Controversy? What controversy?

Rogers won’t last forever, Clarke’s back won’t go away, and there are still question marks over Watson, Smith and Bailey, though Smith may have done enough to be relatively safe.

That’s what I said, or rather wrote yesterday.

Actually I’ve been saying it for a while, and announcements over the last twenty-four hours have clarified matters slightly.

The big one in that department is the Test squad for South Africa, which removes a question mark, with the Alan Border Medal and announcement of the T20 side clarifying matters around the fringes.

I didn’t find the Test squad surprising, and when it came to the top gong at the AB Medal it was always a question of which way the votes have gone.

Personally, I would have tipped Haddin, but when asked for a selection yesterday over the dinner table I hedged my bets by nominating Haddin as my choice, Clarke as most likely and Johnson as a big show. Johnson comes as no surprise given the voting side of things.

Neither, for that matter, does Jordan Silk taking out the Young Player or Emerging Talent award. I took note of the name when he came on as a substitute in the Hobart Test last season. Kerry O’Keefe was commentating and rated him as the best fielder in the country, which was a rather big call for a fringe player in the Tasmanian Shield squad, but he got a guernsey shortly thereafter and scored runs in the Shield final.

So maybe it wasn't just O’Keefe’s Bluebag bias operating at the time. He’s just outside the top ten run scorers in the Shield this year (421 at an average of 35.08 and a strike rate of 44.12) and opens the batting.

You might care to pencil in the name beside the current Test squad with a question mark after possible replacement for Rogers.

Shield Player of the Year went to Cameron White, which might bring cries of why isn’t he in the Test side from the other side of the Murray. He was probably glanced at, but very briefly.

Four reasons why:

Age, Role, Vacancy and Best Suited As.

You might look at other players on the circuit around the same age (30, but I thought he was older than that) who are being touted as some chance and wonder why that’s a factor, but then we come to Role and Vacancy.

Middle order bat. Four, Five or Six? Clarke at Four, Smith at Five, Question mark at Six. He has been known to bowl occasional leg spin. As a matter of fact, that’s where I reckoned his future lay. Middle order bat who bowls the occasional leggie. We’ve got one of those in Smith. Do we need a second?

And then there’s Best Suited As, which seems to be where he is at the moment. Senior player for Victoria, batting Four or Five, getting a bowl when Fawad Ahmed’s not in the side. He’s the sort of bloke you want around on the edges to sort out the up and coming bowlers, but you never know, a vacancy might emerge.

And, somewhere down the track there may be a vacancy for Bailey, whose Limited Overs Player of the Year came the same day as his axing from the Test squad.

In his case Best Suited as looks to be captaining the T20 side and playing ODIs and captaining when Clarke gets a rest. He’s got a T20 World Cup coming up, there was a question mark over his spot in the Test lineup, he hadn’t done very well against England, and, actually, he might be better off not going to South Africa to deal with Philander, Steyn and Morkel.

Detailed scrutiny there could have consigned him to the also rans for good.

As it is, he’s got the World T20, the possibility that Clarke may not be there for the next ODI World Cup, and the chance to make a case with a mountain of Shield runs while others are, quite possibly, being tried and failing.

But he’ll need big runs and a vacancy.

Which, of course, brings us to the Test squad, where eleven out of fourteen were certainties.

Since the only question marks were Three and Six, and Watson was always going to be on the plane. Marsh and Doolan offer a couple of options.

First, we assume that Watson is fit and playing. He can bat Three, with Doolan at Six. Ideal spot to blood a new player and move him up the order a little further down the track if he survives.

Alternatively, Marsh (or Doolan, but probably Marsh) at Three, Watson at Six.

If he’s not fit, Marsh at Three, and Doolan at Six with just the four bowlers (three quicks and Lyon, with part timers rolling the arm over a bit more than they would have).

Alternatively Marsh or Doolan at Three, Haddin at Six, Faulkner at Seven. On that basis, it’s probably Marsh at Three.

As far as the bowling is concerned, you look at the Watto factors as above, go in with Johnson, Harris and Siddle if fit, with Lyon to clean up South African bats who probably don’t rate him after the draw in Adelaide.

No Watto or non-bowling Watto at Three opens the possibility of using Faulkner at Seven as the extra bowler.

The only possible controversy as far as I can see comes with Pattinson and Bird ahead of the rest of the pack for the spare bowler spots, remembering that Coulter-Nile lives in Perth, just across the Indian Ocean with regular flights in that direction. There are other potential replacements (if needed) who aren’t that much further away.

Pattinson and Bird are both coming back off injury. Their progress can be monitored, and if there’s remedial or strengthening work required as part of their recovery that can be watched as well.

They’re probably not going to be doing that much bowling unless one of the other three break down.

Meanwhile, without having to bowl to a handy South African order  the other contenders have a chance to advance their case when the Shield resumes, knowing that two of their potential rivals are probably spending the couple of Tests sitting on the sidelines.

So, really, not very controversial at all.

And so we're off to The Oval, scratching our heads...

My first reaction to what I sighted in the Cricinfo Facebook feed at five-thirty this morning was a definite suspicion that someone was taking the piss.

Five-thirty on a bin day morning when there’s cat herding to be done before you hit the hoof for the morning lap around town just after six doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for confirmation and investigation, but a quick squiz here suggested they weren’t kidding.

Oh well, Faulkner and Starc in for Khawaja and Bird would provide something to ponder on the lap around town, wouldn’t it?

As it turned out the pondering started as I stepped onto Kennedy Street and was pretty much done and dusted by the time I checked whether it was safe to cross Herbert Street. That’s a space of less than a hundred and fifty metres, folks, so it’s obvious the penny dropped fairly quickly.

In these cases you need to spot the principle the selection panel is working from. If you’re thinking this is what we’ve got and the question is which of them will be staying you’re going to be heading in with a side that’s largely unchanged from last time around. It becomes a question of which of the incumbents cement a place in the side and which of them play themselves out of it.

It’s a start with last time and figure deletions and inclusions approach.

The questions, in that mental environment, involve the possibility of reinstalling Cowan or Hughes in the top six, and which three quicks get the guernsey alongside Watson’s fourth seamer role and Lyon’s spin.

We don’t, however, seem to be working from that basis.

This time around we seem to have adopted what I’ve termed the old Primary Rep Side principle of this is what we’ve got, so how do we fill in the gaps.

Working on that basis, what we’ve got was Rogers and Warner to open, Clarke at Four/Five, Haddin to keep and Lyon to bowl offies. That’s sort of like your old known knowns.

Five names down, six to go in.

Three of those six are going to be your three specialist quicks, with Watson likely to cover the fourth seamer role.  I’d reached that conclusion as I reached the half way point along Kennedy Street, which is where the penny dropped.

It all comes down to Harris.

If he’s one of your three specialist quicks, and he certainly seems to be the first one picked, you’re going to need to cover for him if he breaks down.

Fine, you might think. Harris breaks down, so Watto’s workload increases. End of story.

This, of course, ignores the other elephant in the room. The possibility of Harris breaking down is the first one, but it’s equally obvious that Watto’s no good thing to get through a lot of donkey work without breaking down, which then ramps up the workload for the other to quicks, leaving a very real possibility of further injury issues.
So when you start pencilling in the specialist quicks, if you’ve got Harris and Siddle in the side and you’re looking for the third bloke you’ll possibly be needing a fourth to cover Harris and Watson if both of them break down.

That’s where Faulkner enters the calculations, with the third seamer being a choice between Bird and Starc and Faulkner covering the injury angle.

Wind up going with Starc and Faulkner and you’ve then got a batting order that reads:

 Rogers, Warner, Question Mark, Clarke, Question Mark, Haddin, Faulkner, Starc, Siddle, Harris, Lyon.

One of those question marks is, of course, Watson. We know he’s in there but haven’t figured where to put him.

Slot him into Five and you lose Smith, with Khawaja, Hughes and Cowan being the options at Three. You’re assuming, at this point, Smith isn’t a Three.

Figure that Watto has opened the batting and you can bat your alternative opener at Three, and you’re left with a choice of Smith, Hughes or Khawaja at Five.

So Watto goes to Three, Smith gets the guernsey at Five and everything’s done and dusted.

On that basis you’ve got an attack that’s probably going to be able to snare twenty wickets.

You’ve probably got an attack that can take twenty wickets after one of them has broken down. There’s a fair chance it’s an attack that can do that without bowling someone into the zone where they’re at risk of breaking down.

And it’s quite possible they can winkle out twenty wickets after two out of the six of ‘em have broken down.

Hell, if necessary Clarke, Warner and Smith can all roll their arms over.

The question is, of course, whether this batting line up can score enough runs.

That, one suspects, will depend on the size of the start Rogers and Warner can provide. We could well be 1-150 with Watto joining a well set Rogers or a Warner who’s pummelling the bowling hell, west and crooked.

Then again, we could just as easily be 3-20 with Clarke and Smith forced to consolidate and Haddin, Faulkner and the bowlers to come.

Time, of course, will tell...

Durham Day 1

It was hard not to think of Henry Ford’s old line about lies, damn lies and statistics when someone on the radio commentary reeled off the scores registered by sides batting first at Chester-le-Street through the first part of the English first class season. There was a fair bit of discussion on air, and, again, when I went to look at the browser in the morning, the figures were run up the flagpole again (here).

Scores by teams batting first in five County Championship matches at Durham’s home ground read 250, 237, 259, 267 and 253. A glance at the score cards from those games reveals a dearth of familiar names, at least as far as current international players are concerned, though Collingwood and Onions play for Durham, and the Somerset side that got rolled after that 250 for 132 and 186 included Marcus Trescothick.

Root, Phil Jaques, Bairstow and Bresnan were in the Yorkshire side that chased down 339 to win after Durham made 237 batting first, Chris Rogers captained the Middlesex side that extracted a draw after Durham made 259, Warwickshire didn’t have any hint of the Quasimodo factor but just failed to chase down 257 to win after the Durham first innings of 267 and Chanderpaul was in the Derbyshire side that got walloped by 279 after Durham managed 253 in the first dig.

Look at it on that basis and you’d be forced to conclude Chester-le-Street is a fairly low scoring venue, but Test wickets are different to County tracks, right?

The Australian (here) points out that while the highest score on the ground this First Class season is the 339 registered by Yorkshire thanks to a big ton from Root those games were played on seaming pitches not this tailor-made dustbowl.

So what do we take from a first day where an England side that hasn’t delivered on their supposed ability went from 2-107 to 9-238?

Well, the first point is that Australia’s bowling is our strength, and looks to be developing an ability to hunt as a pack. Harris, I thought, was wayward early and didn’t force Cook to play enough, but the economy rates from Watson and Siddle (combined figures 30 overs, 11 maidens, 2 for 62) and Bird (21-8-1-58) set things up rather nicely for Lyon’s 4-42 off 20.

Those figures from Lyon include the relative mauling that came early on from Pietersen, who set out to dominate the spinner. KP is on record as saying he doesn’t rate spinners in general. He particularly doesn’t rate Lyon which makes, I think, for an interesting contest given the fact that Lyon learned his trade in the country, where everyone down to Eleven is inclined to have a slap.

Pietersen might have tonked the offie for 26 runs off 29 Lyon deliveries in Manchester before Clarke removed the spinner from the attack and set out to deliver another mauling here, but the combination of Clarke and Lyon set things up rather neatly here.

Lyon is very much a work in progress (I’ve made that point repeatedly) so having been tonked three fours before Clarke took the offie off this time around, you might have expected him to be shielded from Pietersen. What came next suggests there’s been a bit of thought go into this little battle.

Lyon was back at the bowling crease a mere six overs later, with one key difference. He switched to around the wicket rather than over the wicket. I was particularly interested in Lyons’ comment to the ABC’s Jim Maxwell that coming around the wicket brings in the lbw, caught slip and caught bat-pad, so it just keeps me in the game a lot more.

That seems to run right in the face of the old time conventional wisdom about right armers going around the wicket, which takes LBW out of the question if the ball pitches outside leg stump. Lyon must therefore be looking to pitch in line, straighten the offie to bring in the LBW and bat pad, and use the arm ball to bring slip into play.

It was an arm ball that ended up accounting for Pietersen, caught behind, rather than at slip, but there you go. Earlier Lyon had picked up Trott at short leg (diving effort from Khawaja under the lid), so two wickets in the space of a dozen runs (all boundaries from Pietersen) off 16 balls suggests that there’s progress being made in the work in progress.

Throw in Bell and Bairstow and you’ve got an underrated offie ripping the guts out of the much vaunted English middle order. You could, of course, be hypercritical of the approach adopted by the English bats, but I’m inclined to the view, on the whole, you can only bat as well as you’re allowed to.

From time to time, on flat tracks, with the ball doing absolutely nothing, batsmen can do absolutely as they like. Equally, once in a while, the bowlers find a track that suits them or someone manages a day when the ball comes out just right, but, on the whole, the battle between bat and ball comes down to a waiting game as the bowlers probe and the bats counter attack.

Based on Day One in Durham one has to suspect we’re in for an intriguing contest at what seems to be a low scoring venue.

Much of that will, of course, depend on how we bat when we get to the crease, and I’m reasonably bullish about the prospects after the top order finally got it together in Manchester. Forget the declaration batting in the second dig, and muse, for a moment, on what might have been had Khawaja got started rather than dudded and you’d possibly be bullish as well.

For anyone who has been missing the Hughesy take on the cricket, apologies for a total silence through the Old Trafford Test, which coincided with a fair chunk of road trip due to visitors from Japan. I managed a fair chunk of the pre-lunch session on Day One there after a long day on the water over to Whitehaven Beach, but road trip considerations, neck muscles that were giving me hell on the Friday and Saturday and an early departure for Cairns on Sunday morning meant the Sports Desk wasn’t going to get too much chance to opine on developments.

But, like the Australian side, we’re very much back in business, and if you’re after an interesting read, try this very interesting piece on Peter Siddle (here).

Off to Lords..,

It may be delusional, but Hughesy’s expectation that we’re going to go close to retrieving the urn over the course of the next four Tests is based on an expectation that eventually we’ll work out the best way to use our existing resources, and when that happens Australia will be extremely competitive.

The process of figuring out the best way to use our existing resources is, of course, the tricky bit, and is more than likely the cause of any friction or rifts within the side. Eventually, however, we’ll sort things out to the point where we’re competitive at the very highest level, and when we do the success that should naturally follow will bring its own issues with it.

There’ll inevitably be friction in any collection of humans unless you’ve been lucky enough to assemble a group that’s absolutely committed to a common target with every individual within the group in total agreement about how the target’s supposed to be reached.

There’ll inevitably be members of the Australian side who take, shall we say, exception to the presence of others in the team, and resent the manner in which responsibilities are allocated.

Whether the Scott Muller incident was down to Joe the Cameraman or the formerly chubby Victorian leg spinner, there are always going to be players in the side who aren’t convinced that recent additions are good enough. Don’t just think Warne and Muller, go back to, say Ian Chappell and Graham Yallop and continue from there through the squads selected. You’ll find any number of other examples.

Questions regarding the leadership will invariably generate friction. Expectations and ambitions on one side will be resented, but hopefully grudgingly accepted. We’ve heard recent suggestions that Michael Hussey’s departure was hastened by issues with Michael Clarke’s captaincy, and if you cast your eye back a bit over thirty years you’ll see obvious friction between three West Australians named Kim Hughes, Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee.

So while these things are, I think, inevitable, at some point someone makes a call and says this is how it is, fellas, and, hopefully, at that point given a decision the protagonists pull their heads in and get on with the game.

Warne may have resented Gilchrist landing the vice-captaincy but he kept on bowling, and did it rather well.

Inevitably, you’ll see examples of people who are used to getting their own way and attempt to influence decisions to make sure the trend continues.

That, of course, brings us to the question of likely changes to the starting eleven this time around as we wait to see the side for Lords. We took our time and dropped a bombshell for Trent Bridge, so while there may or may not be any bombshells for Lords, you can bet your bottom dollar that, ten or so hours out from the start with the side and the management pushing up Zs, we’ll be taking our time.

As far as I can see there are only two spots where changes are likely, and the overnight rumours suggest a Khawaja for Cowan swap is unlikely. If it doesn’t happen, either Cowan does enough to cement a spot this time or he doesn’t.

His spot, however, didn’t necessarily have to be at Three, which is where the Watto conundrum kicks in. Maybe it doesn’t quite constitute whiteanting, may or may not be a cancer on the side, and almost certainly constitutes the actions of a man who’s used to getting what he wants the decisions about where Watson bats and how much he bowls have been heavily influenced by the man and his actions.

Those decisions have, however, been made, the judge’s decision is in, no correspondence will be entered into and the choice is down to Cowan or Khawaja at Three.

The other question’s a bit more tricky, since it involves the composition of the bowling group. Based on Trent Bridge you’d have to say Agar holds his place, batting Eight and doing his share of the bowling. Siddle and Pattinson look safe (barring injury) so the final spot comes down to whether Starc stays and, if he doesn’t, who replaces him.

A bowling Watson would open up a chance for Lyon to return if it looks like the track will turn, but I’m assuming Watson’s role with the ball will constitute cameos rather than donkey work, so it’s either Bird, Faulkner or Harris (as always I try to keep these things alphabetical).

There’s a case for each of the three.

Bird, as our prospective new McGrath, would be an obvious candidate for the work horse role behind Pattinson and attack leader Siddle.

Faulkner can bat, and would be a left arm for left arm replacement, but is probably the least likely of the three prospects with the ball. Of course, having said that, name him in the side and he’ll more than likely deliver.

Harris, who is no good thing to hold down a spot for four games, but will work his guts out while he’s there.

In the end, not having seen any of the three in action on the tour I’m half inclined to go for Harris, but the question mark over the longevity means I’m more inclined to play it safe and opt for Bird.

Who knows? Typing this at ten-thirty-nine on a post-State of Origin morning, I’m more inclined to adopt a wait and see approach, Pressed to make a call. I’d go Khawaja for Cowan and Bird for Starc, but we’ll see...

This is the must win game, and winning is difficult if you’re a bowler short, which explains my preference for Bird over Harris...

Thirty-five hours out...

About thirty-six hours out from the first of ten Tests in back to back Ashes series, Hughesy is pretty upbeat about Australia’s chances of holding the urn by the end of the Australian summer.

Actually, I’m pretty upbeat about our chances of our having matters under control by the time we head home from The Oval, but I’m willing to concede some things take time to build.

While there’s every possibility something will roll along to upset the apple cart between now and the resumption of hostilities, recent speculation about who decides the Australian batting order and ponderings about whether Peter Siddle will be all right on the night (here) has me thinking things are shaping up rather well.

The question of who decides the batting order and the possibility of some sort of ruction between the Australian captain and the Australian coach suggests, to me at least, the journos covering the tour are in need of a story.

And since we haven’t had any members of the touring party making mugs of themselves in the course of a night on the tiles, with nothing else to write about, we get attempts to generate a storm in a teacup in the quest for column inches.

I’m willing to concede there’s the possibility of some disagreement, but it’s hard to imagine that Michael Clarke’s first sighting of the side he’s being handed will occur immediately before the toss.

The twelve will be done and dusted by now, with the most likely eleven just about set in stone. It’s just that they’re not telling anyone.

Which is fine with me, because we’re looking at a situation where any advantage, however slight, is going to be helpful. We’re actually looking at a situation where any member of the touring party except Matthew Wade and, possibly (but only possibly) Ashton Agar is likely to find themselves in the final eleven.

That means when the Poms are doing their planning they have a few more things to take into account, which delivers a slight tactical advantage. We already have a fair idea of what we’re up against, don’t we? The other side has a bit more guess work to do.

Getting back to that matter of the batting order, pause for a moment and consider the statement that the captain decides the batting order, which, of course, he does because the order in which the batsmen enter the arena is a tactical one, and tactical decisions are the captain’s realm.

I’d be betting that when Lehmann hands over the team list it’ll contain eleven names in alphabetical order and a specified twelfth man. Clarke will have a second list, which will be the suggested or likely batting order, so let’s pause for a moment and cast an eye over that little devil.

The only apparent given in the eleven is that it will feature Rogers and Watson at the top of the order, Clarke in the middle somewhere and Haddin at Six or Seven, depending on whether Faulkner is included in the eleven along with four other bowlers. Once you’ve made that call, One, Two, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten and Eleven are more or less set in stone, aren’t they?

So the only decisions that Clarke has to make will involve the blokes who slot into the scoreboard at Three, Four, Five and Six. Compris?

So let’s pause for a moment and look at the candidates. In Rogers and Watson we’ve got a left hand right hand combination, and Clarke’s a right hander. So, for that matter, in the course of these calculations, is Haddin.

Cowan, Hughes, Khawaja and Warner all bat left, Smith is the only other rightie among the specialist bats. What’s to stop Clarke and whoever gets the nod out of the first three of those lefties both padded up as the openers go out?

A left hand/right hand opening combination is held to be useful because if they’re able to rotate the strike the bowlers are going to have a little added difficulty in maintaining a consistent line and length and building pressure.

Assume, for a moment that the first four reads something like Watson, Rogers, Hughes and Clarke. Pencil in the possibility that whoever goes in at Three (which should be the best bat in the side according to the conventional wisdom) depends on who is the first bat to be dismissed. If you want to keep the left/right combination going, Hughes replaces Rogers, Clarke replaces Watson.

Might be tricky if Watson goes early, but if that’s the way you’re thinking, you’d be looking at a definite order, wouldn’t you?

AS far as the bowling goes, things are fairly open, and I suspect the actual line up will depend on the team’s assessment of the best options against the English top order. You’d reckon Pattinson and Starc are certainties, so the question becomes whether you play a spinner, with Lyon most likely, but not a certainty, to get the nod.

Assume he does, and you’re going in with four specialist bowlers, and the choice comes down to one out of Siddle, Harris, Bird and Faulkner.

In these circumstances, kicking off a series where the batting has the question mark over it, I’d have Haddin at Seven, and I’d be going with the four bowlers, so I’d be giving the nod to Siddle and telling him to expect the work horse role.

Anyway, for what it’s worth, Hughesy’s side for Trent Bridge: Watson, Rogers, Hughes, Clarke, Khawaja, Warner, Haddin, Siddle, Pattinson, Starc, Lyon, Bird (12th man).

Par score after Day One, assuming weather, atmospherics, or any devils in the pitch don’t come into play 8 for 300. More than eight wickets or less than 300, advantage to the side bowling first. Less than eight wickets advantage definitely to the batting side, though they’re level pegging if there’s more than thirteen...

And tomorrow, reflections on the dynamics of a series, and why 2005 wasn’t the wonderful series it was cracked up to be..

The Ashes Squad 2013

You may think it's rather like a dog that persists in gnawing at a bone long after whatever meat was there in the first place but I continue to see reminders of that fateful morning in 2005 when Glenn McGrath turned his ankle on a stray cricket ball, Ricky Ponting won the toss and sent them in and Brett Lee proceeded to bowl in a most profligate manner.

It was a decision that might seem to belong to the dim and distant past, but we're still seeing the ripples of its effect, most recently in the question of why we've recalled a thirty-five year old veteran of a single Test to the Australian squad for the Ashes tour.

Regardless of the implications (cited here) of being issued with a baggy green that may or may not have been too small and seems to have resulted in a migraine, Chris Rogers was always going to have to make way for Matthew Hayden's return to the side. That was in the summer of 2007-2008, when the Australian side was rebuilding after the retirements of Langer and Martyn (and Warne and McGrath) with Gilchrist and Hayden on the verge of leaving and Ponting and Hussey starting to approach their use by dates, so you can see why Hayden had to come back in the short term.

Had we held the Ashes in 2005, one suspects the retirement/rebuilding process would have been managed differently.

Still, having chosen to bring on younger players in the interim (Phil Jaques, Simon Katich, Phil Hughes, Shane Watson, David Warner and Ed Cowan) there's the possibility of a pleasingly ironic turn of The Ashes tail if we regain the urn thanks to the efforts of an opening batsman who's spent the past five Australian winters amassing a mountain of runs and gaining valuable experience in English conditions, playing County cricket because he wasn't in the Australian side.

That said, with the predictable reinstatement of Brad Haddin to the premier glove man position yesterday's announcement of The Ashes squad provided few surprises, though it does raise some interesting possibilities and a few intriguing conundrums.

For a start it does look like a bowling attack that'll be able to take twenty wickets in English conditions. Three out of Siddle, Pattinson, Starc, Harris and Bird with either Watson or Faulkner as a fourth seamer and Lyon, who has finally managed a bag of wickets in a Test (and, one notes, is moving to New South Wales, put a big tick in the developing the spinner box) looks like a pretty sharp attack.

It's also interesting to note four of those five quicks in the Australia A squad, along with Lyon and young Ashton Agar as well as Haddin and Khawaja. There'll be plenty of chances to assess form and performance prior to the start of the First Test at Trent Bridge on 10 July. There are tour matches against Somerset and Worcestershire before that,  and Australia A play Scotland, Ireland and Gloucestershire while they get the Champions' Trophy sorted out.

On that basis, crystal ball gazing three months out might seem pretty pointless. You'd expect the twelve for Trent Bridge to include four of the five quicks plus Lyon, with Clarke and Haddin the only obvious certainties. Throw in Rogers and Watson as highly likely, and you've got three batting spots up for grabs with Warner, Cowan, Hughes and Khawaja as the candidates.

Pretty straightforward for mine. Rogers is an opening bat, so put him in first, with Cowan, Hughes at Three, Clarke at Four, Watson at Five and Warner at Six. Haddin is the obvious Seven, Starc, Siddle, Pattinson and Lyon rounding out the eleven with Harris or Bird carrying the drinks.

But we'll see. There are several bridges with quite a bit of water to flow under them between now and then.

Ashes squad:
Michael Clarke (capt), Brad Haddin (vice-capt, wk), David Warner, Ed Cowan, Phillip Hughes, Shane Watson, Usman Khawaja, Chris Rogers, Matthew Wade (wk), James Faulkner, Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle, James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Jackson Bird.

Australia A squad:
Brad Haddin (capt), Steven Smith (vice-capt), Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird, Alex Doolan, Ryan Harris, Moises Henriques, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Nic Maddinson, James Pattinson, Chadd Sayers, Peter Siddle, Jordan Silk.

Sydney 2012: Into Day Two...

I was late switching on the TV yesterday, and when I did they were right into the Tony Greig tributes, so I didn't get a chance to pick up on the forensic details about the pitch, so I've got no way of knowing whether there was anything in the track to justify Michael Clarke's decision to insert Sri Lanka after he won the toss.

On paper, with the eleven we chose to take into the game, you'd reckon there'd have to be plenty of soup in there for the quicks, and on the evidence of the first session you'd be forced to conclude that anything that was seen in there was, largely, an illusion.

There were plenty of comments early about the four quicks being used as a means to avoid rotating someone out to bring Starc back in, but I'm more inclined to look at it as a means of evaluating the stocks we've got on hand, the same way that playing Maxwell at Seven or a traditional Sydney turner would have given us a good look at the off-spinning options.

The same way winning the toss and batting might have done a bit to sort out where we are with the top three, and would have delivered those two offies into the position where they'd be bowling last on a wicket that usually turns before the end of Day Five.

But no, for whatever reason, we went in with the four quicks and the chance to sort out a pecking order among them, and the simultaneous rating of Mitchell Johnson as a de facto all-rounder batting Seven. The alternative to that, one assumes, would have been to rest Lyon and go with Maxwell in the spinning department, batting him at Seven.

So, what have we established in the bowling department?

Well, for a start, it's obvious Bird now comes into contention for a regular spot in an attack that's approaching the best we can put on the park. It's early days yet, but in a situation where you're looking at First Choices and Fill Ins Bird looks to be heading towards the former rather than the latter.

The First Choices are the group you'd be looking at a (close to) automatic selections when they're fit, the Fill Ins are the blokes you use to cover when someone isn't.

And second, if Mitch can't cut it with the bat when the time comes yesterday's bowling performance suggests a Fill In rating rather than a First Choice. On yesterday's evidence, if we're looking at a left arm quick, Starc is the first choice and Mitch fills the vacancy if he's not fit and available under the rotation policy.

Mitch looked a lot sharper with the new ball in Melbourne than he did bowling second change yesterday, and, in any case, I think you want him getting a run with the new ball and a licence to menace with the thing while it's still hard and bouncy.

In any case, on what appears to be a reasonable batting track at the moment, he gets his chance with the bat at some point over the next two days and again, possibly, on Day Five, when the track should be taking turn. That should give some indication as far as all-round Mitch is concerned.

The big question, and the one that remains largely unanswered, is how we get three ninety-over days out of the way without bowling anyone past that fifty over mark that supposedly brings an increased likelihood of injury. Your chances of doing that are far better with five front line bowlers, which is where all-round Mitch or bowling Watto become key factors.

That fifty over mark, of course, is probably able to be bent. Siddle, I think, would go closer to sixty or sixty-five, while an up and coming tyro tearaway (Cummins) might be flat out getting to forty.

I think it's sage to assume that our best three quicks (with associated tags) at the moment are Siddle as leader of the attack, go to man and workhorse, Starc as the lefty and Bird as the nagging economy man. He doesn't like the McGrath comparisons, but that's the role he'll probably be asked to fill. Pattinson, when fit, I think is the strike man, and you can probably cast your eye around the first class scene and spot contenders who could cover for each of those four, with Johnson/Starc being one obvious match.

So now, I guess, it comes down to how we do with the bat, with plenty of questions to be sorted out on what should be a fairly decent batting track against an attack that shouldn't threaten. With these two innings as the last of the long form until we head to India in February there are several boxes that can be ticked or replaced with question marks.

The inquisitive reader may be wondering, amid all this, about Hughesy's assessment of the opposition, who showed a bit more stickability than expected on a track that didn't have the demons you might have expected from the four quicks and send them in side of things. Assessing the opposition, however, isn't really my thing, particularly when the opposition are ranked at Number Six, and are apparently unlikely to be playing any more Test cricket in the immediate future.

The two Sri Lankan commentators on the radio yesterday were doing a rather detailed forensic job on their Test prospects, with Russell Arnold, in particular, impressing me with his attention to detail, consideration of possibilities and analysis of the factors involved. Much of it went by to the keeper since I don't have anything resembling a detailed knowledge of the Sri Lankan cricket sign except that they're apparently close to broke, that Mahela has problems with the board at home and they're probably going to be depending on the money they can pull in from the short forms to keep things viable.

That said, yesterday's display with the bat suggests there's talent there, and they're going to be competitive when circumstances aren't too obviously weighed against them. Now it's a matter of seeing how they bowl.

The logical assumption is, of course, that we'll match their three hundred odd today, and hopefully bat on well into tomorrow establishing a lead that will need to be run down. That'll be difficult with just the five specialist bats plus 'keeper Wade and all-round Mitch, so you'd be inclined to suspect a possible lead around 150, a Sri Lankan response through Day Four and the prospect of a potentially nasty chase on the last day.

At least that's the way it looks now. Let's see what happens in an hour's time (he wrote as the computer clock ticks past 8:23 Queensland non-Daylight Saving Time)…

Melbourne 2012: Afterwards

When you're not working to a deadline and you don't have anything much to write about the solution is fairly straightforward. Write nothing and wait. Something will turn up. It always does, and the wait allows time for certain other issues to sort themselves out.

It would have been easy to follow Friday's dismal performance from Sri Lanka with a gloating anticipation of glorious victories in India and a successful Double Ashes campaign, which would have been a mistake, because we're going to be doing it tough in both environments and events over the weekend have arguably made things tougher.

What we saw of Friday was the dismantlement of an injury-weakened batting lineup by a bowling group that was starting to hit its straps, following a rather good bit of fielding that got the first wicket.

And it was an injury-riddled batting lineup operating in circumstances where they weren't going to be comfortable even if those who weren't able to front at the crease were absent due to muscle tears or food poisoning rather than broken digits caused by the impact of hurtling cricket balls.

That said, Siddle, Johnson and Bird did their job well, and Lyon backed them up well enough so that the absence of Watson from the bowling crease didn't produce the sort of workload that ruled Siddle and Hilfenhaus out of Perth.

There was the predictable concern over the bowling lineup for Sydney, since the logical rotation would involve Siddle out for Starc, but the selection panel have, in the interim, thrown up an interesting one by going for Maxwell ahead of Khawaja in a move that would seem to be looking towards India rather than turning to the next logical cab off the rank.

The next logical cab will presumably slot into the space left by Hussey's retirement, which was the epitome of wait until something turns up to write about, wasn't it? But we'll be back to that because it wasn't the only thing that turned up.

Maxwell, one presumes, is being looked at as the spinning all-rounder who might go well in India, which is fair enough. See how he goes in Sydney, which is tipped to turn. That should reveal something.

Slot him into Six or Seven (with Wade at Six) with Clarke and Hussey moving up one and you might not have your strongest batting order, but it opens up possibilities assuming Johnson goes in at Eight with a charter as a bowling all-rounder.

That's assuming Sydney looks like a turner and you decide to play the two spinners. If that's not the case there's the possibility of resting Lyon, or naming Maxwell as drinks waiter (which would remove the see how he goes before India from the equation) and playing the four quicks with Johnson batting Seven as the all-rounder.

At 2-0 in the series with one to play that wouldn't hurt either.

If we play both spinners, spell Siddle. He's the go to man if things aren't running our way at the moment, so let's see who out of Johnson, Starc and Bird can slot into that role if he's out injured at some point over the next twelve months.

Hopefully the next go to man, or rather the man who'll remove the need to go to Siddle through The Double Ashes series will be Johnson, based on an article in The Australian (here).

Dennis Lillee's TUFF (Targets, stand Up, Front arm, Follow through) looks to be the formula to right the technical issues that creep into Johnson's action, and with the Target being a spot on the pitch rather than the batsman at the other end (though that'll come later, after the ball lifts off that nasty length), come Ashes time I'm looking forward to a further succession of finger injuries among batsmen playing for their country in front of crowds who definitely seem to rate him as a damp squib.

The English crowds definitely don't rate him, the English bats probably don't rate him and the prospect of proving them wrong will doubtless put a bit of fire in the belly.

Hughesy's tip: Watch the English media for the return of Mitchell's heartbroken mother.

We've also had the news that Watson apparently wants to be considered as a non-bowling batsman rather than an all-rounder, which is fair enough as long as he accepts that the rules that apply to other specialist bats also apply to him. That conversion rate will need to be addressed, and the Hussey retirement delivers him some sort of lifeline.

Ignoring the Maxwell selection, a fit Watson still batting at Four would mean a top six that reads Warner, Cowan, Hughes, Watson, Clarke, Khawaja with Wade at Seven and Johnson/Maxwell at Eight. That'd still be light on in the bowling department if you're looking at bowling 270 overs through three days without anyone going over fifty, but there's an obvious solution to that. Get 'em out quicker and you won't have to worry.

As far as the Hussey retirement is concerned, you'd probably have preferred it to come twelve months later when you look at issues relating to the first four, but it had to come some time, and he's getting out at the right time to give someone (presumably Khawaja) the chance to settle a place before England. Of course, you might prefer to be settling in somewhere other than India.

Maybe it's a glass half full attitude, but I'm fairly upbeat about both of those series. India don't appear to have their heart in the Test cricket bit recently, but I expect we'll be served up a regular diet of slow and low tracks with the odd raging turner. England, of course, will be different, and one assumes we'll be taking a squad of fifteen or sixteen on both tours, so let's do a bit of crystal ball gazing.

Based on the current twelve remaining fit we've got room for three or four more. Given the fact that Watson will be one of the extras, and two of them will be bowlers that only leaves room for one spare bat. Assuming there isn't a big move in the Shield aggregates over the rest of the season you'd figure the extra bloke will be Doolan, but I'd go slightly out on a limb and take Chris Rogers, who might be getting on a bit but has plenty of experience in English conditions.

Alternatively, if we're looking for a spare bat who can keep, that'd more than likely be Paine, though Chris Hartley has been among the runs in the Shield.

The bowling's more open, since it's largely a question of who hasn't broken down recently.

For India, with Lyon, Maxwell and Warner in the side and the likelihood that Clarke will also roll the arm over, the spin options look to be covered, so you'd take the four current quicks with two more to cover for injuries along the way. Assuming Pattinson isn't fit, I'd go Hastings and whoever finishes on top of the Shield wickets table for India. England is a little bit different, and not just because of the conditions.

Pattinson, one hopes, will be fit by that stage, and a fast bowling group of Siddle, Pattinson, Johnson, Bird, Starc and one more would look pretty sharp, so it's largely a question of continuing fitness with those five and what you're looking for in the other bloke.

You might go for the bloke who's going to do well in the conditions, do a fair bit of donkey work and swing the ball, but I'd be inclined to head for the fastest, most aggressive bloke going around at the top of the Shield table at the end of the season or, preferably, a fit Cummins.

I think you can take it as read that we'll find wickets that are conducive to fast bowling and conditions amenable to swing, and an English side that'll be looking to their fairly impressive array of quicks with support from Swann, so we might as well set out to fight fire with fire.

We're going to cop plenty from their media when we arrive, and the crowds while we're there, so an aggressive mindset will, I think, be helpful.

Which is probably where we should turn our attention to the other major story over the weekend, namely the passing of Tony Greig, but given the fact that I loathed the man's commentary while he was on Nine and I was still listening, you won't find him being mourned around these parts. Strangely, I didn't mind him when he was working elsewhere, which suggests an issue with the Channel Nine approach and how Mr Greig fitted into it.

The key bit here, I think, is the repeated use of the word provocative in the flow of tributes that have appeared since the news broke. If you're going to be provocative, you can expect a reaction, and since my reaction could be fairly described as contemptuous loathing, maybe I should leave it at that.

But I won't, because I see a lot of the same provocative behaviour in the English media and, when you get to the ground, the old Barmy Army, who we're told are part of the spectacle (or something). We're going to be copping a fair bit of that provocation over the next twelve months, so the question is what we do about it. With the Greig commentary it was easy. Turn him off and it won't bother you.

With the Barmy Army there's nothing you can do over there, so I'm hoping for an aggressive display from the pace bowling group and a stream, or at least a trickle, of batsmen retiring hurt to see how the reactions from the other side of the fence go. They do mockery and ridicule fairly well, so the only thing to do on their turf is to stand up and be counted.

Over here, things ought to be different. This is our turf, they're the visitors, and if they're going to mock and ridicule they should expect the same thing to be coming straight back at them.

I'd put an extra couple of conditions on anyone visiting an Australian ground and behaving in an obviously Barmy Army manner.

For a start, if they wear something that identifies them as an English supporter they should expect to pay a surcharge for beer at the ground, and forbidden to bring any noisemaking device into the ground. This should be clearly discriminatory and designed to rankle. They're out to rankle, so don't dish it out if you can't cop it back, boys.

Better, for my money, would be the issuing of a cake of soap to all inbound English supporters and the requirement that anybody engaged in obvious Barmy Army activity should be able to produce the article or face being evicted from the ground.

And if they use the items in question as part of their antics, there should be a message on the big screen at the ground like Yes, but are you actually going to use it?

Offensive? Quite possibly. But, on the other hand, if you want to dish it out…

Alternatively, of course, you could just sit down and watch what looks like being a fairly tight contest, which is what I'd prefer to do.

Without distractions.

What’s wrong with that concept?

Melbourne 2012: Day One

You can say what you like about the rotation policy (whether the beast actually exists or not, which is, of course, an entirely different kettle of fish) but it's hard to imagine an Australian attack doing much better than Messrs Siddle, Bird, Johnson and Watson did against Sri Lanka yesterday.

True, it was against a side batting first on a track that had a little early life (as they should if we're not going to paint a line down the middle of the thing).

Yes, it was against a side that was brought up on flat decks who don't like it bouncy in the first place, even if they have chosen to bat after winning the toss.

Agreed, it wasn't the best trio plus Watson we could put on the park, but Pattinson and Cummins are injured, and Starc, if you can believe the word that's being put out, had some niggles so it wasn't a rigid enforcement of a policy that may not exist (that's according to the same sources that're suggesting Starc wasn't quite right).

That, however, is the point.

We have an issue with fast bowlers breaking down, so it's increasingly unlikely we'll have our best trio plus Watson on the park at any time in the foreseeable future, though it's always nice to dream. What we need is a viable bowling group that's capable of taking twenty wickets between them, and this one definitely looked the part yesterday.

They might not look the part tomorrow, or next week, or at some unspecified time in the future, but they looked the part yesterday, and that's what mattered.

Bird, the controversial part of the equation (assuming the final decision was based on Bird or Starc rather than Johnson or Starc) looked the goods and did enough to suggest he'll be an ongoing part of the group. He'll probably bowl better and do worse in terms of results in the wickets taken column, and he may not go on at all, but he did enough to suggest he's going to be around for a bit.

Siddle was Siddle, which is what we expect, and the issue where he's concerned is to ensure that he's there rather than sitting on the sidelines, which means he may need to be rested some time, and you'd think Sydney may be the occasion.

And if Siddle was Siddle, Johnson was definitely Johnson, leaking a few runs when Sangakkara got onto him, but I think you want the bats fancying their chances against him.

And when Lyon came on to help with the mopping up he obliged.

Generally, I thought, it was a tidy performance. Maybe not a great one, but as good as you're entitled to expect.

It's a pity you can't say the same thing about the batting.

Another run out that results from ball watching was what actually did the damage, of course, but I definitely heard echoes of Geoffrey Boycott suggesting things wouldn't look so cheery if you added three quick wickets to the score as we went from 0/95 to 3/117.

Warner went the way he's always likely to go, perhaps a little earlier than he should have done to a trap that had obviously just been set, but that's the way he bats and he's there with a licence to give it a go.

Cowan's dismissal wasn't that bad a shot snared by a very good catch, but that's what happens at the top level, so you take the good with the bad even if you do occasionally get the rough end of the pineapple.

Which brings me to Hughes, and a second run out in a fairly short time span since his recall to the side. This is what shouldn't happen at the top level, though it's hard to see how the fault can be rectified when it does.

If you were running a squad of juniors with a couple of coaches on the ground you could address this sort of thing in a centre wicket practice session, with bowlers bowling, batsmen batting and running between wickets and the coaching staff keeping an eagle eye on proceedings, dismissing batsmen for failure to call correctly, failing to respond, turning blind or using any other pernickety excuse to pounce on bad habits before they become ingrained. One mistake and you're out, next please, and you'd be looking to run through the side in about half an hour.

You'd then send 'em off for a drink, call them back, deliver the lecture and remind them of the way things are supposed to work, and then spend an hour on a similar exercise with slightly less stringent supervision.

I'm not sure you'd be able to do that with an international side. Maybe a return to the basics as per the coaching manual would be possible by invoking an automatic $10 (or 20, or 100, the amount probably isn't important) fine for the team slush fund if someone is spotted watching the ball rather than going on the partner's call).

In a competitive environment you'd expect the entire dressing room to be on the lookout once one or two of them had been pinged for the hundred or whatever. After all, once you've been pinged there's a score to settle with the blokes who pinged you...

But it's something that needs thinking about. We hear all sorts of justifications for things that don't quite fit into the conventional thinking and the coaching manual, such as Dean Jones' suggestion that turning blind gave him extra microseconds to turn ones into twos, twos into threes. I'm sure it did, but if it also happened to cost a wicket or two the extra couple of runs probably wasn't worth it.

In any case, at 3/150 casing 156, Clarke and Watson at the crease, Hussey, Wade and the tail to come you'd be looking towards something between 400 and 450 as a par score by stumps today, and a win by an innings and a bit around the middle of the last session on Day Four, but there's many a slip between the cup and the lip…

Melbourne 2012: Pre-Test Prognostications

You might think, given the quantity of column inches devoted to the fast bowling rotation policy and the question mark over Michael Clarke's hamstring, there's not much that can be added to what's already out there, but as I set off around the morning lap around town last Friday I devoted a fair bit of thought to these matters, and though it's close to a week later I'm still inclined to have a go at transferring those thoughts into digital data.

Now, I should make it clear from the start that I don't have an issue with the rotation policy, arbitrary and inconsistent as it would seem to be. That inconsistency, by the way, is largely an issue because there seems to be one rule for the trundlers and another for the willow-wielders.

But we already knew that, didn't we? As Freddie Trueman was wont to remark the last bowler to receive a knighthood was Sir Francis Drake. That's not actually true either, but the astute reader will catch my drift.

So, predictably, Starc makes way for Bird to make his debut, and a bit over three hours before the start of the Boxing Day Test a squiz at the ABC News website has Clarke 'positive' about Boxing Day Test.

So let's tick all the boxes beside the Clarke will play argument.

He's the captain, so he gets to decide his own fate, having watched while Ponting did the same thing. Check.

He's a batsman. Say no more. Check.

There's a chance he'll pass Punter's record for the number of runs scored in a calendar year if he plays, and there's an outside chance he can run down Mohammad Yousuf's record number of runs in a calendar year. He'll need a triple century to do it (or perhaps a double and a single) to do it, which would effectively rule out any niggling questions about his hammie if he managed to do it.

Along the way, even if he doesn't reach an aggregate of 1789 for 2012, he's sitting on 1489, and may well pass Ponting's 1503 from 2003 and 1544 from 2005, Tendulkar's 1562 from 2010, Graham Smith's 1656 from 2008, and possibly Viv Richards' 1710 from 1976.

So there are records out there that might be rewritten. Check.

And there's the question of whether Watto is the right man to fill in the captaincy if Pup doesn't play. See He's the captain above. Check.

But let's pause for a moment and consider what happens if he does play, scores that triple century and does the hammie again, ruling him out of India and The Ashes. Worth the risk?

From where I'm sitting the whole chamozzle is the result of long standing issues that run all the way back to that fateful morning in 2005 when McGrath trod on the cricket ball, turned his ankle and lost us The Ashes.

You might think that's drawing a long bow, but stop for a moment and consider what ensued out of that loss.

First, we had a whole slew of retirements that were postponed until after we got the urn back in 2007. Virtually every member of that 2005 side played on until things were put right, and when you're looking at the who else could do the job as skipper bit today question, the first thing you note is the absence of established senior players apart from Messrs Clarke and Hussey.

Then, when we'd got the urn back we promptly yielded it again in 2009, with the Mitchell Johnson issue influencing team selection (we might need Watto to bowl, so how do we fit him in the eleven? Well, I guess he has to open) and subsequent desire on Ponting's part to go over and bring the thing back again.

The result of all that is a batting order where One, Two and Three are still finding their feet, and while we've possibly got an adequate substitute waiting in the wings the uncertainty about the top means you might be tempted to play it sort of safe by giving Pup a run.

Actually, if you take the building up the stocks argument that is used to justify rotating the quicks, Clarke should not play. Give Khawaja the run and spell Hussey for Sydney so either Khawaja gets a second go or Doolan gets a guernsey to see how he looks.

After all, Starc gets rested to make sure he's fit for India and England, and slots into a pace battery that reads (at the moment, fully fit) Siddle, Starc, Johnson, Bird, Watson with Pattinson, Cummins, Hilfenhaus, Hastings and any number of other contenders lurking on the fringes waiting for a chance to prove their fitness.

I'm fairly upbeat about getting a strong attack out of that bunch, a collective of seven to nine bowlers who can be mixed and matched without losing too much.

But when it comes to the batting, no, we have to play Clarke (or Ponting or Hussey, take your pick, the name's not important, it's the principle) because he's the best we've got for that job even if he's got a question mark over fitness, form or whatever.

I recently heard someone ask what happened to South Australia's Callum Ferguson, who seemed, at one point, to be the next cab off the batting rank. Well, it's obvious, isn't it? He might have been scoring runs at the time but we don't do rotations as far as the batting's concerned, because batsmen are less likely to break down...

But it is, and arguably has always been, a batsman's game…

Hobart 2012: Day Five

It took a bit longer than one would have liked, but in the end Hobart wound up delivering the 1-0 lead in the three Test series that should ensure Australia's spot in the Test rankings doesn't slip.

At the same time this wasn't the performance of a side that's going to be moving upwards in those rankings either. It's difficult to see us outgunning South Africa any time in the immediate future and England have done remarkably well on the subcontinent. If either is going to slip from their current spots in the pecking order it'll most likely be the result of failure to deliver their full potential.

That could happen, of course. Kevin Pietersen could have another spat with everyone else in the England dressing room, and the entire South African pace attack could be struck down with a case of food poisoning that leaves them incapable of hitting the 120kph mark for the next eighteen months, but those are the sort of factors you can't bank on.

The only things you can work on, in the long run, are the things you control, and the performances of teams playing in other games isn't one of them.

So, at this point, how do we look?

Well, it must be said, we're probably about where we could reasonably expect to be, with one or two major problems.

The first of those is that the attack needs to include Siddle since he's the one bloke who seems able to perform consistently. Take him out and the difference is obvious.

The second is that Lyon seems to have run into the wall in the Work in Progress department. Maybe there's a bit of the we're missing one of the quicks factor in there, but he's failed to deliver the last day knockout blow twice now. Alarm bells should be ringing.

As far as the batting order is concerned the top three look to be about as good as we can come up with, though none of them have concreted themselves into their spot in the order.

Warner looks secure in one opener's spot, Cowan looked ugly in the first dig and much better in the second and Hughes did enough to justify selection without staking a cast iron claim to Three.

I'm not entirely convinced Watson is the answer at Four either, but he can sort that bit out by scoring some runs. In any case I think he's better there than opening. He should be good enough to bat Four, Five or Six and at the moment we need his overs to round out the bowling attack. Twenty overs in the first innings (Starc 24, Siddle 25, Lyon 25) and twenty-seven in the second (Starc 28, Siddle 26, Lyon 32) are probably a bit more than you'd want him to bowl, but he's shown he can do his share of the workload, and there's a bit of snarl in there as well. That's always useful.

Clarke at Five and Hussey at Six are safe, though you can't help wondering if Hussey will be there come April next year.

I'm not sure about Wade behind the sticks, but then again we've moved on from Haddin, there's a question mark over Paine and there isn't an obvious next cab on the rank.

Of the bowlers a fit Siddle is a Shoo-in, Starc is coming along in leaps and bounds, and Lyon will be looking nervously over his shoulder if a spinner starts taking a swag of wickets when the Shield resumes. I don't see any in the leading wicket takers' table at the moment, and that starts with Bird on 27 and runs down to McDermott, Herrick and Siddle with 11, so you'd reckon he's safe for the moment, but still needs to deliver.

Still needs to deliver is, of course, a comment you can attach to Warner, Cowan, Hughes and Wade at the moment, so he's hardly Robinson Crusoe in that department. You'd throw Watson into that list as well if he didn't have the old two bites of the cheery when it comes to performing and there wasn't the issue of bowlers breaking down and the side needing Watto's overs.

As far as Sydney and Melbourne are concerned, Hobart showed there's a bit of fight in this Sri Lankan side, but a 1-0 lead in home conditions with Melbourne next should be enough to bring home the bacon.

Hobart 2012: Day Four

So, on the basis of what unfolded yesterday we're looking at two substitutions and a change. Predictably, the speculation has already started, and one notes (with a certain amount of wry amusement) there's even a suggestion that Haddin may return to the side, playing as a specialist batsman.

Well, I suppose he could, and so, just as an emergency measure you understand, could Ponting (he wrote, tongue firmly in cheek). It all depends on whether you're looking at a stopgap measure or the next step in the evolution of the Australian side.

While I'm not suggesting we're already looking towards a long-term successor for Clarke let's start by looking at the captaincy, where there are three contenders: Watson, Hussey, or someone who's not in the current eleven.

Assuming he's still fit come Boxing Day, which isn't guaranteed, the captaincy has to go to Watson. As Vice Captain he's obviously next in line, so we may as well see what sort of a fist he makes of the role. This, of course, rests on the assumption that we take the last eight wickets today, and that Sri Lanka fail to score the 328 they need for their first victory on Australian soil.

Out of the current XI, the only other possibility is Hussey, who probably wouldn’t do a bad job but isn’t a long term prospect.

Take a look outside the current side, and assuming you don’t do something ridiculous like try to lure Ponting out of retirement, that suggestion of playing Haddin as a specialist bat might make sense if you’re really desperate and convinced Watto can’t do it.

The only other candidate would be Bailey, who could go into the Clarke slot if you were looking to provide a long term alternative to Watto, but he’d have to be able to cement his place in the side, which would only seem to be possible if you remove Hussey from long term considerations.

You'd expect Clarke will be back if injury rules him out of Melbourne, possibly as soon as Sydney, if not, then definitely before India, which seems to have been slotted in (or is in the process of being slotted in) between now and The Ashes in the middle of next year.

So, assuming Watto is fit he's the captain because we need to see what sort of fist he makes of the job.

On the same basis, you'd go Johnson for Hilfenhaus with one major proviso. I heard someone on the ABC commentary referring to a Mitchell Johnson statement that he's looking at a second phase of his career when he does a Lillee, slows down and concentrates on line and length.

Sorry, Mitch, if that's the case don't let the door hit your arse on the way out…

If he plays it has to be with a stern directive that he wangs down an average of around 1.8 really quick deliveries an over. At least one, sometimes two, occasionally three, but they need to be quick.

He can pace himself the rest of the time, operating no slower than fast medium, but there's got to be something there to make batsmen nervous, and it has to be there on a regular basis. Once he’s gone close to taking your head off early in the over you don’t want to be assuming you’re safe for the rest of it, and once he’s done it again...

Assuming Johnson into the eleven for Hilfenhaus you'd be looking for someone to fill his slot as twelfth man, and given the workload the remainder of the current attack will be going through today I'd go for two someones in the shape of Bird and Feldman (or maybe Cutting).

And I'd have both (or possibly all three) of them in an expanded squad of fourteen or fifteen for Melbourne.

On the batting vacancy, I'd go Khawaja or Doolan, and again, I'd have both of them lining up for the team prep in Melbourne, partly to be on the safe side but more particularly to ensure they're getting themselves into long form rather than Big Bash mode if necessary.

So, Hughesy's squad for Christmas lunch in Melbourne:

Warner, Cowan, Hughes, Watson, Clarke (assuming he hasn't been ruled out already), Khawaja/Doolan (both if no Clarke), Hussey, Wade, Siddle, Starc, Johnson, Bird/Feldman (preferably both), Lyon.

And for the rest of the Hobart Test?

Who knows?

If Sri Lanka can get through the first session without losing Sangakarra or Mahela they're actually a chance to win it, more so if that pair are still there at the tea break.

Long term survival on this track against a full attack is, however, highly unlikely.

If Siddle, Starc and Watson are all still firing at lunch and Lyon has been getting some assistance, you'd say the chances of Sri Lanka surviving the day would be slim.

If the three quicks are still on the paddock by tea and Lyon hasn’t been belted out of the attack, you'd say those chances were non-existent, but take just one of them out of the equation and things will become very interesting indeed.