickets that suit him and he is likely to be again in the Caribbean, but there have to be concerns over his ability to perform on quick decks on home soil.
Konstas and Inglis will have an opportunity to make a case for Ashes selection, but it will have to be irresistible.
Then there is Cam Green. Australian cricket's biggest investment this decade.
He batted at No.3 and looked all at sea against the new ball and Kagiso Rabada.
Green is a nervous starter as it is and as Australia has learnt with Labuschagne, the top order is no place for anxious prods.
Selectors will be eager to see him succeed there as it would lock in a significant piece of their Test team puzzle going forward, but where Green actually bats in the Ashes will come down to both his own form and that of Beau Webster.
The towering Tasmanian is the player in this team with the most to play for.
He needs to prove his bowling will offer a genuine threat to England's middle-order, greater than what Green can provide with the ball when he ramps up his loads towards the start of the summer.
To their credit, Australian selectors have found talented options in Konstas, Inglis and Webster, but there's not an awful lot in the queue beyond them.
Marcus Harris has been dominating the second division of county cricket for Lancashire but has batted at four.
Kurtis Patterson was the hottest batter in the Sheffield Shield last summer, but he is 32.
Nathan McSweeney deserves another chance after he was thrown to the wolves at the top of the order against India last summer and fellow shield winner Henry Hunt has always loomed large.
Jake Weatherald has landed an Australia A gig, but he is 30. In fact, the top three run-scorers from the last shield season was rounded out by 33-year-old Hilton Cartwright and 32-year-old Jake Lehmann.
It leaves Konstas, Khawaja, Green, Labuschagne, Inglis and Webster all running around four chairs. Two of them are opening spots, one is the No.3 role and the other is at six.
But the music will stop at the end of this West Indies series and two of them will be left out.
Don't discount Labuschagne's ability to sneak in and find a chair for the Ashes.