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The Ashes squad has been named — for the first Test at least — somewhat ending the selection discussions that have dominated the opening rounds of the Sheffield Shield this season. Australia named an extended, 15-man squad for that first Test in Perth, which starts on November 21. There were not a whole lot of surprises, with Australia's middle order and bowling line up — Pat Cummins's injury excepted — pretty well set. But the biggest issue is always who will accompany Usman Khawaja at the top of the order, a question that has has given rise to more opinions than Marnus Labuschagne has made adamant LBW appeals from square leg. Labuschagne well worth his inclusion Labuschagne himself slotting into one of those two slots is one option, the man himself saying that he doesn't mind where he bats. "I'm very used to being in early. If I have to open, great. If I bat there, great. Wherever there's a spot for me I'll take it and we'll go from there," he said. Even Bailey said that there was not much of an adjustment that needed to be made from batting three to opening. "I'm confident that most players in Australia, if you bat in the top three you have the capability of opening," he said when announcing the squad. But Labuschagne's strength has been coming in at first drop, exactly where he has excelled for Queensland this year, scoring 341 runs, including two centuries in the Shield. The Queensland skipper has scored more runs than anyone else in the Shield so far this year, has the two highest individual scores of the season (159 and 160) and has the highest average of any player who has completed multiple batting innings (85.25). But as we've mentioned, that's been at number three. Who is Jake Weatherald? Tasmanian batter Jake Weatherald has done most of his work at the top of the order. Weatherald's rise to the top of the Shield run scoring charts is not an overnight success story — and his path to the top has been far from straightforward. For a start, should Weatherald make the cut and earn his baggy green in Perth he will become just the second man from the Northern Territory to play Test cricket for Australia in 149 years, the other being 67-time Test batter Damien Martyn. From unconventional beginnings though, Weatherald has gone on to play first class cricket for more than a decade — this is his 11th season at the top level. He burst onto the scene as a 21-year-old in February 2016 with South Australia, for whom he would play until the 2022/23 season. In those eight seasons with the Red Backs he scored nine first-class centuries — at least one a season from 2016/17 onwards — and finished fourth in the Shield run-scoring charts in 2017/18. But not everything was rosy. Weatherald took time away from the game in 2020 and 2022 to deal with some mental health issues and looked to leave Tasmania after his first season saw him only play a single first-class game. Tasmania would go on to be thrilled that he didn't. Weatherald's superb Shield form Pleasingly for aficionados of red ball cricket, Weatherald's elevation to the Test squad has come largely due to his Sheffield Shield form over the past few years. "His performance over the last 18 months has been really solid," Bailey said of Weatherald when the squad was announced on the Gold Coast this week. "There's a method there that we like and is really complementary to the other players around him in the squad." Indeed, nobody in Shield cricket as scored more runs than Weatherald's 1,154 at 48.08 in the past 18 months. Bailey praised his scoring rate among other things, noting that he's a player who could take the attack to the opposition as well as weather the storm when the going's tough. In the 2024/25 season, he scored a competition-high 906 runs at an average of 50.33, scoring three centuries and three fifties, including a top score of 186. This season, he started almost as well, scoring 248 runs at 41.33. In fact, as far as the 16 players who have opened the batting at some point this season, only Usman Khawaja (52.45) and Will Salzmann (51.40) have a higher average over that same time period — and Salzmann has only opened twice. What about Matt Renshaw? There have been 16 players who have opened the batting so far this season in the Shield. The best performer according to those stats? South Australia's Henry Hunt. He has scored 291 runs — 22 per cent of all the runs South Australia has scored this year — with a single century, 126 at the Adelaide Oval against Victoria in round one, averaging 48.50. Only four other regular openers have scored 200 or more runs so far this season: Weatherald (248), Campbell Kellaway (243), Khawaja (202) and Cameron Bancroft (201). Looking at averages though, one name stands out among this year's openers — Matthew Renshaw. Renshaw has only played two Shield matches so far this season and, because both of those matches have been on very good batting tracks at Allan Border Field and the Gabba, he's only had two innings as well. And, in part because both Brisbane venues are so good to bat on, he has averaged 78.50, the highest of all the openers in the competition. There were plenty of portents falling in Renshaw's favour of being selected for the first Test squad, not least his 14 Tests of experience and the mature displays with the bat for the ODI side in the series against India. But despite reports that the selection between him and Weatherald was on a knife-edge the night before the squad was selected, the Queenslander was cast aside. What about Cameron Bancroft? The other two highest run-scoring openers in the Shield this year were Kellaway and Bancroft, who have both scored centuries, while Weatherald (3) and Khawaja (2) have both registered multiple half-century scores. It's fair to say that Bancroft had not enjoyed a great start to the red ball season, managing a total of just 21 runs across four innings at home against NSW and away to Tasmania on admittedly tough pitches. But back at the WACA for the third round, the former Test opener showed the form that made him such a potent batting force, scoring 122 in the first innings and 58 in the second. His first innings 122 made up 39.74 per cent of WA's total score in that innings. Only Labuschagne's 159 against SA in Adelaide (39.95 per cent) has been worth more to his side of any top-three batter so far this season. Given Bancroft's history in the Australian team and with sandpaper-gate still a raw wound, it's unlikely that he will add to his Test appearances any time soon, especially considering he was not called upon when he led the run-scoring charts in the 2022/23 season with 945 at an average of 59.06 and backed it up with 778 the following year at 48.62. As for Kellaway, the 23-year-old left-hander still has plenty of time to shine on the national stage and remains a viable option, as suggested by his inclusion in the A side against India A in Lucknow in September, where he scored 88 in the first innings of the first match. As does Will Salzmann, the 21-year-old New South Wales batter who looks a real prospect in his first season of senior first-class cricket, averaging 51.40 so far this season. He has a high score of 72 at the WACA in the middle order and performed admirably as an opener against Queensland at the Gabba with scores of 65 and 31.
