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<\/p>\n
McDonald said the selection panel will remove emotion from the equation when considering the team for Mackay but said it was possible the Australians will broaden the squad given after the historic nine-wicket loss at Marrara Oval.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be like, \u2018Oh, we\u2019ve lost this Test match so then suddenly it\u2019s immediately we shift things\u2019. We will work through exactly what we normally work through to come to a conclusion for the best XI that goes out there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not emotional around change in terms of, \u2018if we lose a game, then we need change\u2019. It\u2019s the ability to think through, \u2018Okay, what does it look like? How do we maximise our playing group, and how do we get the best out of them?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if change was to be a part of that, it would be us deciding that the team would be better with someone else in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former opener Matt Renshaw, who was among a broader group who prepared with the Test squad in Brisbane preceding the Bangladesh squad, has been flagged as a possible replacement, while Josh Inglis served as the reserve batter in Darwin.<\/p>\n
Weatherald adjusted his technique after England exploited a flaw which saw him susceptible to being dismissed LBW, but in Darwin he was caught edging behind for an unconvincing 23 before chopping on for a duck in the second innings.<\/p>\n
Bangladesh make history in Australia | 02:30<\/p>\n
McDonald said it was too soon to know whether the adjustments would stand up to international probing, with difficult assignments against South Africa, New Zealand and India to follow this series leading into the Ashes next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was some change to Jake in terms of his where he lined up and his movement patterns,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always hard to critique small sample sizes to whether (it) holds up. He dragged one on and drove at one in the first innings and was dismissed, so it\u2019s probably harder with that small a sample size to say, \u2018Yep, that\u2019s going to hold up under pressure\u2019, but there was some change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labuschagne, who was dropped after the World Test Championship final but returned to the fold for the Ashes, looked in reasonable touch in his second innings before falling for 31 and McDonald said the Queenslander needs \u201cbig runs\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want runs. That is the bottom line,\u201d McDonald said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd how he makes them – it was 31 in the second innings – and up until the point he got out, you would say, \u2018Geez, he is looking good. He is clipping the ball off his pads. He\u2019s getting through the ball down the ground\u2019, so it is easy for me to sit here and try to defend that, but ultimately it is 31. It is not a big score.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s lacked runs. He feels that. We feel that. We\u2019re working incredibly hard as a coaching group \u2026 we\u2019ve got to get the best out of Marn as well. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had a bit of a lull. He knows that, he\u2019s gone to work and I think we saw some change in the way that he played, so that\u2019s good. So some of that work that he had done feels as though it\u2019s stuck up under pressure \u2026 but he needs some big runs. But it is 31. He is disappointed with that. It is a missed opportunity. He needs some big runs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marnus Labuschagne looked in good touch in his second innings in Darwin before missing a delivering from spinner Taijul Islam. (Photo by William WEST \/ AFP)Source: AFP<\/p>\n
’50\/50 call’ now on Aussie Test duo | 14:08<\/p>\n
He acknowledged the historic scope of the loss would heighten the spotlight on the Australian team, which includes the fact first Test centurion Cameron Green is the only player aged under 30, but declared change would be the \u201ceasy option\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always going to be a conversation, the age profile of the team, where we\u2019re at, how we\u2019re travelling. A loss doesn\u2019t help that. But these players have got a fair bit of cricket left in them, I believe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just really how we navigate through it. There\u2019s always going to be calls for change on the back of a loss. There\u2019s going to be an emotion around that from the outside \u2013 and even internally. Our guys sit in that change room, and they\u2019re feeling it. You feel a Test loss. It means a lot to them to play for Australia, so let\u2019s not lose that in all this as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe easy option is to call for change. A lot of people call for change even when we\u2019re winning. They\u2019re entitled to do that as well on the back of a performance like that. Why wouldn\u2019t they? That\u2019s part of our lot. Lost the game, there are going to be calls about guys not performing to the level they would like or we would like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aus looking ‘quickly’ for batting fix | 11:49<\/p>\n
McDonald did stress it was not just the batters who were down on form, with the vaunted attack featuring four champions unable to extract a significant amount out of the wicket as Bangladesh made 426, though Josh Hazlewood was solid.<\/p>\n
He also dismissed criticism surrounding Australia\u2019s preparation. The Aussies have struggled in the first Test at home in recent years but McDonald believes \u201cwe planned really well coming in\u201d and that the \u201cprep we got was right\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou talk about the prep leading in and for this one (we were) probably wound up more than we previously had been because we had the space and time to be able to do that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no two preps that are the same. You\u2019ve got players coming out of different leagues, different competitions around the world and it\u2019s easy for me to sit here and say that our prep was excellent (but) ultimately we\u2019re going to be judged on the results that happen from the prep, (and) we\u2019ve lost this game, so people are going to go into that space. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut we truly believe that we plan really well coming in and we didn\u2019t get the performance. So sometimes it\u2019s easy to attach the performance to the prep, and that\u2019s hindsight. We don\u2019t live in hindsight, so we felt as though the prep we got was right.\u201d<\/p>\n
AUS vs BAN: Test 1, Day Four Highlights | 15:42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian coach Andrew McDonald has conceded the Test team was poor in Darwin but said that did not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-858200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}