Australian all-rounder Cameron Green is likely to skip the white-ball series against Pakistan later this year to prepare for the Test series against India at home. In November this year, Pakistan will visit Australia for a series of limited editions. Having played a three-match Test series in Australia in the 2023/24 season, the Men in Green will visit the country later this year for three T20Is and as many ODIs.
While Cameron Green certainly features prominently in Australia’s limited-overs games plans, he will skip both series against Pakistan. The highly-rated all-rounder will play Sheffield Shield cricket at that time to prepare for the challenging series against India. He was also recently left out of the T20I series against New Zealand, although he is vying to be part of Australia’s squad for the T20 World Cup.
Australia’s selectors want Cameron Green to concentrate solely on red-ball cricket at the moment and didn’t even call him up late when Marcus Stoinis and Aaron Hardie were withdrawn through injury for New Zealand assignment. He was asked to stay in Australia to play a Shield match for Western Australia against Tasmania, where he scored an unbeaten 103 to help WA earn a draw on the final day.
Cameron Green will focus on testing:
Cameron Green justified the selectors’ faith in him by playing a brilliant knock of 174* runs against New Zealand in the recently concluded first Test. In a match where no other Australian batsman could score a fifty, his astonishing knock helped Australia defeat New Zealand by 174 runs.
“The next point of tension will be next summer, before the Indian Test series,” Australia head coach Andrew McDonald said.
“I think it will be a conversation where he is. I’d probably err on the side of setting it up via the red ball. We know how good a white ball player he is. If you prioritize what next summer will be like, white-ball cricket is important but, geez, that summer Test is important.
“I think with the results he’s had, he’ll probably come to us and say, can you give us a couple of Shield games before the first Test against India?” he added.
Speaking about the decision to leave Green out of the squad for the New Zealand T20Is, McDonald said: “It’s a big decision to leave someone out of international cricket when they’re actually potentially in the best XI.
“I was glad that [Green] I accepted it when we had that conversation with him. And the return was quite immediate. It won’t always be like this. So even if he failed here, we feel like that was the best preparation for him. So let’s not always judge a result as right or wrong,” he added.
Cameron Green is likely to prioritize Sheffield Shield instead of the white-ball series against Pakistan to prepare for the Boarder Gavaskar Test series. pic.twitter.com/b36dU5j6yo
– Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) March 4, 2024
Australia and New Zealand will play one more Test, starting March 7, before players from both teams leave for India for IPL 2024. As for Green, he is all set to ply his trade with Royal Challengers Bangalore in the upcoming IPL season. , scheduled to be played starting March 22.