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“He’s quite an aggressive sort of opener, he keeps the game moving forward, he’s at an age now where I think he has a good understanding of his own game.
“[Khawaja] had a great partnership with David Warner and those guys knew each other so well. So if Weatherald is the one who opens with Usman, then they’ll have to start building that relationship. But the selectors were probably thinking about having complementary sorts of players.”
Weatherald, who originally played for South Australia, will play in Perth if Cameron Green demonstrates that he can bowl the overs required of an all-rounder. But if Green cannot, Beau Webster is likely to retain his place, with the recalled Marnus Labuschagne to open alongside Usman Khawaja.
“If required, I think he [Labuschagne] can do it [open],” Bailey said. “I think I’ve said in the past, I’m confident most players in Australia if they bat in the top three have the capability of opening.”
Australia’s squad is only for the first Test, starting in Perth on November 21. Bailey told reporters Australia had not decided if Weatherald would be in the XI.
“That’s the squad and we’ll work through the XI as we get closer,” Bailey said.
“What’s impressed us about Jake is, if you look at his performance over 18 months to 24 months, it’s been really solid. I think there is a method there that we like and is complementary to those other players around him in the squad. He scores at a good rate and the way he goes about his innings is impressive.
“There’s been lots of batsmen scoring runs.”
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Bailey said Green would bowl in the next Shield round, starting early next week.
“There’s been a long build for Cam. It’s been a slow and steady and very deliberate build-up, so I’m confident that will continue,” Bailey said.
“We’ll get good information from this next round of Shield cricket, and he’ll be at the bowling crease. They [Green and Webster] have played together in the past, so there’s no reason why [they can’t play together].”
Bailey praised Labuschagne for his resurgence at domestic level since he was dropped in the Caribbean this year.
“What we’ve seen is runs, time at the crease … I think there’s an energy and method that, I think, is really attractive. We don’t need to see any more – he’s in the squad,” Bailey said.
“You know what Marn’s like; as soon as he was left out of that West Indies team, his first question was, ‘How many runs do you need for me to come back?’ It was a very clear message – the runs will be a byproduct of some of the other things that we wanted to see, and part of that was not getting back to the old Marn, but a method and a way of batting and some technical things we wanted to see.”
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