Selectors set to usher in a new era

Not since the seismic upheaval caused by the World Series Cricket split more than 40 years ago has Australia's Test team undergone the sort of extreme surgery it seems set to receive.

Up to six changes to the XI that was belted by an innings and 80 runs at the hands of South Africa in Hobart last week are on the cards with the National Selection Panel – itself revamped in the wake of Australia's five consecutive Test losses – tipped to wield the chainsaw when the new squad is revealed Sunday afternoon.

In line to earn a Baggy Green cap are Queensland opener Matthew Renshaw, New South Wales middle-order batsman Kurtis Patterson and Victoria 'keeper-batsman Peter Handscomb.

The last time Australia debuted three players in the same Test was five years ago when David Warner, Mitchell Starc and James Pattinson were all handed their caps for the opening Test against New Zealand in Brisbane.

The selectors are also likely to recall a handful of previously tried but recently discarded players to try and bolster the faltering team, with 'keeper Matthew Wade, seamer Jackson Bird and left-arm spinner Stephen O'Keefe all tipped for another chance in the third Commonwealth Bank Test against the Proteas that begins at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday afternoon.

In one of the most brutal lopping of an incumbent team for reasons other than injuries that Australia has experienced, batsmen Joe Burns, Adam Voges and Callum Ferguson as well as 'keeper Peter Nevill, seamer Joe Mennie and Australia's most successful off-spinner Nathan Lyon face the chop.

If that is the case, it means Australia will have employed 20 Test players over the course of this three-Test series against South Africa – in which the tourists hold an unassailable 2-0 lead heading into their first experience of a day-night Test using the pink ball.

Never before in almost 140 years of Test cricket has Australia churned through so many options in such a short campaign.

There have been times in the recent past when performances have been so calamitous that a total overhaul of playing stocks has been deemed the only available option to stem the bleeding.

As was the case in 1984 when Australia returned from a 3-0 mauling in the Caribbean and selectors made six changes to the Test XI that faced up to the same marauding opponent in the opening game of the return series in Perth barely six months later.

By the end of that five-match campaign – most often remembered for Kim Hughes' tearful resignation as national skipper after enduring his fifth consecutive loss to the peerless West Indies of the time – only four of the XI from the first Test (new captain Allan Border, Graeme Wood, Geoff Lawson and South Africa-born Kepler Wessels) had held their places.

For the coming day-night Test in Adelaide, the players expected to continue their tenure are captain Steve Smith, his deputy David Warner, seamers Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood (as foreshadowed by coach and selector Darren Lehmann last week) as well as No.3 batter Usman Khawaja.

Khawaja top-scored in Australia's second innings of the opening Test at Perth and again in the subsequent match at Blundstone Arena, and showed the selectors he remains in good form with a classy Sheffield Shield century for Queensland against South Australia on Thursday.

But others from the team that surrendered to South Africa in less than seven completed sessions in Hobart have failed to make a compelling case for their retention in recent days.

Opener Burns, recalled after his initial replacement Shaun Marsh was forced out with a fractured finger, was dismissed for 4 and 2 having scored 1 and 0 in his comeback Test.

Voges, whose career Test average ballooned beyond 100 earlier in the year, would have been under an injury cloud had he earned a reprieve having been concussed when struck by a bouncer playing for Western Australia in Perth on Thursday.

The 37-year-old was forced to retire having scored 16 and has been ruled out of the remainder of the match that concludes in Perth tomorrow.

And having endured a forgettable Test debut that netted him 3 and 1 (including an unfortunate run out), Ferguson managed just 4 in each innings for SA against Queensland over recent days.

By contrast, 20-year-old Renshaw (who made his Shield debut as a teenager) outshone his opening partner Burns to post a match double of 108 and 50 which lifted his Shield average over the past 10 matches to more than 47 with three centuries and a highest score of 170.

The only uncapped batter with a better record over that stretch is the left-handed Patterson, who averages more than 50 and top-scored for a NSW line-up that included Smith and Warner in the ongoing Shield match against Victoria.

With the opportunity for the 23-year-old to bat his team to a draw or even an unlikely win on Sunday's final day.

Victoria holds the whip hand in that match largely because of 25-year-old Handscomb's career-best 215 over the opening two days, against an attack that included Test bowlers Lyon, O'Keefe, Trent Copeland, Doug Bollinger and Moises Henriques.

Lyon ended his two bowling stints at the SCG without a wicket, which might convince selectors to opt for the more potent O'Keefe (2-6 off three overs on Saturday) who was part of the Test line-up in Sri Lanka earlier this year before a hamstring injury curtailed his tour.

But O'Keefe suffered another untimely injury setback – a low-grade calf strain – that might make selectors wary of being left a bowler short if he plays and could pave the way for Lyon to keep his place.

And while Wade, who played his most recent Test during Australia's disastrous 2013 tour to India (the last time they endured a six-match Test losing streak), made just 6 in his only innings for Victoria, his rival for the role did little more.

Peter Nevill, who averages 23 with the bat in Tests compared to Wade's 34, scored 26 in the Blues' first innings at the SCG and would need a big score on Sunday to convince the panel his clinical glovework can be complemented by the batting substance so lacking in the current Test middle-order.

It would be a wildcard selection but Western Australia's 'keeper Sam Whiteman could do no more to make his bid stronger with 54 and 104 at the WACA against Tasmania.

Bird, who was in the mix for the first Test of the summer but was overlooked (according to recently retired selection chairman Rod Marsh) because his batting skills were inferior to others who might provide some of that absent lower-order resistance, has been in dominant form ever since.

The 29-year-old seamer has taken 11 wickets in two-and-a-half games for Tasmania so far this summer, which means he has more than 50 scalps in his past nine Shield matches after collecting career-best Test figures (5-59) in his most recent outing in the Baggy Green against New Zealand in Christchurch last February.

Contrastingly, Mennie – who finished his maiden Test in Hobart with match figures of 1-85 and 10 runs from two innings – had indicated he was prepared to turn out for his grade club in Adelaide's Premier Cricket competition this weekend to try and further push his case for retention.

However, the 27-year-old didn't play yesterday and if the selectors were thinking of taking a spare seamer into the squad for the Adelaide Test they might look to Victorian quick Chris Tremain, who made his ODI debut against the Proteas in South Africa earlier this year.

Tremain starred for Victoria in the first innings of the current Shield match against NSW, claiming 4-22 including the wicket of Smith (for 8) and then knocking over Warner at the start of the Blues second innings yesterday evening.

While the national selectors have introduced three new caps into a single Test several times in recent decades – 2007 in South Africa (Ben Hilfenhaus, Marcus North, Phillip Hughes) and 1985 against NZ (Merv Hughes, Bruce Reid, Geoff Marsh) – it's almost 40 years since they debuted four greenhorns.

That was back in the dark days of the split between the (then) Australian Cricket Board and Kerry Packer's WSC when Graeme Wood, Rick Darling, Ian Callen and Bruce Yardley received freshly minted caps for the fifth and final Test against India in 1978.

History may yet reveal the current campaign against South Africa will yield a similarly pivotal turning point in Australia's Test cricket narrative.

Possible Australia squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner, Matthew Renshaw, Usman Khawaja, Peter Handscomb, Kurtis Patterson, Matthew Wade (wk), Mitchell Starc, Stephen O'Keefe*, Josh Hazlewood, Jackson Bird, Nathan Lyon, Chris Tremain.

*Fitness pending

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