Australian pacer Jhye Richardson could reportedly be a late contender to feature in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, following a potential return to red-ball cricket this month.
Australia have named a 13-man squad for the first Test against India which begins on November 22 in Perth. The squad includes a maiden call-up for Nathan McSweeney, while Josh Inglis, who is uncapped at Test level, is also included.
Australia's three main pace bowlers – Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood – have all been included, as well as Scott Boland. But with the first-choice trio likely to be rested for a Test or two to manage their workload, Australia will potentially need to have a couple of other seamers to call upon later on.
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The gaps between the five Tests are as follows – nine days, three days, seven days and three days. The smaller gaps might possibly cause Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood to be cautious about playing, and are before the matches in Brisbane and in Sydney.
Michael Neser has been one of the standout pacer bowlers in domestic cricket for more than a few seasons now, and was expected to be a potential understudy for the trio. He was also part of the Australia A side that took on India A earlier this month, but suffered a hamstring injury in the second match, which has put his participation in any cricket in doubt for a few weeks at least.
Against this backdrop, there is a potential return to the Test team opening up for Jhye Richardson. Richardson has had a career heavily interrupted by injury so far, with the last two years alone reading like a horror story.
He missed the entire IPL 2023 season as he underwent surgery to fix his recurrent hamstring issues, making his return to List A cricket in October 2023. This was short-lived, as he suffered a second shoulder dislocation of his career while fielding for Western Australia (WA)'s second XI ahead of the Sheffield Shield.
He was called up for the ODI series against West Indies earlier this year, but was soon ruled out with a left side strain which also kept him out of the remainder of the Big Bash League in January. He managed to play one game for Delhi Capitals in IPL 2024, and has since remodelled his action and run-up in a bid to avoid further injuries.
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Richardson is likely to play in WA's Sheffield Shield fixture against South Australia, a day-night first-class match which begins on November 23. "Pending selection, hopefully next game," he told ESPNcricinfo.
"I'm still waiting to see what sort of restriction and stuff is put on that. It's a pink-ball [Test] in Adelaide, and, you know, I like playing pink-ball games, so I've been pushing hard to get into that one, but we'll see how we go. Obviously, the plan's not 100% finalised."
"It's been a little bit frustrating. But I was told that at the start of this whole process. I was told it was going to be slow and very purposeful. So we're hopefully getting to the back end of it now, getting into some red ball [cricket]. Hopefully it's all worth it."
Richardson has played three Tests for Australia so far, two of which have been day-night matches, including a pink-ball Ashes Test in December 2021, taking eleven wickets so far. Richardson averages 22.09 and 20.94 in Test and first-class cricket respectively.
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