Horns’ suggestion to Wade: The National Selector has asked the dropped wicket-keeper batsman to bat up the order for Tasmania.
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In the six matches which Australia wicket-keeper batsman Matthew Wade has played in this season of the Sheffield Shield, he has scored 571 runs at an average of 63.44 and a strike rate of 53.71. Having scored one century and five half-centuries in 12 innings, Wade is the highest run-scorer as of now.
Despite that, the 31-year old southpaw has not been able to convince the selectors for a comeback into the national team. It is hard for a batsman to not get selected at the highest level in times when he is scoring plentiful of runs and his national side is in desperate need of batsmen.
With Australia losing 1-2 to India recently, there were hopes of Wade receiving a call. However, he didn’t feature in the 13-member squad for the series against Sri Lanka announced earlier in the morning.
Addressing the media after announcing the squad, National Selector Trevor Horns was vocal about not selecting Wade. “It’s fantastic that he’s scoring a lot of runs. It wasn’t long ago that he was in our Test squad, he struggled and we obviously dropped him,” Horns said of Wade.
Horns opined that if Wade wants to be considered as a specialist batsman, he should bat up the order for Tasmania in the Sheffield Shield. “He was wicket-keeping at that stage, he’s playing as a wicket-keeper batsman for Tasmania and it just so happens we have a wicket-keeper batsman in our Test match side right now and that is Tim Paine, who is the captain.
“As I suggested, it’s great to see Matthew scoring some runs. But if Matthew wants to be considered as a straight out batsman, it would be nice to see him batting up a little higher for Tasmania and that conversation has been had,” Horns added.
