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Follow UsOn a day that was exclusively being built up as a bat-off between Sam Konstas, Marcus Harris and Cameron Bancroft for the second opener’s spot in Australia’s XI for the first Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test in Perth, it was 25-year-old Nathan McSweeney who ended up making the most compelling case to open alongside Usman Khawaja at the Optus Stadium.
On a brutal day for batting, where 14 wickets fell and no batter managed to cross 40, the South Australia and Australia ‘A’ skipper compiled a flawless, unbeaten 29.
Yet it’s not the number of runs McSweeney made that would have made the selectors take note. It’s rather the manner in which he ground it out in conditions evidently skewed in favour of the bowlers that will almost certainly force George Bailey & Co. to bring the right-hander’s name into the opening discussion.
Walking in at No.4 — a spot lower than his usual No.3 for South Australia — McSweeney scored 29* and faced 110 balls on a day in which no other batter even lasted 80 balls. In fact, only one other batter ended up lasting more than 50 deliveries and that was India’s Devdutt Padikkal, who amassed 36 off the 77 balls he faced.
As prime opening contenders, Konstas (0) and Harris (17) both perished playing loose drives outside off-stump, McSweeney showed immaculate patience and discipline. The ‘leave’ was the right-hander’s most productive shot on the day and he was prepared to ground it out to the extent that after 100 balls, he had accumulated just 20 runs, scoring all of one boundary. That one boundary, too, came off the bowling of left-arm spinner Manav Suthar, who was cut wide of short third-man.
In the lead-up to this particular contest, we had claimed that McSweeney was certainly an outside contender despite all the focus being on Konstas, Harris and Bancroft.
The right-hander entered this first unofficial Test in a rich vein of form, having averaged 76.29 across his previous eight first-class innings, smashing four fifties and two hundreds. He’d also smashed a List A century against Queensland a week prior to the clash, a knock in which he amassed 63% of South Australia’s total team runs.
In the form of his life, the 25-year-old channeled his inner Cheteshwar Pujara on a tough day to put forward his BGT case.
McSweeney, it is worth mentioning, has never previously opened the batting in first-class cricket but against a strong India ‘A’ attack consisting of internationals Mukesh Kumar, Prasidh Krishna and Navdeep Saini, the right-hander showed excellent new-ball credentials after walking in to bat in just the fourth over.
The 110-ball stay on Day 1 might do a world of good for McSweeney’s BGT chances even if he does not end up converting it into a big one when he restarts on Day 2.
All other BGT hopefuls fail with the bat
McSweeney aside, as many as five BGT hopefuls across both sides had a day to forget in Mackay on October 31 (Thursday).
Abhimanyu Easwaran, who has already been named in India’s squad, nicked one to the keeper off the bowling of Jordan Buckingham and perished for 7. Nitish Reddy, another BGT hopeful, got bounced out by Brendan Doggett for a duck.
Konstas nicked one trying to drive Mukesh on the up while Harris guided a short and wide one from Prasidh Krishna straight to second slip. Bancroft perished for a duck, but he seemed to have been on the wrong side of an umpiring call. The right-hander was visibly upset when he was given out for a strangle down the leg-side.
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