Aaron Kirby: Cam Bancroft is pure class, so don’t rule out his Test dreams because of a poor start
Form is fleeting, class is permanent.
And while Cam Bancroft is now unlikely to get the vacant gig against India’s Jasprit Bumrah and co to start the summer, we have seen anything but the last of the West Aussie run-machine.
The 31-year-old could hardly have had a worse start to his season, and at the worst possible time as national selectors finally admit they need a specialist opener, or something close to it, at Test level.
He opened the first Sheffield Shield game with a pair (of ducks) against Queensland and only did slightly better in the second game against Tasmania with eight and two.
It’s a far cry from the remarkable 3,061 runs at 42.51 – 778 of those runs coming last summer at 48.62 – he has produced in the last five campaigns.
But his status as one of the country’s leading domestic run-scorers earned him an Australia A selection against India A and another chance in the bat-off with former West Aussie opener Marcus Harris, 19-year-old rising star Sam Konstas and South Australian Nathan McSweeney.
Bancroft was slotted in at three and struggled.
He can feel aggrieved by the umpire as he was given out strangled down the leg side for a 14-ball duck in the first innings, with replays suggesting the ball brushed his hip.
Camera IconCameron Bancroft of Australia A fends the ball away and then caught out by Sai Sudharsan of India A. Credit: Albert Perez/Getty Images
But a second-innings 16 as the pitch flattened out hurt as McSweeney proved the only man to stand tall, making 39 and an unbeaten 88.
There are plenty of wraps on McSweeney, and he has even been flagged as a future leader, so, for the moment, the 25-year-old appears in the box seat for a West Test debut on November 22.
It leaves Bancroft considering what’s next, but his dreams of a Test comeback this summer are not done yet.
McSweeney’s average sits at 38.82, practically identical to the West Australian’s 38.87.
Marcus Harris sits at 39.62, and Sam Konstas at 39.41.
With the four options all producing similar numbers, it will be Bancroft’s 10,573 career runs, including 446 at Test level, that only ever leave him two good scores away from a call-up.
Regardless of who is selected for the first Test, there is no guarantee they will be there for the fifth Test in January or the two-match tour of Sri Lanka.
Ideally, the selectors would sit down with whoever they pick, especially if it’s McSweeney or Konstas, and promise them they will have all seven matches to acclimatise and show what they can do in the game’s pinnacle format.
However, Australia has not held the Border-Gavaskar trophy since 2015, losing all four series since then 2-1.
Only knocking off one of their biggest rivals four times in nearly a decade leaves the Aussies desperate, and if the new opener can’t get the job done and Bancroft can reestablish his class for WA, things may just come up Bangers after all.
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