Fresh ODI task for Green adds to 'incredibly complex' role
Filling Glenn Maxwell's shoes as Australia's ODI finisher could be Cameron Green's latest challenge as coach Andrew McDonald admitted the team's mentorship of the allrounder is being reviewed in their push to help fulfil his all-format promise.Green will return to international cricket this week as he belatedly joins Australia's 50-over squad in Islamabad after his Kolkata Knight Riders' late dash at making the Indian Premier League playoffs fell short over the weekend.For the past 18 months, Green has exclusively batted at three and four in Australia's white-ball teams. He continued in that role in the T20I side during February's World Cup even as he resumed bowling following major back surgery in October 2024, having initially returned across all three formats as a non-bowling top-order batter.Green came under heavy scrutiny during last summer's Ashes series after averaging 24.42 with the bat and 70.75 with the ball through five Tests. He started the series batting at five and ended it at seven and eight. McDonald conceded his output with the bat fell short of their expectations, but insisted the 26-year-old’s challenges in performing across all formats are "incredibly complex"."I'd ask the question: How many have been good at going across all three formats?" said McDonald. "Currently it's incredibly difficult. So are we asking too much of certain players?"That open question is at the heart of the Green conundrum.It comes as McDonald revealed he has spoken to the Western Australian about how best to use him in the ODI arena building towards next year's World Cup.Green was batting at three when he pummelled the second fastest ODI century by an Australian in his last start in the 50-over team, a 47-ball ton in a dead rubber against South Africa in Mackay last August.But that was before he had resumed bowling. The Aussies are currently grappling with how they replace Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis, who have both retired since the last ODI World Cup. The pair's all-round skills had been vital to the team's balance, particularly Maxwell's in winning the 50-over event in India in 2023.Tim David has been floated as a possible 'finisher' option in the batting order, but that still leaves the question of who bowls Maxwell and Stoinis' overs.Whether Green – who warmed into his big-money stint at Kolkata as the IPL progressed to finish with solid, if not spectacular, returns – can solve both problems by moving down the batting order will be looked at across the six one-dayers in Rawalpindi, Lahore and Dhaka."It's really where we position him and what role we want him to play, because I think he's got the ability to really play high up the order and low," said McDonald."He does have some power, we saw in that Top End series last year against South Africa, his ability to finish off that innings in the absence of Glenn Maxwell. So we had that conversation."We keep these things open – experiment is not the right word – but we'll look at different ways to play in the journey to the 2027 World Cup and where he fits exactly in that."We've got some options there because of his range of skills. Definitely the bowling is a big part of that. The fifth bowler … that can be an exposure point for any team."We've always gone with four frontline (bowlers) and then the allrounders pick that (fifth bowler's load) up. So I feel like he has a big part to play with the ball as well."The more bowling he gets under his belt, there's improvement there, so a good sign is on the back of where he's been as well. This IPL, the skills are coming back, the white-ball skills in particular off the back of the surgery he's had."Beyond the six ODIs against Pakistan and Bangladesh and three ensuing T20Is against the latter, unlocking Green's full potential against the red ball could be decisive in how Australia fare in their Test-heavy schedule through 2026-27.While Australia's leaders have been consistent in gently indicating they have wanted more from Green in recent times, particularly with the bat, their words are typically softened by an acknowledgement of the difficulty of his role.McDonald's implication that the expectations on Green's Test output might be bordering on unrealistic holds some weight when his career record is compared with some of Test cricket's best allrounders at the same stage of their respective careers.The comparison with the likes of Jacques Kallis, Garfield Sobers and Ian Botham shows Green does not yet deserve to be considered among many of those legends. Even Shane Watson, another Australian allrounder who some believe to have been unfairly maligned, had better batting and bowling numbers at the equivalent point of his career.But the numbers also show that Green is not miles away from being considered a peer either. Indeed, his record with the bat is better than Flintoff's and roughly the same with the ball after 37 Tests, by which point the England allrounder was about 12 months away from his career-defining 2005 Ashes campaign.Crucially, most of those players had not been asked to master T20s in the IPL and in international cricket so the early in their careers. Stokes and Shakib are perhaps the exceptions, though the gap between the demands of the three formats were not as extreme during their own formative years as international cricketers. Watson became a world-class T20 performer but only towards the end and after he concluded his Test career.Incidentally, McDonald hopes a narrower focus for Green during Australia's Test-heavy schedule could play into the hands of the ageing side's youngest regular member. He has previously benefited from a concentrated run on one format."He had a challenging summer, he didn't perform them to the level that he wanted to (but) I think people don't appreciate the sum of all the parts he brings," said McDonald."We want him to average more with the bat. He wants to average more with the bat. But his fielding, his bowling, the package that he is – we feel he will come good. It's just a matter of how we balance out the three formats as well."Batting is incredibly complex and difficult at the moment with players trying to stretch across three formats."The management conversation surrounds, 'Can we keep him in a certain format for a little bit longer to give him a really good opportunity to prepare?'"We had some good outcomes leading into the New Zealand series (in 2024) … he goes into a Test match and gets a big hundred away from home (in Wellington). So maybe there's something in the management of how we (did) that."We've got a nice space throughout the month of July to get ready for that Top End series. It feels like from the start of that Test match (against Bangladesh in Darwin) pretty much through to the end of the 150th Test match in Melbourne (in March next year) – and this is assuming selection, of course – but it feels like he's going to be in that space for all that period of time as a lot of the Test players will be."But we're always talking about how we can improve, how we can get better and how we're coaching as well in supporting Cam on that journey."We're looking at what we're doing as well – it's not just all about the player."How can we help that player prepare and get the best out of them? He's not where he wants to be, and we're trying to help him get to where he wants to be."
