Summer of change looms for Australia

Now that coach and selector Darren Lehmann has formally flagged the possibility of emulating their tormentors of the past month and playing a trio of specialist spinners when they return to Asia next year, the jockeying will begin to decide on Australia's top three tweakers.

But before then, Lehmann and his fellow adjudicators (chair Rod Marsh, Mark Waugh and Trevor Hohns) must settle on an XI they believe has the best chance of succeeding in a battle as far removed from their trials in Sri Lanka as Australia sits from the tropical island nation itself.

A South Africa outfit led by pace pair Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel on a WACA pitch that, even if it's as benign and boring as it was for last year's run-fest against New Zealand, will offer more spice than anything seen in Sri Lanka beyond the traditional dinner buffet.

Lehmann has already foreshadowed that those who lost their places in the starting line-up during the three-nil loss to Sri Lanka – Joe Burns and Usman Khawaja through form and Steve O'Keefe to injury – won't necessarily be discounted from discussions leading into the start of the South Africa series in November.

But there is also the not insubstantial matter of reshaping a Test team that was outplayed in every facet other than pace bowling by lower-ranked, less well-known rivals over recent weeks, with a view to settling a few positions ahead of the four-match India tour.

The dilemma being that a team best-equipped to see off South Africa in Perth, Hobart and Adelaide (a day-night Test) and then Pakistan in Brisbane (day-night), Melbourne and Sydney is unlikely to be the same one hand-picked for the travails of Dharamsala, Bangalore, Pune and Ranchi.

"India is obviously the next challenge there but before that we've got a full summer," Lehmann said after the third Test defeat in Colombo when he confirmed that all selection options were on the table to try and stem Australia's wretched Test form in Asia, including three specialist spinners.

"We'll just pick the best side we think is going to win in Perth against a quality side like South Africa, whatever that may be and whatever the pitch delivers."

If horses for courses becomes a formal selection criteria, after both Lehmann and skipper Steve Smith agreed it was worth pondering to try and arrest Australia's ongoing subcontinental slump, then incumbency plus strong recent form at the WACA should decide the XI for the South Africa series opener.

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A team that might look like – David Warner, Cameron Bancroft, Shaun Marsh, Steve Smith, Adam Voges, Mitchell Marsh, Peter Nevill, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood and James Pattinson.

Bancroft because he has scored more Sheffield Shield runs than any batter apart from his WA skipper Voges over the past five summers, and is the sort of hard-nosed, ultra-competitive scrapper so beloved of captains and teammates.

Plus he can be used as a stand-in 'keeper if required (a luxury that Sri Lanka enjoyed several times during the series when their front-line gloveman Dinesh Chandimal required a spell) which ticks another box when framing future touring parties.

Shaun Marsh has earned a lengthy stint in the XI after consecutive centuries in his past two Test outings, and will doubtless be earmarked for a crucial batting role in the India series given the surety and patience he showed in making Australia's first hundred of the Sri Lanka series in Colombo.

Voges' record, both domestically and internationally, at the WACA means he should retain his place in the best XI for that match at the very least, but he has been placed on notice by Lehmann who observed that – at age 36 – a string of failures invariably sounds a death knell.

The others all pick themselves given their credentials, with Pattinson (or perhaps Pat Cummins if the Victorian is not fit) providing that additional ‘velocity' that Lehmann so craves and that looms as a major point-of-difference bowling weapon on the subcontinent.

Where, as Starc showed so brilliantly and repeatedly in Sri Lanka, the capacity to swing the new ball at pace and do likewise with the older ball when breakthroughs are sorely needed is irreplaceable.

The selectors will be keen to get some Test match miles into both Pattinson and Cummins if they are back to full fitness come the start of the summer, and they may even be rotated through the matches against South Africa and Pakistan to have them both ready for India.

Then there are the other names that will be consistently thrown forward as possibilities for the India tour, should they show the sorts of skills in the Shield competition that were glaringly absent among so many of the touring party to Sri Lanka.

"We think we picked the best squad to play well here (in Sri Lanka) and we haven't performed as we would have liked," Lehmann said in the wake of Australia's third consecutive Test whitewash defeat in Asia over as many years.

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"So we have to look at all different angles I suppose.

"The shape-up of the side, whether you need one quick, two quicks, three quicks, all-rounders, and see how we play.

"It certainly hasn't worked the way we've played (against Sri Lanka).

"We think we've had the right balance but our batters haven't made enough runs – it's pretty simple.

"When you look at (Sheffield) Shield cricket, it's very hard to determine who's going to be a good player of spin and (who's) not on Australian wickets.

"So for us somehow we've got to find a way."

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While bald statistics will provide a headline indicator for who should and should not be in the frame for India, other more nuanced factors such as value-adding and temperament will also be crucial given that the battle in Asia is often fought as much against the self and the environment as it is against the opposition XI.

As such, players such as Bancroft (for the reasons outlined above), South Australia captain Travis Head (a quality player of spin who bowls tidy finger spin as well), his Redbacks teammate Adam Zampa (another tough competitor who doesn't take a backward step and provides the wrist spin option absent for more than five years).

And even reigning One Day Player of the Year Glenn Maxwell who despite being recently dropped from Australia's limited-overs team offers that mercurial all-round spark, is unconventional and therefore tough to plan against and will have much of the domestic summer to prove the selectors wrong.

If the Sri Lankans taught Australia other than the return on investment delivered by fearless youth, it was the value of having a couple of players who can bowl serviceable off-spin but also change the course of a match as a free-wheeling lower-order batter.

Both Lehmann and Smith have highlighted with concern incumbent number-one spinner Nathan Lyon's Test record on the subcontinent, which suggests he might find himself in the cross-hairs when the India squad is decided.

O'Keefe could well come back into reckoning after his rehabilitation given he's as close as Australia's domestic cricket scene has to Sri Lanka's player of the recent Test series, Rangana Herath.

Or perhaps fellow left-arm finger spinner (and accomplished batter) Ashton Agar, who is also currently sidelined with a shoulder injury.

And despite giving as tidy an exhibition of wicketkeeping as can be expected of a gloveman in his first Test series in Asia, Peter Nevill's paucity of runs in Sri Lanka (51 at 8.50) might see him lose his spot to Victoria's Peter Handscomb.

Who is an able ‘keeper but has been dominant with the bat over the past two domestic summers.

The team that Australia fields for the first, and possibly subsequent Tests against South Africa, will likely bear a strong resemblance in thinking (if not personnel) to the historic make-up of home XIs – five specialist batters, seam-bowling allrounder, three quicks, spinner and 'keeper.

But if the selectors want to dip their collective toes in the ‘horses for courses' pool, they might see an opportunity in the final two Tests against Pakistan at the MCG and SCG over the Christmas-New Year period.

Grounds that have historically proved batsman friendly after some encouragement for the quicks on the first morning, and (given the additional grass expected at Adelaide and Brisbane to provide cushion for the pink ball) the closest to subcontinent that any Australia Test venue will dish up.

Certainly Hobart in mid-November ain't gonna resemble Ranchi in dry season.

Plus it will provide a steer as to how well top-order batters handle the spin threat likely to be posed by Pakistan's leg spin wizard Yasir Shah.

So that might provide an opportunity to employ some lateral thinking, offer a chance to some untried (or recycled talent) that's shown the right stuff at Shield level for the 'distant frontier' that is India and put into practice what currently exists only as a brave (if potentially worthwhile) theory.

To find out in the heat of a Test battle on home soil who has that highly prized ability to think with clarity and adapt with speed to pressure, scrutiny and – most important – unfamiliarity.

"For us it's about adapting to the conditions," Lehmann said about what needed to change to be successful on the subcontinent. "We talk about adaptability all the time, at the end of the day you've got to do it.

"We've got to make sure that when we end up going to the subcontinent that we're adapting quicker and performing under pressure, that's a big thing."

Which might mean an Australia XI for the first Test against India next February that resembles the following – Warner, Bancroft, Shaun Marsh, Smith, Head, Handscomb, Maxwell, Starc, O'Keefe, Zampa, Pattinson.

The only certainty is whoever gets the nod, they can't be any less successful than the past three Test outfits to set foot in Asia.