Australian skipper Pat Cummins had announced his playing XI for the first Ashes test against England while Travis Head and Mitchell Starc successfully made their places in the playing XI.
Australian skipper Pat Cummins has confirmed that Travis Head and Mitchell Starc will play in the Ashes opener against England at the Gabba. Travis’s head got the bow over Khawaja and will play in at number five.
Head has played four Ashes tests for Australia, with a top score of 51 in the drawn of 2019 drive.
Head and Khawaja have two centuries each from the five games with the former scoring a 101 in the most recent clash against Khawaja’s Queensland.
Left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc retains his place in the playing XI but the questions were about his performance while he didn’t perform well in the recent T20 World Cup.
But still, Starc had been in doubt to retain his place because Jhye Richardson’s performs very well in his past games, who had taken 23 wickets from four shield games so far.
Starc though held onto his spot in Australia’s bowling attack that will have Cameron Green as the all-rounder.
Australia’s captain Pat Cummins was happy to announce his side while England skipper Joe Root wasn’t feeling comfortable to reveal the side but said spinner Jack Leach remained in contention to play.
“We’ve got all the options on the table (but) we’re not going to name a team just yet,”
Root said.
“We’ll have to see the closer forecast and how that pitch changes over the next couple of days.
“But it’s a great place to play spin. It’s something we’ll weigh up and consider, but we’re not in a position to make that call right now.”
Australia XI: David Warner, Marcus Harris, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood
