Last 12 months’s Boxing Day hero Scott Boland has retained his place in Australia’s bowling assault and can line up towards South Africa on the Melbourne Cricket Ground from Monday.
The quick bowler would return to the scene of his Test debut final December, with Australia’s selectors selecting Boland over Josh Hazlewood, who continues to get well from a facet pressure.
Captain Pat Cummins on Sunday confirmed that Australia will keep on with the identical XI that thrashed the Proteas by six wickets in simply two days within the first Test on the Gabba in Brisbane.
Cummins stated, “We gave Joshi every chance, it got to a level where Joshi probably thought he was a little weak more than anyone else.”
“It’s probably a sign of a man who thought to himself, ‘I don’t look quite right’ and took himself out of the selection.” Boland has taken 25 wickets in his 5 Tests at a median of 10.36. The 33-year-old Boland tore by way of England’s batsmen on the MCG final 12 months with six wickets and simply seven runs and was named man of the match on debut to assist Australia retain the Ashes.
Australia go up 2-0 on the MCG seeking to safe their first Test sequence win towards South Africa on dwelling soil since 2005-06. The third Test begins in Sydney from January 4.
Veteran opener David Warner will change into solely the 14th Australian participant to play 100 Tests towards South Africa. The left-handed batsman will hope that his milestone match brings some runs within the red-ball format – he hasn’t scored a Test century since January 2020.
South African captain Dean Elgar has confirmed not less than one change to his workforce’s batting lineup however is not going to reveal who’s in or out forward of Monday’s toss on the MCG.
While Elgar praises their tempo assault as one of the best on this planet, South Africa are usually not scoring sufficient runs to provide the bowlers an actual probability. He has scored greater than 400 solely as soon as this 12 months towards Bangladesh.
Their havoc was highlighted on the Gabba green-top within the first Test.
“Our build-up in Brisbane was fantastic, we had two weeks that guys were batting really well,” the opening batsman stated.
“It was a bit hiccup that we had (on the Gabba). But each batting items had him, aside from one batsman (Travis Head’s 92 for Australia). The largest factor for us was to return to the drafting board and attempt to maintain issues easy, to make individuals conscious of one thing they could have forgotten about. The brief match in Brisbane turned the highlight on the Gabba wicket, rated below-standard by the International Cricket Council.
Elgar stated the MCG pitch was consolidating properly with the climate bettering in Melbourne – “I hope this is past and will never be repeated again.” Teams:
AustraliaSquad: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Nathan Lyon.
South Africa: The title can be placed on Monday.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
