That trio,alongside Nathan Lyon,had featuredin a promotional advert for the summer by the free-to-air broadcaster Seven that talked up the Pakistan series as the last chance to see them all play together. Warner aside,however,each of Smith,Khawaja and Lyon are eager to continue on beyond this home season.
“I can definitely say I won’t be playing that West Indies series,” Warner had said before the Ashes series. “If I get through this and I can make the Pakistan series I’ll definitely finish up. I’ve always played every game as if it’s my last. It’s my style of cricket.”
Australia’s leaders have been discussing matters of transition for some time,with Victoria home to several of the key players identified for the future.
Marcus Harris and Queensland’s Matt Renshaw have long been seen as the most obvious candidates to replace Warner. Will Pucovksi,too,is highly regarded,although he is still working at returning to consistent cricket after a series of mental health struggles. Pucovski has played two of three Shield games so far this season.
Rogers,who watched Pucovski make some of the hard first-day runs that helped set up Victoria’s defeat of the Blues,said that all those around the young batter were accepting of the fact that his progression will not always be linear.
“He’s been doing a mountain of work on his issues with a lot of support throughout his last summer where he had time off. And he went and played club cricket in England,and things were tracking really smoothly,” Rogers said.
Will Pucovski lets a ball pass on his Test debut against India at the SCG.Credit:AP
“He came with us to Perth,he was really positive and I think everyone was really positive about it,and then it didn’t go the way he wanted. The first reaction was ‘oh no,here we go again’,but the thing with him and particularly the view from the medical support was that it’s OK to have a little setback.
“It’s not going to be zero to 100,we’re going to continue to work through these issues with him,but even in the last fortnight there’s been some good stuff he’s done and I think he got through this game,really,really well. Hopefully he can back it up in our next game against Tasmania.”
NSW,meanwhile,looked to be a team struggling for collective purpose as they staggered to a second consecutive hiding. It has now been 15 Shield games since the most successful team in Australian domestic cricket won a game.
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“A lot of that is down to some of us experienced players not leading the way,” captain Moises Henriques said. “I had a pretty mediocre season last year and in red ball I haven’t started well either.
“So when you’re looking at a whole team perspective from my point of view as captain,I’ve got to look internally first and go ‘what am I doing,what can I change,what can I do better’,and ask the rest of the players to do the exact same thing. If people think they’re bringing everything,then so be it,but we’ve got to keep learning as a group.”
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