Bailey flags fresh faces for India Test tour

Australia might be taking a familiar squad into the start of the home Test summer, but selection panel chair George Bailey has foreshadowed some fresh faces could be included for the subsequent four-Test tour to India.

Bailey and his fellow selectors today announced a 13-player squad for the two NRMA Insurance Tests against West Indies in Perth and Adelaide starting later this month, naming the same cohort that swept last summer's Ashes 4-0 with the exclusion of auxiliary seamers Michael Neser and Jhye Richardson.

That group will likely remain largely in place for the three-match NRMA Insurance Series against South Africa that immediately follows the West Indies campaign, but Bailey has indicated selectors are already mulling the prospect of additional inclusions for the India tour.

While venues are yet to be announced for that much-anticipated series in February-March next year, Bailey expects prevailing conditions will lend themselves to the selection of players specifically suited to slower, more spin-friendly India pitches.

"I would envisage the tour to India may have some different names to it than what the tour does over the (Australia) summer, just because of the conditions we expect to face," Bailey said today.

"They are every chance to be very different, and because it's an away tour you take a slightly bigger squad anyway.

"I don’t think we'll be taking a skinny squad across there, plus it's at the back of a (home) summer and there's a reasonable amount of cricket would have been played by then."

While Australia undertook tours to Pakistan and Sri Lanka earlier this year with the same top six batters as deployed in last summer's final Ashes Test, they also showed they had an eye on different personnel through some of their selection choices.

Allrounders Mitchell Marsh and Ashton Agar were included in the squads for both overseas tours, as was leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson and reserve keeper Josh Inglis with Glenn Maxwell added as potential cover for injured batter Travis Head in Sri Lanka.

In addition, the make-up of the Australia A team that made a concurrent visit to Sri Lanka during that campaign provides clues as to who is also potentially in selectors' thinking.

That squad included Test-capped pair Matthew Renshaw and Nic Maddinson, as well as Marsh Sheffield Shield Player of the Year Henry Hunt, allrounder Aaron Hardie, seamer Mark Steketee and emerging spinner Todd Murphy.

Prolific domestic runs-scorer Peter Handscomb also would have been part of that tour if it did not coincide with the arrival of his first child.

Further evidence of those who might come into consideration for the India tour is expected tomorrow when the selectors name a squad for the four-day Prime Minister's XI match against West Indies in Canberra, starting November 23.

And with an Australia A game against South Africa to be played prior to the Proteas' Test series beginning next month, selectors will be provided with clear form lines as to potential candidates for India where Australia have not triumphed in a Test campaign since 2004.

Bailey said Handscomb, who finished the previous domestic season in stellar form and has started this summer in even better touch with Shield scores of 10, 132, 281no and 95, is very much in the selectors' thinking.

"He remains absolutely on our radar," Bailey said.

"He's started the season fantastically, finished the last Shield season fantastically, and we've got a PM's XI squad that's being announced tomorrow and an Aussie A squad that will be very similar to that PM's XI squad.

"And I assume he will be very much in calculations for those games."

The absence of COVID-19 protocols and their accompanying need to have standby players immediately available for every match has enabled selectors to choose a leaner 13-player squad for the West Indies series that begins in Perth on November 30.

It also means players such as Queensland seamer Michael Neser, who was a permanent member of Australia's Test squad for the past two summers but played just one match (against England at Adelaide), have a chance to return to domestic cricket and push their case rather than run drinks.

"There's no doubt a number of players have given up a lot of opportunities over the last couple of years to be part of squads and not necessarily got a hell of a lot of game time," Bailey said.

"So if we can provide some opportunity for them to continue playing – whether that be a couple of Shield games, a PM's XI game, an Aussie A game – then I think that's really beneficial.

"It keeps your bench happier, and if and when we do run into an issue with injury or form, it shouldn't be too difficult this year, fingers crossed, to get people in."

Bailey also confirmed Scott Boland's retention in the squad for the West Indies matches came with an eye to the first Test against South Africa starting Boxing Day at the MCG, where the Victorian made a stunning debut last summer.

Boland claimed a scarcely believable 6-7 in England's second innings as Australia retained the Ashes, and it's likely he'll be primed for a return to his home ground unless injury strikes one of the other three quicks – Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood – in preceding matches.

All three of those front-line fast bowlers have also been named in Australia's squad for the three-match Dettol ODI Series against England that begins in Adelaide next week.

Bailey said he was hopeful the scheduling of 50-over matches immediately after the T20 World Cup would help bowlers build up their workloads and avoid a repeat of last summer when, in the wake of Australia's success in the 20-over format, Hazlewood succumbed to a side strain in the Ashes opener.

"I think Hoff (Hazlewood) in particular was an injury that probably occurred in the lead-up to the Test, and was a bigger injury than what we anticipated," Bailey said.

"We thought he would be able to get through, but that's why I try not to get too prescriptive on these one-day games.

"There will be some prep that we need the bowlers to do, and hopefully hitting some marks with how many balls they've bowled.

"If it can be worked out that it's done in games and in the lead-up in those one-dayers, that's fantastic.

"But if they need to do a bit extra or have a game off, then we can work through that."

Men's NRMA Insurance Test Series v West Indies

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, David Warner

West Indies squad: Kraigg Brathwaite (c), Jermaine Blackwood, Nkrumah Bonner, Shamarh Brooks, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Roston Chase, Joshua Da Silva, Jason Holder, Alzarri Joseph, Kyle Mayers, Anderson Phillip, Raymon Reifer, Kemar Roach, Jayden Seales, Devon Thomas

Nov 17-19: ACT/NSW XI v Windies, Canberra

Nov 23-26: PM's XI v Windies, Canberra (day-night)

Nov 30 – Dec 4: First Test, Perth Stadium, 10:20am

Dec 8-12: Second Test, Adelaide Oval, 2:30pm (day-night)

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