Australia to weigh up making Smith Test opener: McDonald | Australia v Pakistan 2023-24

Speaking after Australia sealed a 3-0 series victory over Pakistan, head coach Andrew McDonald said selectors were currently weighing up whether to promote Steve Smith to the now vacant Test opener’s spot

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[Applause] yeah but like if they open be no it works through that I think for the moment it’s probably time to celebrate and give space to obviously the team and the successes that we’ve been able to have over the sort of last 12 months so reflect upon that um and then we’ll

Make the decisions in the next couple of days and you’ll be the first to know about it thank you so much Andrew just the way David batted today though in the tricky run CH a pace bed and how he helped man is that going to tell you you

Even if you can’t find another David War it’s someone who kind of backs with that intensity there’s many different ways to play as an opener um and we’ve been lucky uh in having David Warner and sometimes people uh that play that way aren’t exactly replaceable there’s not

Another David Warner out there and um it’s fantastic to say the way the intent that him played U with small and tricky run chase that we it wasn’t easy but um the ability to put pressure back onto the bowler um um at all times was yeah

It was it was a joy to watch in his final Innings um so yeah I mean that’ll be considered in terms of what we look for in an opener um but it’s more so what what we look for in the you know top seven batters um so you can have you

Know complimenting skill sets within that and how they operate and function there’s no doubt you want some players within that order that are able to put the pressure back on and we’ve seen Trevis head do that with great success in the last 12 months also Mar sh idea

That every time Steve Smith steps up in his fting order Aver more from 5 to 4 speet does that mean him talking about opening like this your thoughts on that and is that a possibility yeah I think he had some strong thoughts yesterday uh on that um he made those public so um

We’ll consider all options um yeah so it’s nice to have him putting his hand up I think there’s a few others that weren’t putting their hand up so uh so yeah no it’s um yeah Steve it’s at 3 or 4 um he pretty appetizing also so you got to make sure

You’re not removing the strengths of the team in in a search to fill a fill a gap also so there’s a balance within that is that a conversation iation all was yesterday when he said that the first you Le of his Des no he’s he’s mentioned it uh throughout the I

Don’t know last couple of weeks um so yeah I mean he’s put his views forward and yeah we’ll consider all options do you just on this series all do you feel you’ve been pushed as hard so these last two tests for a while on himself I think we get pushed hard um a

Lot of the time um and ability to absolve that and then put pressure back onto the opposition and we got ourselves in tricky um situation here and anytime especially on the surface like the scg was you lose the toss you were able to impact I think we had 5 for 96 um and

They were able to get to 300 and and we weren’t able to get a lead and and that puts you in a really precarious position um our ability yesterday in particular the ball to to fight back and I thought Josh Hazel would the impact he had late

On this crowd never heard this crowd as loud as what it was 37,000 and Hazelwood closing out the day was was something special and I think the players will remember that for a while but to to get ourselves out of that position um speaks volumes for this team and yeah when we

Are pushed there’s no doubt we can respond you don’t want to get in that situation in the first place let’s not kid ourselves so bit of work to do there with the way we closed out with the bat but yeah Pakistan were were good and I

Think a lot of um you know critics were talking about this being a an easy summer with Pakistan coming out and that was sort of the narrative it was built but we had full respect for the opponent that that was landing on the shores and and and they delivered what we we knew

They could the continued impact of me Marsh at six I guess if we were having this conversation maybe six or nine months ago that would perhaps have looked an unlikely scenario to play out just a little bit on him and how he’s continued on this golden vein since he’s

Returned ah significant growth and I think suppose full credit goes to him and being comfortable with the way that he wants to play now I think throughout his career he’s probably ebed and flow between what how others wanted him to play and saw him being able to play

Versus how he wanted to and his Natural Instincts and and he’s been able to bring them to the four and I think you know the white ball successes have have probably flowed into to Red Ball so full credit goes to him and you know we we encouraged him to play that way and

Spoke about the balance of the top six and uh or seven batters and he’s incredibly important in his ability to push back and put pressure on him we saw that at heading Le we saw that um again in this series um some sticky situations

That he was put in but um you know no greater adverse for the way that he plays in in Melbourne or B he had a bit of luck on 20 odd but yeah his ability to put pressure back on and get us out of that situation we want him to

Continue to play that way would be fa to say that the W he’s about at number six does that change the whole conversation around her day would yeah it’s pretty easy think the camera wasting at six on this test team maybe just be a specialist open and they wouldn’t about

Another guy moving up into that I think when yeah I suppose when you you sit back 12 months ago and and Cameron was walked away in that number six position um yeah no out the conversation changes with the Personnel changes um but I think Cameron Green’s potentially

Underrated in the way that he can play a test level as well he’s only young in his his cricketing career and we’ve seen what he’s been able to do in white ball Cricket uh in particular T20 so we know he’s got those gears we know that he can

Play the high and the low um yeah and he’s you know arguably in our best you know best linup depending on which way we go Pat said earlier in the summer that it would a stretch for that bowling group to play all five tests is it the

West Indies a chance to to maybe give someone a spell and have a look at someone else or do you keep them going as much as you can I think in the background we sort of plan for you know 5day test matches and if we we were to

Go 5 days then it’s going to put immense uh stresses and strain onto the bowling unit I think we got um not lucky but in the first test match in Perth where it was a short and second innings for the bowling unit that gives you the

Flexibility um to be able to then push them a little bit harder throughout the Pakistan series and we we’ve always said that we we plan in the background um The Players want to play every test match it’s really important we want to pick the best test team that we can at any

Particular time um so it’s just striking that balance um in how many games they can play with that compromising their I suppose their longterm Futures and they’re all come this yeah really well really well and I think across the series I think it’s it’s probably something we’ve noticed they’ probably got better across

The series in particular Josh Haz and Pat cumins um and Mitch Stark I think his ball speed in this game was was was at its highest um so there’s nothing to indicate that yeah they’ll need a rest and we got a little bit of a gap to the

First West in this test match so I could see pretty much and I’m change bowling lineup for for Adela um the assumption is that they have pulled up and that’ll that’ll come out in the next couple of days fact that there was this one century score and both for the guys t uh

Is that just a reflection of the kind of pitches we getting for now in Australia or is it just like one of these things which you think will come good like in because you got so used to SC scoring yeah I think that the Mel Wicket was a

Great balance between bat and ball um so I don’t think you’re ever in on that that surface and I think here theg um yeah we saw the trend of the game there was there was a lot of starts um it was difficult challenged by spin some variable bounce

So I think the wickets had a had a nice balance between bat bat and ball um yeah there was some 90s in there as well so I mean it’s fine margins between what’s you know C EV score and everyone sort of has that landmark of 100 but yeah I

Think there was some signicant contribution so there’s no concern around the lack of hundreds but I think yeah it’s probably more reflected on the surfaces definitely