Cameron Green to focus on India Tests in December, may skip Pakistan series

Australia all-rounder Cameron Green could skip the white-ball series at home against Pakistan later in the year and instead turn out in the domestic Sheffield Shield tournament in his bid to prepare for the blockbuster Test series against India in December. Green was not a part of Australia’s squad for the T20I series against West Indies and New Zealand, and instead played for Western Australia in their Sheffield Shield game against Tasmania in Hobart, where he hit an unbeaten 103 in the second innings. And in the first Test against New Zealand in Wellington that Australia won, Green scored an unbeaten 174 in the first innings.

“He’s become an all-three format player and we thought his greatest challenge was flipping between the formats,” Australia coach Andrew McDonald told cricket.com.au.

“We felt that by keeping Cam in one format for a period of time gave him the best chance, and that won’t always be the case with everyone.

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“Other players can go (more readily) from one-day international cricket into Test cricket, and it’s probably the more experienced players who have done it over a period of time.

“It’s a big decision to leave anyone out of international cricket when they’re potentially in the best eleven, so I’m glad he embraced that when we had that conversation with him, and the return on it is pretty immediate,” McDonald added.

“The white-ball cricket’s important, but geez that Test summer’s important, so I think with the results he’s had (at Wellington) he’ll probably come to us and say ‘can you give us a couple of Shield games before the first Test against India?,” he continued.

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Till date, Green has played 27 Tests for Australia and scored 1347 runs at an average of 37.41. The 24-year-old has also taken 33 wickets at an economy rate of 3.33.

Australia lead the two-match series 1-0 following their 172-run win in Wellington. The second Test will be played in Christchurch from Friday.