<\/p>\n
\nSteve Smith and Usman Kawaja.
\nPhoto: RICHARD WAINWRIGHT\n<\/p>\n
Steve Smith returns to action in the Boxing Day test against England as Australia opted to include four fast bowlers in their 12-man squad, with spinner Todd Murphy, who was brought into the fold to replace Nathan Lyon, not finding a spot.<\/p>\n
Fast bowler Jhye Richardson, who has not played in the longest format since 2021, has been brought back after fine domestic form on his return from shoulder surgery.<\/p>\n
Brendan Doggett who played in the first two tests, and Michael Neser, who was part of the pink-ball encounter, have also been included with Australia going for an all-pace attack.<\/p>\n
“You just got to play what surface you’re presented with,” Smith, who missed the Adelaide test due to a bout of vertigo, told reporters on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“The pitch has 10mm of grass, quite furry, quite green.<\/p>\n
“I dare say it’s going to offer similar conditions to today, quite cold and overcast. So, there’s going to be quite a bit of movement.<\/p>\n
“This one looks like it’s going to offer a fair bit of assistance for the seam bowlers and the weather throughout the week looks conducive for that too.”<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old left-arm pacer Richardson’s last appearance in the red-ball format was against England in December 2021 in which he picked five wickets to guide his side to a 275-run win.<\/p>\n
“It’s exciting to see Richardson back into the fold,” Smith said.<\/p>\n
“He’s had a pretty long layoff with injury, and we know the skills he can possess”<\/p>\n
“He’s done it against England before in an Ashes. We’ve seen when he’s had the opportunity at this level, he’s been outstanding.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile veteran Usman Khawaja, who scored 82 and 40 in the previous test after coming in as a last minute replacement for Smith, has been included at the expense of Josh Inglis.<\/p>\n
“[It was] fortunate that Usman was able to come in and play the way he did in that first innings.<\/p>\n
“We all thought he played really nicely last week, he’s putting the pressure on when he needed to, and he absorbed it when he needed to.<\/p>\n
“He’s got that No.5 spot right now.<\/p>\n
“Cam (Cameron Green) with the way his whole package is set up helps us out at seven as well.”<\/p>\n
Australia have already retained the urn with a 3-0 lead in the five-test series.<\/p>\n
Australia XII for fourth test: Travis Head, Jake Weatherald, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith (c), Usman Khawaja, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland, Brendan Doggett, Michael Neser, Jhye Richardson.<\/p>\n
– Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Smith and Usman Kawaja. Photo: RICHARD WAINWRIGHT Steve Smith returns to action in the Boxing Day test…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-202222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}