Lehmann mulls third Test changes

Australia’s selectors will gauge the pitch for the third Test that starts at Colombo’s Sinhalese Sports Club Ground on Saturday before deciding if changes will be made to the team that has already surrendered the series.

Coach (and selector, along with panel chair Rod Marsh who is also in Sri Lanka) Darren Lehmann said today that every position in the starting XI would be under scrutiny after the world’s top-ranked Test team became the first Australian outfit to lose consecutive Tests to their seventh-ranked hosts.

But Lehmann also added that the bowlers, particularly pace pair Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood who have shared 24 of the 40 Sri Lankan wickets to have fallen, have performed their roles in bowling as Australia have consistently bowled out their opponents, albeit with too many runs conceded.

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Which leaves only one likely change looming should the panel decide that something must give after the sub-par batting performances of the past fortnight.

And that would be the inclusion of the 15-man squad’s sole auxiliary batsman, Shaun Marsh, in place of one of the struggling top-order players.

With opener Joe Burns (34 runs at 8.5 in the series to date) and last summer’s number three batting star Usman Khawaja (55 at 13.75) under the most scrutiny.

"Well anywhere from one to six (in the batting order), everyone in the squad will be considered," Lehmann said today when asked if the axe was likely to fall after Australia recorded losses by 106 runs at Pallekele Stadium and by 229 runs (in barely two and half days) at Galle.

"That’s what happens when you don’t have the results you would like.

"We will need to have a look at the wicket (at SSC when the squad trains there on Thursday), sum it up and go from there.

"One of the pleasing thing is we’ve managed to get 20 wickets in every game, but we just need to get more runs.

"All those things to weigh up, selection is going to be tough and tight for this one.

"You don’t like dropping anyone, you feel for them when they don’t play as well as they would like.

"That’s the hardest thing as a coach and a selector, you have to make tough decisions sometimes."

While Starc - the series leading wicket-taker despite both matches being played on dry, slow pitches - and Hazlewood have been captain Steve Smith’s go-to options for breakthroughs and to quell scoring, Australia’s spinners have struggled to contain and take wickets.

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But the absence of another specialist spinner in the extended squad, coupled with the fact that SSC is almost certain to be dry and desiccated given Australia’s obvious batting frailties against the turning ball so far, Nathan Lyon and Jon Holland seem certain to retain their places.

The extra quicks – Jackson Bird and Nathan Coulter-Nile – appear unlikely to earn a call-up unless one of the incumbent new-ball pair develops an injury, and the other member of the squad is all-rounder Moises Henriques who is vying for the spot currently occupied by Mitchell Marsh.

Marsh has bowled tidily if sparingly in the first two Tests, and looked as comfortable as any of the top six with the bat as shown by the fact he is the only Australian batter to have reached double-figures in all four innings.

In the wake of the series-deciding loss at Galle, Smith noted it was worth considering the selection in future Test squads of ‘subcontinental specialist’ players who show, in domestic cricket in Australia and on tours for development squads, that they are well suited to playing in spin-friendly conditions.

But Lehmann, in agreeing with the theory, said the performances of the batters in the Test matches leading into this Qantas Tour of Sri Lanka – against New Zealand and the West Indies in Australia and then on the two-match tour of NZ – made their selection unarguable.

All of the top five (including Shaun Marsh who played two Tests when Khawaja was injured) posted at least one score in excess of 150 and boasted averages across that period of more than 50.

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As a result, Lehmann said if changes are made to the team that takes the field on Saturday that will not necessarily mean the player(s) replaced will remain out of the frame when the home summer begins with a Test series against South Africa in November.

"We are playing a Test match in tough conditions, (so we will) pick the best XI for that and then worry about the (Australian) summer when we get home,” Lehman said.

"It won’t hold against anyone, this is a squad that we think is right.

"Obviously results show different and say different, but we have to make sure we are picking the best XI to play (in Sri Lanka)."

When Australia last played at SSC five years ago, then captain Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey and the late Phillip Hughes all scored centuries in a Test that was drawn.

Since then, seam bowlers have found reward at the ground with Pakistan’s Junaid Khan (twice) and India’s Ishant Sharma collecting five-wicket hauls.

But the fact that Sri Lanka’s finger spinners Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera – who have baffled Australia’s batters in the first two Tests – have shared 48 wickets at less than 25 runs apiece at SSC over the past five years indicates that spin will once again be the decisive force.