{"id":914873,"date":"2026-10-03T17:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T17:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914873\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T17:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T17:10:16","slug":"puducherry-to-potch-sam-harpers-rapid-rise-to-australias-test-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914873\/","title":{"rendered":"Puducherry to Potch – Sam Harper’s rapid rise to Australia’s Test squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

On any other day Sam Harper<\/a>‘s call-up to Australia<\/a>‘s Test squad would have been headline news but that was taken by Nic Maddinson’s shock return<\/a>. However, it remains a notable moment for someone who has surged into contention only this year.At the beginning of February, Harper was averaging 24.86 with three first-class hundreds from 64 matches. Now, just five matches later, he has doubled his tally of centuries and has made a hasty journey from Puducherry<\/a>, where he had made a hundred for Australia A, to Potchefstroom. On Saturday he was carrying drinks around the boundary at JB Marks Oval at the start of the low key two-day warm-up match.He is the first wicketkeeper called into the Australia’s Test squad beyond Alex Carey<\/a> and Josh Inglis<\/a> since Jimmy Peirson was part of the 2023 Ashes tour when Inglis returned home for the birth of his child.<\/p>\n

While Harper’s runs have produced eye-catching numbers, and have certainly propelled him towards the Test team after Inglis’ fractured finger, chair of selectors George Bailey referenced his evolving glovework.<\/p>\n

“[With] Harps the batting’s been wonderful, but I think the keeping, he’s worked incredibly hard on that,” Bailey said. “And given what we saw last summer and what we expect here, [there’s] that ability now for keepers to do their work back to the quicks and do their work up to the quicks, and [we’re] expecting that we’re going to get a heavy amount of spin.”<\/p>\n

However, it has been Harper’s work with the bat that has transformed his career after an elevation to the top of the order for Victoria as a tactic to counter tricky batting conditions in the Sheffield Shield. He responded with back-to-back centuries against Western Australia and a 93 against Tasmania. His hundred for Australia A came back in a middle-order role, in conditions that favoured spin bowling, showing the versatility that the selectors value highly.<\/p>\n

“He has been batting pretty well with a different role and a slightly different mindset, which is certainly working,” Bailey said. “But his ability to come up with a pretty clear plan and be able to put pressure back on the opposition has been has been impressive over the last little bit.”<\/p>\n

Bailey did not shut the door on Harper playing as a specialist batter, which Inglis has done in his five Tests, but suggested Australia’s injury list would need to grow to alarming levels for it to be an immediate reality.<\/p>\n

“I think there is [a chance he plays as a batter], but I don’t know if he’d be the first,” Bailey said.<\/p>\n

Inglis, who is currently back home in Western Australia, will have another scan on his finger in a week’s time when a call will be made on whether he returns head of the second Test in Gqeberha which begins on October 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On any other day Sam Harper‘s call-up to Australia‘s Test squad would have been headline news but that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,203020,740,12063,43,44,145550,85],"class_list":["post-914873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bulletin","tag-cricket","tag-daily","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-package","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914873","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=914873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}