Joe Root’s beleaguered side are likely to shuffle the pack again in Hobart on Friday with question marks over the wicketkeeper, openers and seam attack
As if Jos Buttler’s Ashes series had not been painful enough, a campaign that included one particularly humiliating drop – to spare a century-bound Marnus Labuschagne in Adelaide – and a combined 45 runs across his last six innings has ended with a broken finger and an early flight home. Buttler averages 35.68 in 20 Tests as a specialist batter compared with 29.60 in 37 as wicketkeeper, including just 19.04 against Australia at home and away, leaving his long-term place in the team in doubt. First a new keeper has to be found to end the series. Jonny Bairstow, the obvious candidate, has his own injury to nurse, and though Ollie Pope did admirably as stand-in in
Sydney Sam Billings is widely expected to make his Test debut. At 30 Billings has experience across all formats and also as a captain, but he has only played 11 first-class matches in the last three years, keeping wicket in just two of those. This will not be an easy audition.