Every match an audition: Wade tips keeper for top-order role

Matthew Wade expects Australia’s wicketkeeper to bat in the top three at this year’s T20 World Cup which, if his logic holds, seemingly narrows down Australia's pool of wicketkeeping candidates down to him and young gun Josh Philippe.

Nearly a decade on from hitting his maiden Test ton in his debut series as a fresh-faced 24-year-old filling for Brad Haddin in Dominica, Wade returns to the Windward Islands for a five-game T20 series with only marginally more certainty over his place in the team.

The Tasmanian is the first to insist his career has been on the line for nearly every international match since that century against West Indies in 2012 (one of only five hundreds scored by an Aussie keeper in the past decade across all formats) prompted then-skipper Michael Clarke to suggest the talented gloveman might have a future as a specialist batter.  

"I think every game you play for Australia is a bit of an audition," Wade told reporters on Saturday morning Australian eastern time. "I've never really been a cemented player in the Australian cricket team anyway so it will be no different going into this tour.

"Every tour I went on, I felt like if I didn’t perform I wouldn't be on the next tour. There's nothing really different for me.

"I'm in a different place in my life with my cricket. I get an opportunity to play games of cricket again for Australia, whether it's one or two games here or 10 in a World Cup.

"It's about going out there and playing nothing to lose, which I really do. I'm comfortable with it, I've been used to it for 10 or so years."

Wade, at least since he fulfilled Clarke's prophecy with his successful 2019 Ashes campaign after it looked like his days as an Australian cricketer were over, has embraced the threat of jeopardy.

It was little surprise he treated the gathering dark clouds that formed Friday over the Australian men’s team's St Lucia hotel much like the figurative ones that have constantly hovered on his future, downplaying the outer bands of a Category 1 Hurricane as nothing more than a "Brisbane thunderstorm".

The 33-year-old insists his considerable experience means he will have no trouble readying himself for next week's series-opener at the nearby Daren Sammy Cricket Ground should the considerable rain the island has been lashed with affect training and the pair of planned intra-squad games in the coming days.

Wade has established himself as Australia's tentative first-choice keeper in the shortest format over the country's last nine T20 Internationals, hitting two half-centuries and taking the captaincy reins over from Aaron Finch twice in that span.

He has mostly batted in the top three since his T20I recall and, with David Warner and Steve Smith (pending his recovery from an elbow injury) set to return for the World Cup, expects that is where Australia's keeper will bat at the World Cup.

"I think I'll be one, two or three," he said. "I batted at three in the last T20 in New Zealand, I batted six in the first T20 against India (last summer) and then I opened the next two games.

"I can bat anywhere, that's one of my strengths – I've batted pretty much everywhere for Australia. Wherever there's an opportunity for the team I'll go to but I'd assume Finch, Warner and probably the wicketkeeper would be at three or, if not, open.

"We'll work it out as we go but I see myself playing in the top of the order if I play."

The suggestion Australia's keeper will bat in the top order would appear to favour him and Philippe, who batted in there in all five matches of his debut international series in New Zealand earlier this year.

Alex Carey, one of four keepers on tour along with Philippe and Ben McDermott, is the incumbent ODI wicketkeeper but lost his spot in the T20 side to Wade last year and has batted between 5-7 in all but three of his 30 international T20s.

Wade, meanwhile, has not given up hope of a Test recall for next summer's Ashes despite being axed for Australia's (ultimately cancelled) tour of South Africa earlier this year.

"I still have an ambition to play Test cricket (again)," he said. "I still think if I can go home and put some good performances on the board, an opportunity is there to play in the Ashes and I could still get picked.

"I played well in the Ashes last time, so there's a little bit of hope there – it's dwindling hope, but it's there if I put my best foot forward in first-class cricket."

Qantas Tour of the West Indies 2021

Australia squad: Aaron Finch (c), Ashton Agar, Wes Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey, Dan Christian, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Mitchell Marsh, Ben McDermott, Riley Meredith, Josh Philippe, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa. Travelling reserves: Nathan Ellils, Tanveer Sangha.

West Indies T20 squad: Kieron Pollard (c), Nicholas Pooran (vc), Fabian Allen, Dwayne Bravo, Sheldon Cottrell, Fidel Edwards, Andre Fletcher, Chris Gayle, Shimron Hetmyer, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Evin Lewis, Obed McCoy, Andre Russell, Lendl Simmons, Kevin Sinclair, Oshane Thomas, Hayden Walsh Jr

T20 series
(all matches at the Darren Sammy Stadium, St Lucia)

First T20: July 10, 9.30am AEST (July 9, 7.30pm local)

Second T20: July 11, 9.30am AEST (July 10, 7.30pm local)

Third T20: July 13, 9.30am AEST (July 12, 7.30pm local)

Fourth T20: July 15, 9.30am AEST (July 14, 7.30pm local)

Fifth T20: July 17, 9.30am AEST (July 16, 7.30pm local)

ODI series
(all matches at Kensington Oval, Barbados)

First ODI (D/N): July 21, 4.30am AEST (July 20, 2.30pm local)

Second ODI (D/N): July 23, 4.30am AEST (July 22, 2.30pm local)

Third ODI (D/N): July 25, 4.30am AEST (July 24, 2.30pm local)

* Details of five-match T20 tour of Bangladesh are yet to be announced by the Bangladesh Cricket Board. Tours are subject to agreement on bio-security arrangements and relevant government approvals.