Ashes pace race heats up for fringe quicks

Of the three or four spots in Australia’s Ashes squad still up for grabs, the race to be the fifth fast bowler appears to be the most hotly contested.

National selector Trevor Hohns confirmed in Canterbury last Saturday that his panel had “12 or 13” Ashes spots nailed down and was looking at picking five fast bowlers, keeping in tradition of past touring squads to the UK.

It's no secret that, barring an injury setback, the quartet of Mitch Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and James Pattinson – formerly known as 'The Big Four' – are set to feature in the expected 16-player squad that is likely to be named at the end of the 12-a-side intra-squad match in Southampton next week.

With a tight schedule of five Ashes Tests in six weeks, Australia’s selectors are likely to rotate their fast bowlers throughout the campaign as the tourists aim to win their first Ashes series in the UK since 2001.

Fighting it out for the fifth-fast bowling spot are four quicks – Peter Siddle, Jackson Bird, Chris Tremain and Michael Neser – who are all among the 25 players in Hampshire with strong cases for Ashes selection.

Siddle is a veteran of 21 Ashes Tests, including 11 in England across three tours, and has played with three county sides including Essex, for whom he's taken 34 wickets at 20 in eight games this season.

Bird has played an Ashes Test in England (at Durham in 2013), boasts experience in the County Championship, captured 50 wickets in the Sheffield Shield last summer and has taken eight wickets in two four-day matches on the current Australia A tour of England.

Tremain is the youngest of the group and the fastest in the air. No pace bowler in Shield cricket over the past three seasons has taken more than his 138 wickets at 21 for Victoria.

And Neser is perhaps the most proficient swing bowler of them all, capable of moving the Dukes ball in the air both ways and is coming off a Shield season where he captured 33 wickets and averaged 43.72 with the bat for Queensland.

All four contenders will have one last chance to put forward their case in the four-day match at the Ageas Bowl on July 23-26.

It will be the first time the selectors on tour – Hohns and head coach Justin Langer – will see Siddle bowl in person, with Hohns having watched the efforts of Bird, Neser and Tremain for Australia A in recent weeks.

Bird, 32, believes the Ashes are his last chance to play international cricket and says he doesn’t have an inclination which way the selectors will go.

"I'm not really sure how the selectors are going to go in terms of the make-up of the squad," Bird said.

"I've just got to take it each session at a time, each spell at a time and try and put in my best performances. That's all I'm really focusing on.

"I assume there's probably only one spot available, if that, for the fast bowlers.

"I'm enjoying my time over here. We've got a good bunch of guys that have had a good couple of weeks in this Aussie A stuff and we're all looking forward to getting down to Hampshire."

2019 Qantas Ashes Tour of England

Tour match: Australia v Australia A, July 23-26

First Test: Edgbaston, August 1-5

Tour match: Australians v Worcestershire, August 7-9

Second Test: Lord's, August 14-18

Third Test: Headingley, August 22-26

Tour match: Australians v Derbyshire, August 29-31

Fourth Test: Old Trafford, September 4-8

Fifth Test: The Oval, September 12-16