After playing well under duress for Australia A, Marcus Harris feels he is prepared to handle opening the batting if the selectors ask him to do so in the first Test match against India in Perth.
The other Test candidates failed to make an impression in the penultimate game before the selectors choose the Test team, and Harris, 32, put up a tough 74 against India A on another challenging day of batting at the MCG. The next highest Australia A score was 35 from No. 10 Corey Rocchiccioli.
Although he was there at the MCG with the Australia A team, George Bailey, the chairman of selectors for Australia, has not yet confirmed to Harris or anybody else who will select the Test team.
Nonetheless, it seems quite probable that a larger team will include both Harris and Nathan McSweeney, along with 13 players, including a backup bowler and hitter.
Harris was normally realistic when asked if he thought he had done enough to receive a call-up following play on the second day. “I don’t know, it’s a good question,” he said. Although many others have also been hitting well, I feel like I’ve been doing well.
I feel quite prepared. I believe that I would not have been able to perform as well as I have at the beginning of this season if I had been in this role a year ago. That’s probably what my findings from last year stated. I have thus taken pride in that.
The only member of the Australia A team to start the batting in both of their games against India A is Harris. Before starting with McSweeney in the second game, he and Sam Konstas opened for scores of 17 and 36 in the first game in Mackay. Prior to either game, Harris said he had not heard anything from the selectors.
“They just said that I’ll open in the first game and we’re not really sure what’s going to happen with the second game,” Harris explained. “So I don’t know if that was the plan.”
Given his prior experiences with Australia A and the Prime Minister’s XI selection, Harris stated that the second game had given him a few more hints as to the selectors’ opinions, but he was not taking it too seriously.
“It was probably pretty obvious what was happening,” Harris stated. “To be honest, you would have to ask them. You never know. When we had the bat-off in Canberra last year, for instance, they selected Renners [Matt Renshaw], who was batting at three. Therefore, I’m not sure.”
Harris claimed that his experience last summer, when he seemed to be in the running to replace David Warner going into the home season, taught him a lot. His performances, which included 143 and 52 in the opening Sheffield Shield match of the summer, 63 in a One-Day Cup match, and 74 against India A, have demonstrated that. Additionally, he thinks that public and media criticism has never seemed so acute.
According to Harris, “No, honestly, it hasn’t,” “I believe I’ve accepted it a little bit more this time around than I have in the past. I believe I’ve made a concerted effort to avoid it in the past. This time, I’ve probably simply accepted it for what it is and taken it as it comes, but that maybe builds it up a bit more. I believe I may have mentioned at the Junction Oval a few weeks ago that I could likely write every item that will be written during the next few weeks. Therefore, nothing that comes out is shocking, and I believe that the more times you go through anything, the more accustomed you become to it.
Harris’s game has undoubtedly evolved. He may have attempted to blast his way to a score on a surface as dangerous as the one that someone has seen at the MCG in the past. On the second day, however, he only managed to hit one boundary. His increased ability to manage the strike and score runs has been evident this season; he has picked off a lot more singles and twos than he may have in the past. He said his Victoria coach, former Australia Test opener Chris Rogers, imprinted him with a straightforward message at the beginning of the season.
You don’t necessarily have to aim for four runs; instead, try hitting it for two if the wicket is doing a little bit, he suggested. And it was simply something straightforward that struck a chord with me,” Harris remarked. “I think a lot of the times when you do well on wickets like that, you actually spend a lot of time down the other end.”
After playing, missing a lot, and coming just short of the wicketkeeper on the first night, Harris acknowledged that he needed some luck. When he was declared not out on 48, he also had a great bit of luck when he attempted to turn offspinner Tanush Kotian to the leg side, but the ball deflected slip.
Harris remarked, “I hit my pad on the way through,” That’s why I didn’t back down. I was like, “I don’t know,” after the umpire declared it not out. We then watched the replay, and I believe the lads claimed to have seen it 20 times, although it was difficult to tell. Therefore, the fact was that I wasn’t sure. However, I would have [considered] that was fair enough if they had examined it and stated, “You hit it and got caught.”
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