Former Australian captain Mark Taylor is urging the team that will be led by Pat Cummins to investigate the possibility of playing with five bowlers in the upcoming third and final test against South Africa, which will begin on Wednesday in Sydney. Taylor is concerned that the high-profile tour of India is quickly approaching.
The tour of India, which will take place in February and March, will consist of four tests that are played for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. As the third and final test of the series gets underway in Sydney, the home team already has a commanding 2-0 series lead, giving them the freedom to pursue a limited number of alternative strategies.
They have the chance to experiment with a few different things in Sydney. It’s true that some people believe you shouldn’t experiment during test matches, but since Cameron Green won’t be participating, I’d love to see Australia go with five bowlers instead of six and Alex Carey bat in the sixth spot.
According to Wide World of Sports, Mark Taylor was interviewed and said the following about the opposing team: “They can go all out attack with the ball and rely on their top five and Carey to make enough runs to win the Test match.”
Matthew Renshaw and Ashton Agar have been called up to the national team by Australia as a direct result of injuries sustained by Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green during their monumental victory in Melbourne.
“I believe that with the bowling they have there, and with whatever those quicks are going to be, you’ve got enough people there to take the 20 wickets,” said the commentator.
Their batting is quite approachable at the moment, as evidenced by the fact that South Africa just recently made 200 runs in the fourth innings of the Test match in Melbourne for the first time in four matches.
“So I’d be trying to attack with the ball and back yourselves in to make enough runs with only five specialist hitters,” Mark Taylor added. “I’d be wanting to back yourselves in to score enough runs with just five specialist batters.”
After completing their matches against South Africa, Australia will head to India to compete in the World Test Championships (WTC), a tournament in which they are presently leading the table.