After not being included in the first two Test matches against India, Australian left-arm all-rounder, Ashton Agar is also leaving his team’s Test squad in the middle of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He will fly back to Australia to join his domestic side, ‘Western Australia’.
According to sources, the all-rounder is leaving his team because he was not part of the original squad and didn’t receive any favours for the Australia side instead of debutant Todd Murphy and his spin partner Nathan Lyon.
Even left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann who was not in the initial squad has been given preference over Agar. Just five days before second Test against India, Kuhnemann flew to India and took a place in the team. So, it is looking quite obvious why Agar is leaving his team for now. But, it is likely to be expected that Agar will come back and join his team’s squad before the ODI series against India.
Justifying Agar’s absence in the last two matches, Australia’s selector Tony Dodemaide mentioned that Ashton Agar was in the team’s discussions to be a part of the playing eleven in both Test matches, but the decision never concluded in his favour.
Tony said to reporters in Delhi that, “(Agar) has worked incredibly hard, he’s done his absolute best to support the team.” “We acknowledge all the work he’s done, he ‘s worked his backside off. In the first Test, it was a very close call (between Murphh, Agar and Swepson) as to what spin structure we went with. The question mark of whether the two off-spinners could go together. We had Matthew Kuhnemann coming in for the second Test- again a very close call with that. We just decided that Matthew’s style would be suited to the conditions there.”
He also mentioned that Agar has played very few of first-class matches for his domestic side being an all-format player for the national team.
The Australian selector said, “Ronnie (Coach Andrew McDonald) has talked about the difficulty of remaining an all-format player in any discipline, spinning equally so. There are very few who can adjust really quickly and who are suited to all three formats. To be fair to Ash he doesn’t play a lot of first-class cricket either and that’s the nature of the modern game, isn’t? He’s continuing to work on that, he’s worked really hard on that with the coaches, particularly, (assistant coach and former left-arm spinner) Dan Vettori. But right now (returning home) is a logical and constructive way forward for Ash and the team.”
After pacer Josh Hazlewood and opener David Warner, Ashton Agar became the third player who would fly back to his homeland due to certain reasons. Skipper Pat Cummins also flew back, but he is expected to join the team before the Indore Test.