Jackson Barrett: Australian selectors walking fine line between blooding next generation and winning Ashes

Australian selectors are walking a fine line across the next six months. The team they pick has won everything there is to win in Test cricket across the past half-decade, including the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in a decade. And in recent weeks they have conceded for the first time that future-proofing is also part of their responsibility. They offered a glimpse of what lies beyond this champion team by handing debuts to Nathan McSweeney, Sam Konstas and Beau Webster in the home summer. But the juggling act they face now is there is an Ashes series to win on home soil in 10 month’s time. What they have landed with is essentially two Australian Test teams running concurrently to each other. One is building towards next year’s home Ashes. It includes all the names that sealed the 3-1 win over India, even including Mitch Marsh, according to selection boss George Bailey. Then there is a group looking towards a tour of India in 2027. It’s still Australia’s final cricketing frontier, but their next trip there won’t include Usman Khawaja and may not feature Steve Smith or some of its bowlers. It will look a lot more like the team they have picked to go to Sri Lanka. Spinners Todd Murphy and Matthew Kuhnemann are in there, Cooper Connolly is the young stud new all-rounder in the mix and Konstas and McSweeney will both travel. Travis Head is a fair dinkum chance to open the batting in that team as well. It is believed McSweeney’s game will hold up on lower slower wickets that present a very different challenge to the one he faced in the first three Tests of his fledgling international career. Konstas and Webster did enough at the end of the India series to earn their spots, while Josh Inglis is one of the better players of spin in the country and is nearing a Test debut. And Connolly is exactly the type of player Australia has been crying out for. In fact he’s a few of them. A left-arm spinner, a middle-order batter and an athletic fielder. Australia’s selectors had copped some flack about how they have managed moving on — or resisted the urge — players deep into their 30s. To their credit now though, a clear plan has emerged around how they will handle the integration of some of the country’s best young cricketers into its national team. They resisted the urge to lean on players like Glenn Maxwell, Adam Zampa and Peter Handscomb for this tour despite a push from the Eastern States. There is now a plan in place to win the Ashes as well as to win in India and the public is getting its first look at it.