Taylor wants Watson to be Australia opener in Ashes

After their embarrassing tour of India, Michael Clarke would be hoping for a good performance from Australia in the Ashes.

Australia have a formidable pace attack, but they don’t have a powerful batting line-up. In the absence of their stalwarts, Australia will be heavily reliant on Shane Watson and Michael Clarke to deliver the goods. If the duo fails, then Australia will certainly be in trouble in England. So, to avoid the collapse, Taylor wants Watson to open the batting in the Ashes Series. He also wants David Warner and Ed Cowan to bat in the middle order as the rest of the batsmen are inexperienced.

The middle order batsmen comprises of Ed Cowan, Philip Hughes, Chris Rogers and Michael Clarke. Chris Rogers being picked for the Ashes makes perfect sense as he has played a lot of county cricket for Middlesex. So, Michael Clarke and Chris Rogers will hold the key in the middle order for Australia. Philip Hughes struggled against the Indian spinners and may not be upto the mark against Graeme Swann. Therefore, Taylor wants Watson to open the batting in England.

Watson has batted brilliantly in the last couple of years. Overall, in Test matches, he has healthy average of 43.06 and Taylor felt that the warm-up matches before the first Ashes Test will determine Shane Watson’s position in the batting order.

“I think what they’ll do is they’ll use the first couple of county games to decide who is going to open the batting,” Taylor told Radio Sport National. “I think Chris Rogers is right in the frame to open the batting. If I was a selector I would be looking at having Shane Watson as an opener as well. Shane Watson to me has been struggling now for 18 months or maybe two years. I think one of the reasons he’s struggling is he’s not really sure where he should play.

“If you look at his record, he plays his best opening the batting. Every time he bats down at four, five or six and tries to be a bowler also, he doesn’t bat anywhere near as well as he should. That really hurts Australia because he is one of Australia’s best batsmen. I would be thinking very seriously about playing Shane Watson where he plays the best, which is opening the batting.

“I think he’s going to open with Warner, or he’s going to open with Cowan or Rogers. The problem with opening with Warner is then you haven’t really got the explosive player to play down the order at five or six. I wouldn’t be surprised if they open with Watson and someone like Cowan or Rogers – I think they’ll be vying for one spot, I don’t think both of them can play, they’re too similar in the way they play – and I think Dave Warner is a chance of batting down the order, he may bat at five or six.”

I think they are going to be absolute trial games for the Australian side,” he said of the tour matches. “They won’t be just there for a bit of match practice. I think they’ll be trying to work out what is the best order for this Australian side. I think Shane Watson creates the biggest question mark for the Australian side because I think on his day he is behind Michael Clarke as our best player, but Australia have to get the most out of him in this series.

“He’s no longer the vice-captain of the side so he really only has to worry about batting, bowling and fielding. That’s probably not a bad thing. I reckon the Australian hierarchy might me saying that to him, just get out there and particularly make some runs. I think Australia have got the quicks to get some wickets to win Test matches.

“Even though Shane Watson’s bowling certainly is handy, it’s not what they need mostly out of him. They need runs out of Shane Watson. They need probably two players to make 500 runs in this series and I think Shane Watson can do that job. But I’m not sure he can do it batting at four or five or six when he’s also bowling.”

Mark Taylor also said that every sport is struggling to develop leaders. “I’m not sure [the Test captaincy] has the same lustre these days because the money is so good in the game regardless,” he said. “Players are more focused on themselves and playing for their future, playing as a career. I think sometimes they don’t look at leadership like they used to 10 or 15 years ago.”