BRISBANE, Oct 27: Former Test wicket-keeper Ian Healy thinks the Australian selectors should blood some young talent in the Ashes series against England starting next month.

Healy’s comments were part of another day of intense media debate in Australia over veteran middle-order batsman Mark Waugh’s place in the side.

The 37-year-old Waugh, who is struggling for form, faces an anxious wait before Australia name their team on Monday for the first Test starting Nov 7.

“What gave us such good success through the nineties was some selections in the mid-eighties where we threw some blokes in,” Healy said on Australia television. “And now is a good time to throw a young fellow in while the experience and the confidence of the others around him is perfect.”

Healy, 38, who claimed a world record 395 Test dismissals in 119 matches, played his last Test in October 1999 in Harare, Zimbabwe.

He was dropped from the side for the first Test against Pakistan in Brisbane the following month when his replacement Adam Gilchrist suffered the indignity of being booed by Queenslander Healy’s home-town crowd.

Former Test captain Ian Chappell said planning for the post-Waugh era would be difficult.—Reuters