Border-Gavaskar Trophy: Meet Beau Webster, all-rounder who could feature in Australia squad for second Test

Australia could be forced to make a change for the second Test against India in Adelaide starting from 6 December. The Pat Cummins-led Aussies come into the Day-Night Test in Adelaide on the back of a 295-run loss in the first match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Perth on Sunday.

Australia skipper Pat Cummins had said that all-rounder Mitchell Marsh was a “little sore” towards the end of the Perth Test, and according to media reports in Australia, fellow all-round Beau Webster could be added into the squad as Marsh’s replacement.

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“He was a little but sore towards the end of this Test match, so the next ten days he has a chance to freshen up and try to get it right,” Cummins had said after Australia’s Perth Test loss . “We’ll see how he goes,” he had added.

So, who is Beau Webster?

Beau Webster is a 30-year-old all-rounder who was born in Tasmania’s Hobart on 1 December, 1993. Webster, who made his First-Class debut in 2014, has enjoyed an excellent run in the Sheffield Shield tournament across the last two seasons. The Sheffield Shield tournament is Australia’s premier domestic First-Class tournament. Webster, a right-handed batter, has amassed 1788 runs for Tasmania in the last two seasons and averages 51.08.

He has scored five centuries and nine half-centuries during the course of the last two seasons. In the 2023-24 Sheffield Shield season, Webster ended up as the tournament’s top run-getter with 938 runs from 19 innings, with Western Australia’s Cameron Bancroft the next best with 778 runs from 27 innings.

Webster, who can bowl right-arm medium as well as right-arm off-break, took 30 wickets in Tasmania’s previous season. Webster initially began bowling off-spin, but added right-arm medium pace to his weaponry during the 2020-21 season that was marred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Webster recently turned up for Australia A in their unofficial Test series against India A, scoring 145 runs from four innings while also taking seven wickets.

Earlier this year, Webster scored more than 250 runs for Gloucestershire in the County Championship in England and also registered his best First-Class cricket bowling figures of 6/100.

In a Sheffield Shield match against New South Wales in Sydney that concluded on Wednesday, Webster scored 110 runs across both innings, including a fifty in the first innings. He also picked up five wickets as Tasmania clinched a 55-run win.