{"id":754,"date":"2026-11-05T06:34:25","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T06:34:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/05\/mike-hussey-optimistic-about-the-future-of-australias-test-batting\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T06:34:25","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T06:34:25","slug":"mike-hussey-optimistic-about-the-future-of-australias-test-batting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/05\/mike-hussey-optimistic-about-the-future-of-australias-test-batting\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Hussey optimistic about the future of Australia\u2019s Test batting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Updated on 7 minutes ago by Charbel Coorey<\/a><\/p>\n

Mike Hussey believes the Australian Test team is in good health despite four defeats from their past seven matches.<\/p>\n

In a 12-month period labelled as legacy defining, Pat Cummins\u2019 team have stumbled at the first hurdles, drawing the two-match series at home to Bangladesh before losing 2-1 in South Africa. However, Hussey believes there are positive signs ahead.<\/p>\n

Mike Hussey expects core of Australia Test team to remain, with only Marnus Labuschagne to drop out<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The former Australia<\/a> batsman, who will work with the team as coach during the upcoming T20I series against England, says the form of Matt Renshaw, Cameron Green and Josh Inglis is a positive. He expects those three to hold down their spots, with Marnus Labuschagne unlikely to keep his place after another disappointing series.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had lost that last Test [in Cape Town], but got 250, 260 and taken it right down to the wire, then people probably wouldn\u2019t be as much up in arms,\u201d Hussey said, as quoted by CODE Sports<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not expecting the Aussie camp to panic too much despite all the emotion going on outside. I think obviously Marnus is going to probably find it hard to keep his place in the team \u2014 he\u2019s been given a pretty long rope over a while now.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut other than that, I don\u2019t know how much more change. They really like (Cam) Green; he\u2019s done well against Bangladesh, and he did reasonably well when he played. (Josh) Inglis got a century, so he deserves to keep his spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cRenshaw did really well \u2026 Travis Head, you\u2019re not going to do anything with him, and then Steve Smith is pretty much a walk-up start. So that\u2019s pretty much your top six; you throw Carey in, that\u2019s your top seven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who are the leading contenders from the Sheffield Shield?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Hussey also says there are more candidates putting their hand up at Sheffield Shield level. He pinpoints Sam Konstas, Kurtis Patterson, Nathan McSweeney and Jack Clayton as leading candidates to make the Test team in the near future.<\/p>\n

Clayton in particular has emerged as a strong candidate. The left-hander has made a solid start to the Sheffield Shield season for Queensland, scoring 303 runs in the opening three matches at an average of 75.75.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s been one really promising thing from my point of view is that we\u2019ve been wanting guys at the level below to start banging the door down and we\u2019re starting to see that,\u201d Hussey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still want to see more of it and more consistently, but it\u2019s good to see Sam Konstas getting a few runs [71 and 151* against Western Australia]. We know his talent, but we want him to churn out some good first-class runs.<\/p>\n

\u201cKurtis Patterson\u2019s done well over a period of time; he\u2019s got to be there or thereabouts. Then McSweeney has been pretty consistent as well. It was good to see Cameron Bancroft send a reminder to the selectors \u2026 and then there\u2019s Jack Clayton who\u2019s been chipping away nicely over the past few years, and he\u2019s highly regarded up in Queensland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s four-match series against New Zealand begins on December 9. It shapes up as a vital series in the World Test Championship (WTC) race, with Australia dropping from first to third.<\/p>\n

The Black Caps are currently top of the WTC standings with a two-match series against India to come this month. South Africa are in second with a home series against Bangladesh on the horizon.<\/p>\n

The post Mike Hussey optimistic about the future of Australia\u2019s Test batting<\/a> appeared first on CricBlog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Updated on 7 minutes ago by Charbel Coorey Mike Hussey believes the Australian Test team is in good health despite four defeats from their past seven matches. In a 12-month period labelled as legacy defining, Pat Cummins\u2019 team have stumbled at the first hurdles, drawing the two-match series at home to Bangladesh before losing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}