Australia considering shock Test call-up for bowler after 13 matches in 11 years
Australia are reportedly giving serious consideration over whether to call up Billy Stanlake to their Test squad - despite the fast bowler having played just 13 first-class matches in the space of 11 years.
Australia lost a Test match against Bangladesh at home for the first time in their history last week, with Bangladesh securing a convincing nine-wicket win in Darwin.
In what was described as one of the biggest upsets in the history of Test cricket, Bangladesh chased down a nominal target of 57 to win with five sessions to spare.
Ahead of the second Test in Mackay, which gets underway on Saturday, Australia have reacted by dropping the out-of-form Jake Weatherald and replacing him with Matt Renshaw, who is set to play his first Test match since February 2023.
Advert
The 13-player squad is once again completed by seamer Scott Boland and wicket-keeper/batter Josh Inglis, with it remaining to be seen whether Australia make further changes to their XI.
Captain Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc have all been retained to spearhead a bowling attack which is facing the prospect of playing at least 20 Tests over the next 12 months.
With Hazlewood turning 36 in January, while having battled various injuries in recent years, and Starc turning 37 in the same month, Australia will need to employ some rotation strategies - particularly with gruelling tours of India and England on the horizon.
Fergus O'Neill is seen as the next cab off the rank, with the 25-year-old having now taken over 200 first-class wickets at an average of 19.43 after a successful County Championship stint with Nottinghamshire this season.
South Australian left-armer Campbell Thompson, who took figures of 8/25 in the second innings of a warm-up match against Bangladesh in Darwin, has only played one first-class match but will get much more state cricket during the summer.
And Riley Meredith, who regularly exceeds 90mph, took 30 wickets at 17.46 during the most recent Sheffield Shield season.
Billy Stanlake 'on the cusp' of Australia Test bow
But according to Code Sports reporter Daniel Cherny, Australia are giving serious consideration to giving Stanlake a maiden Test call-up for the upcoming series in South Africa in October.
It is claimed that Stanlake, alongside 19-year-old batting talent Ollie Peake and all-rounder Cooper Connolly, are all 'on the cusp' of being named in the Australia squad.
Stanlake, 31, is the tallest player ever to play for Australia at 6ft 8in, having represented them in eight ODIs and 19 T20Is.
He rose to prominence while playing for Adelaide Strikers in the Big Bash League, taking six wickets at an average of 17.83 during the 2016/17 season.
His ability to extract significant amounts of bounce due to his tall frame, as well as touching 90mph, made him a huge threat and he took the high-profile wicket of former Australia wicket-keeper Brad Haddin with a bouncer.
By the start of 2017, he was a part of Australia's ODI and T20I setups, with the selectors clearly seeing significant potential.
In 2018, former Australia captain Ricky Ponting described him as having the potential to be 'one of the all-time great fast bowlers' - if he could stay fit and 'grow into his body a bit more'.
"I just love the look of what he's got," Ponting told Cricket Australia's website. "He's almost seven feet tall, bowls close to 150 kilometres an hour, he can swing the new ball.
"He's got a little nasty streak in him as well - he likes bowling bouncers."
But Stanlake's progress was soon to be halted by a series of back stress fracture injuries, and he effectively became a white-ball specialist in the years that followed to manage his bowling workloads.
He was dropped from the national set-up in 2019 and lost his Cricket Australia contract later that year, and went through a spell of playing just one red-ball match in four years between 2021 and 2025.
However, he appeared in three Shield matches for Tasmania last season, taking nine wickets at an average of 26.88.
He also received a surprise recall to Australia's ODI squad in May, recording figures of 0-37 from six overs against Pakistan in Rawalpindi in what was his first white-ball international appearance in seven years.
Selectors are said to have assessed Stanlake 'as a legitimate Test option over the next 12 months', given his injury-free spell of cricket.
New South Wales quick Liam Hatcher, who topped the Shield wicket-taking charts last month, is named as another potential inclusion and will play in an Australia A next match next month along with other Test hopefuls.
Ryan Smart