Australian wicketkeeper-batsman Matthew Wade is disappointed with the explanations given by Head coach Justin Langer for his exclusion from Australia‘s Test squad for the Sri Lanka tour.
Wade, who played the last of his 22 Tests in September 2017, is the highest run-getter of the Sheffield Shield with 571 at stunning average of 63.44 and therefore, the batsman felt that the selectors’ reason for the same “doesn’t make a lot of sense” and he is not satisfied with the same.
Matthew told SEN Radio on Monday (January 14), “It’s disappointing for me. It seems the criteria when Justin [Langer] took over was weight of runs, hundreds. I feel like I’m ticking all those boxes and the reasons I’m not getting picked is I’m not batting in the top four. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense.”
While clarifying national chief selector’s Trevor Hohns’ question over his batting position, Wade, who bats at No. 5 and 6 for Tasmania, claimed that Australia’s selection panel previously did not look that closely at batting positions in domestic cricket while citing Shaun Marsh who bats at No 5 for Western Australia.
He further added on the same, “He (Hohns) voiced his opinion about me batting in the top four, I obviously raised that Shaun Marsh bats five for Western Australia. The Bellerive pitch is a tough batting wicket. I’ve been at stages like 4 for 50 a lot and I think it’s a specialist position No.5 and No.6. You’ve got to bat with the tail, you probably need someone to set the pace a little bit down there with the tail and kind of build the total a different way than just a specialist batsman. I think you probably saw that with Peter Handscomb in the last Test. He batted No.6 but he is batting way out of position. He has never really batted too much with the tail in that position. So, yeah, I raised all those points.”
Wade continued, “That’s the reason that I’m getting. That puts me in a position that’s quite tough because I don’t want to be shuffling players around. I feel like if I give up the gloves completely, and go bat at four, and it doesn’t pan out as well, I feel like the next thing I’ll be hearing is I can’t be picked as the back-up keeper because I’m not keeping. It’s a tough situation to be in, I’m not really sure what we’re going to do. I’m not going to do it just for my own good.”
He signed off by saying, “I’ll sit down with Griff (Coach Adam Griffiths), I’ve already had a conversation with him, and we will work out what’s best for Tasmania winning games and if that’s me batting No.5, if that’s me batting No.7, I don’t really care, I’ll go wherever I have to go.”
(With SEN Radio Inputs)
