Australian Test team is set to go under transition in the near future, especially if the home Ashes does not end well for them. While Steve Smith has been in terrific form leading up to the Ashes opener in Perth, former Australia opener and current Victoria coach Chris Rogers feels Peter Handscomb can be his ideal replacement in future. Rogers lauded Handscomb for making changes to his batting style, especially after he scored a century against New South Wales bowling attack that featured Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood.
“He doesn’t get the credit that he deserves,” Rogers told Fox Cricket’s Domesticated.
“There’s always that perception that he’s exactly the same player he was when he played Test cricket, but I’ve seen his growth.
“He’s gone away and understood that the style of batting he had when he played Test cricket probably wasn’t going to stand up, and it took him a while to get rid of the stubbornness around that, but since then, he’s been so open to a different style.
“If you go and watch that hundred he got against Starc and Hazlewood, you’ll see it’s a very different model. Just how he looked to get forward, he looked to punch back into the ball. He wasn’t just standing on the back foot behind the crease line. It’s a game plan that would do pretty well in international cricket.”
While Smith has no plans of retiring from the Test format soon, Rogers feels that Handscomb can provide stability to the middle order. In the ongoing Sheffield Shield season, he has scored 350 runs from eight innings at an average of 43.75. He is only second to Queensland's Marnus Labuschagne who has scored two centuries as well.
“If he got the chance again, I think he’d be much better prepared,” Rogers said of Handscomb.
“If Smith was to retire and there was that opportunity needed for a stable Test No. 4, I think that could definitely be Pete.
“Hopefully he keeps scoring runs for us and things play out and he gets another opportunity to get Test level.”
Big opportunity for Handscomb vs England
Handscomb will have a chance to prove himself as Prime Minister’s XI captain in the two-day pink-ball warm-up game against England at Manuka Oval, Canberra after the Perth Test.
Handscomb’s previous Test appearance and numbers
Handscomb’s last Test appearance was on India tour in March 2023. Since then, the 34-year-old has scored heaps of runs in first-class cricket. From 20 Tests so far, he has 1,079 runs at an average of 37.20. He has two centuries and five fifties in Test career that started in 2016.