As McSweeney learnt Shield cricket and facing Bumrah are worlds apart
As is bowling to Kohli and Jaiswal
You could apply that to literally any player. Shield is the best indicator available and should therefore be used. McSweeney is a 3/4 not an opener however he managed to score more runs over the first 3 tests than Khawaja 🤷♂️.
Also Webster has bowled to Nitish Reddy (Indias 2nd highest run scorer) in Aus A vs Ind A and got him out 3/4 times. Seems like a good matchup to me.
McS isn’t even a decent shield player or opener. He made his name playing T20 and it shows.
Oz selectors are incompetent.
Konatas and Webster should have been picked from the first test.
I have no clue what you are on about. McSweeney to open the shield season scored 55, 127*, 37, 72. Then in Aus A he scored 39 (top score btw), 88*, 14 and 25 (last two opening). So that’s 291 @ 97 in shield and 359 @ 59.83 (mental maths so check).
Konstas scored 152, 105, 2, 43 in Shield
and in Aus A 0, 16, 3, 73* (last two @4) so that’s 302 runs @ 75.5 in Shield and 394 @ 56.28.
Australia A was essentially the final audition for these guys and Konstas played pretty terribly in his first 3 innings. Konstas played remarkably in the opening game of the shield but fell off afterwards so I think the selectors made the right call on the given information (and yes I believe they subsequently made the right call by putting him in the team for Boxing Day as our openers were just not working). I don’t think it’s particularly wise to debut a player based on one amazing game but a string of solid consistent performances which is what McSweeney had and Konstas didn’t at the time, but Konstas went to work and proved what he is worth afterwards and earned his selection on merit not potential.
As for your claim “McS isn’t even a decent shield player or opener. He made his name playing T20 and it shows” this is completely untrue apart from the opener bit. I watch the BBL and he’s pretty average in it much better suited to the longer formats. He may have made a name there because no one actually watches shield cricket but in the last Sheffield shield season he scored 762 runs (4th most <20 from 2nd) @40.10 with 3 100s (=highest) and 3 50s. This is a significant improvement from the 492 runs scored the year prior. McSweeney used to be an average fringe shield player but he’s worked hard and seen substantial improvement. So yes he is a decent (more than decent) shield player and no I don’t think he was noticed for his white ball skills.
Dunno about Webster because I thought Marsh was good but obviously is not in form at all. Probably should have happened by Boxing day as he had an ok game at Perth.
Anyway I think we are both on the same page for who we believe should be on the team for tomorrows test just wanted to correct some historically inaccuracies. Hopefully they all play well. Go Aus!
