Last Updated on 24 seconds ago by Charbel Coorey
Australia have confirmed their playing XI for the first Test against Bangladesh, which begins on August 13 in Darwin.
Josh Hazlewood will play his first Test since the tour of West Indies in mid-2025. He missed the entire Ashes series due to hamstring and achilles troubles. Scott Boland is the unlucky bowler to miss out.
Australia reveal playing XI for series opener against Bangladesh in Darwin
Australia XI: 1. Travis Head, 2. Jake Weatherald, 3. Marnus Labuschagne, 4. Steve Smith, 5. Cameron Green, 6. Alex Carey (wk), 7. Beau Webster, 8. Pat Cummins (c), 9. Mitchell Starc, 10. Nathan Lyon, 11. Josh Hazlewood
As reported by CricBlog last month, both Cameron Green and Beau Webster have been named in the playing XI. The former will bat at five.
Usman Khawaja’s retirement has opened the door for both all-rounders to feature in the XI, and it’s something coach Andrew McDonald has regularly hinted at.
“Usman has retired, and he vacates the No. 5 position where he was opening, and he went to five to finish off. But you’ve got Webster and Green that potentially can play in the same team, should we see it that way, so that gives us incredible flexibility,” McDonald said earlier this year.
Australia have also backed Marnus Labuschagne. The number three is under pressure to deliver with his last Test century coming in the 2023 Ashes.
“We saw him [Labuschagne] finish off last summer the way that we wanted him to, in Sydney and the way he started that Ashes series in Perth. So if you look at the bookends of last summer for Marnus, in terms of Test cricket, it was excellent, and you look at the front-end of the summer domestically in red-ball cricket, it was more of what we’d like to see,” McDonald said in June.
Australia are currently top of the World Test Championship standings with seven wins and a percentage of 87.50. Two victories against Bangladesh is vital given Pat Cummins’ team has a very difficult run of fixtures against South Africa (away), New Zealand (home) and India (away) to complete this cycle.
