Squad Thoughts for Pakistan Tour

Test Squad thoughts.

1. Hopefully Alex Doolan will be given his chance to make #3 his own. He showed signs in SA that he had something. Pakistan will throw different challenges at him.

2. Hughes unlikely to play, but still looks like the replacement for Rogers when he retires... in five years...

3. Two spinners will play as only Mitch, Sids and Starc have been chosen as pacemen. Lots of bowling for Watson. Surely Maxwell cannot be considered a frontline spinner, which means finally a belated baggy green for Steven O'Keefe alongside Lyon and probably Johnson and Siddle. But not definitely...

4. Why not? Because if they go down the path they trod in India, it COULD be an allrounder-fest - Warner, Rogers, Watson, Clarke, Smith, Haddin, Mitch Marsh, Maxwell, Johnson, Siddle, Lyon. That gives them Watson, Clarke, Smith, Marsh and Maxwell to back up three specialists. Laugh if you must, but you better believe in 45+ degree heat, they'll be thinking about it...

5. If Clarke is unfit, Haddin becomes an Australian Test captain.

6. Big Test for our guys, and lots of questions still unanswered moving in to the future.

ODI Squad Thoughts.

1. Phil Hughes was almost the best bat in the recent tri-series, but is immediately discarded with the return of Watson and Warner to the team. No matter what you think of him, it really is harsh on one of the few positives of that series.

2. Mitch Starc is retained despite showing little in the recent series. He has only just come back from injury, but until he stops his tactics of coming around the wicket his selection is a continued eyebrow raiser.

3. Sean Abbott? Wow. A reward for good performances in the winter, but don't we already have a plethora of allrounders who don't hold their place anyway? If he's playing in front of the very average James Faulkner, then perhaps there is a case for his selection.

4. Selectors must be still searching for their ideal XI for the World Cup, but we need penetrating bowlers (Ryan Harris) and patient batsmen who can get five singles an over when we are being tied down if we are to improve.

5. Nathan Lyon? Not sure he's the answer. Why not Steve O'Keefe here as well?