Watson may not open for Australia in Tests against India

Sydney, Feb 12 (IANS) Shane Watson is unlikely to open the batting for Australia in the four-match Test series in India despite his good form since making a comeback to the one-day side.

Watson had scores of 122, 76 and 0 while opening the batting in the last three ODIs against the West Indies, but skipper Michael Clarke feels that it will have little impact when it comes to opening the batting in Test cricket, especially in the sub-continent.

“Watto scoring runs is a real positive for him to come back into the team. I don’t think it has any impact him opening the batting in one-day cricket. There’s no comparison to opening the batting in Test cricket, especially in the sub-continent,” Clarke told the Australian media before leaving for India Tuesday.

With the retirement of Mike Hussey, Australia needs more experience in the middle-order and Watson, who has batted most of his career as an opening batsman, will remain at No.4.

Clarke was happy with the performance of his current Test opening pair Dave Warner and Ed Cowan.

“I think Ed and Davey Warner had a really good Australian summer and put their hand up against the number one Test team in the world. I think it’s a really positive sign that we’ve got so many options in our squad,” he said.

Clarke said that as an all-rounder Watson can walk into any team but now that he has given up bowling, things are different.

“Obviously Shane (Watson) needs to come back into the line-up somewhere. Like I’ve said though, it’s a lot different now that Watto’s not bowling. As an all-rounder I think he walks into any team. As a batsman there is a much bigger pool of players so we need to work out what our best batting line-up is that complements the team and we’ll go from there,” he said.

IANS 2013-02-12 19:48:01