While England will definitely make one change for the series finale, Australia will also ponder alterations to their side after surrendering an 18-match unbeaten streak in home Ashes Tests.<\/p>\n
Spinner Todd Murphy could come in for a pace bowler at the Sydney Cricket Ground, while all-rounder Cameron Green is under pressure after a lean spell with the bat.<\/p>\n
As Australia held an optional training session in Melbourne on Monday, head coach Andrew McDonald confirmed batter Usman Khawaja will play in Sydney for what could be his last Test.<\/p>\n
The left-hander turned 39 earlier this month and Australia do not play another Test until August.<\/p>\n
However, McDonald said there has been “no indication” Khawaja is set to call time on his Test career.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been really clear that we haven’t had a conversation,” said McDonald. “The speculation has been from external.”<\/p>\n
The final day of the Sydney Test is scheduled for 8 January and after such a gruelling tour, England are then due to begin a white-ball tour of Sri Lanka just two weeks later on 22 January.<\/p>\n
The three one-day internationals and T20s are part of the preparation for the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka in February and March.<\/p>\n
England will name their squads on Tuesday and are likely to be close to full-strength, with multi-format players not expected to be rested despite their involvement in the Ashes.<\/p>\n
There will be a question over the availability of Archer, who could be named in the World Cup squad and assessed nearer the tournament.<\/p>\n
McDonald also said Australia will name fast bowlers Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood in their 15-man provisional squad for the World Cup despite their limited role in the Ashes because of injury.<\/p>\n
Test captain Cummins, who missed the first two Tests as he recovered from a back injury, played the third match in Adelaide but was withdrawn from the remainder of the series while Hazlewood has been absent throughout with hamstring and Achilles tendon injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While England will definitely make one change for the series finale, Australia will also ponder alterations to their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-206512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206512","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=206512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}