SOUTHAMPTON: Justin Langer admitted on Sunday it will be ‘brutal’ taking unsuccessful candidates aside and telling them they haven’t made the cut after this week’s final selection audition for the upcoming Ashes series.

The Australia head coach and national selector Trevor Hohns will on Friday finalise the tour party, saying ‘three or four’ places remained up for grabs ahead of an all-Australian 12-a-side match starting at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday.

There may, at least, be one less player heading home after the match, with Langer speaking with team performance chief Belinda Clark about the need for the Ashes squad to have the flexibility required to stay the course over five Tests in England.

It means that an originally forecast squad of 16 could be increased to 17, allowing for seven batsmen, an all-rounder, two wicket-keepers, five fast bowlers and two spinners. That scenario would make it more practical for both Alex Carey and Matthew Wade to be chosen, the former as reserve wicket-keeper and the latter as a batsman, and for only one of Kurtis Patterson and Joe Burns, who both made hundreds in Australia’s most recent Test, to miss out.

Langer said he felt assured after talking to Clark that “we’ll have the flexibility we need”.

Wherever they land, however, the coach knows there will be some difficult conversations when the four-day selection trial winds towards a conclusion on Friday.

“It’s going to be brutal actually,” he said. “I know I used that word leading up to the World Cup as well. But we’re going to have to find the best way and we’re still searching for the best way [to tell players].

“At the backend of the game, it’s really important we talk to guys face to face and we talk to guys individually. It’s about respect and it’s about good communication. We can’t just talk about communication and not actually put it into practice.

“There are going to be some disappointed guys, there are going to be some really jubilant guys, some being on their first tour and others their first Ashes test series. We’re just working out the best way to do that but we’ll speak to everyone face to face.

“One thing I learnt as a past player and I’ve certainly learnt as a coach is you’ve got to show everyone the respect they deserve. There will be some disappointed guys, no doubt about that, but if we can be honest and we can be transparent with them, whey they have or haven’t been selected, then that’s the fairest way.”

Most interest here is focused on who will join certain selections David Warner, Steve Smith, Usman Khawaja and Travis Head as the batsmen in the squad. Marcus Harris, who will open with Warner for the so-called Brad Haddin XII, named after one of the team’s assistant coaches, would seemingly have to perform miserably to be overlooked.

That leaves a queue of others — the prolific Wade, Patterson, Burns, Cameron Bancroft and Marnus Labuschagne, the first player to 1,000 runs in county cricket this season — trying to secure the one or two remaining places.

Selectors could potentially leave out Bancroft (Durham) and Labuschagne (Glamorgan) as well as Carey, who will link with Sussex for the T20 Blast competition, knowing they would be in England and could be called up if needed, but Langer maintained that ‘ultimately you’ve got to pick the best Ashes squad’.

Wade, listed at No 5 in the Graeme Hick XII, has made a compelling case for a recall, as a specialist batsman, after three centuries on the Australia ‘A’ tour of England following a Sheffield Shield season for Tasmania in which his 1,021 runs were eclipsed only by Harris.

“I saw it during the summer and we thought a real reward was being picked in the Australia ‘A’ side because there was a lot of talk about Wadey and his form and where he was batting and wicket-keeping,” Langer said.

“And he just keeps doing it. He’s got three hundreds on this tour already and I think he’s batted six or seven times. He’s doing everything that we’ve asked of Australian cricketers.

“He’s making runs, he’s making big runs, he’s knocking that hard and he’s got that look in his eye. Coming into a tough series like this, you like to see those sorts of fighting instincts. So he’s certainly banging very hard for selection.”

Khawaja will sit out the match as he recovers from a hamstring injury sustained the World Cup game against South Africa.

Teams for the tour match:

GRAEME HICK XII: Joe Burns, Cameron Bancroft, Steve Smith, Peter Handscomb, Matthew Wade, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine (captain/wicket-keeper), Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Jackson Bird, Chris Tremain, Nathan Lyon.

BRAD HADDIN XII: David Warner, Marcus Harris, Kurtis Patterson, Travis Head (captain), Marnus Labuschagne, Will Pucovski, Alex Carey (wicket-keeper), Pat Cummins, Mitch Starc, Peter Siddle, Josh Hazlewood, Jon Holland.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2019