Australian head coach Andrew McDonald said on Monday that all-rounder Cameron Green will be prioritizing first-class matches for Western Australia over white-ball international cricket, to prepare well for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at home against India at year-end.
Green made a huge statement to seal the number four spot in Tests with a knock of 174* against New Zealand in the first Test at Wellington. But before this game, he played WA’s Sheffield Shield match against Tasmania as he was rested during the T20I series against West Indies. Green slammed 103 runs in the match and went on to get what could be his breakthrough knock in Test cricket against the Trans-Tasman rivals.
Speaking to the reports on Monday, McDonald said that though Green has become an all-format player, his greatest challenge was to flip and adjust as per the needs of different formats. He said that while white-ball cricket is important, the next stress point for Green is the home series against India at year-end.
“He has become an all-three format player and we thought his greatest challenge was flipping between the formats,” said McDonald as quoted by cricket.com.au.
“Other players can go (more readily) from one-day international cricket into Test cricket, and it’s probably the more experienced players who have done it over a period of time.”
“It is a big decision to leave anyone out of international cricket when they are potentially in the best eleven, so I am glad he embraced that when we had that conversation with him, and the return on it is pretty immediate.”
“The next stress point on that will be next summer, leading into the Indian Test series where we have got Pakistan in ODI cricket and T20 cricket.”
“I would like to probably err on the side of preparing him through red-ball – we know how good a white-ball player he is, so you put a priority on what it looks like next summer.”
“The white-ball cricket’s important, but geez that Test summer’s important, so I think with the results he’s had (at Wellington) he’ll probably come to us and say ‘can you give us a couple of Shield games before the first Test against India?’,” he concluded.
Cameron has had a great Test and first-class record. In 27 Tests, he has scored 1,347 runs in 41 innings at an average of 37.41, with two centuries and six fifties. He has also taken 33 wickets at an average of 35.36, including a five-wicket haul.
In 60 first-class matches, the all-rounder averages 48.63, having scored 3,852 runs in 94 innings, with 11 centuries and 13 fifties. His best score is 251. He also has taken 75 wickets at an average of around 33, with the best figures of 6/30. McDonald views Green as a long-term player for number four position in Tests.
“His preferred position, as we have seen in Shield cricket, is number four and we think he can be a long-term option there. This is a big step towards that. The conversations are that he is a quality player, and the statistics that everyone was looking at early in his (international) career probably did not reflect the player that was in front of us,” said McDonald.
Green has had a fine start to his stint as a number four batter following opener David Warner’s retirement in January, which caused Steve Smith to move up the order. He has managed scores of 14, 8, 42 and 174* batting at this number so far.