Adelaide: Australia selectors are prioritising pace over performance with a Test call-up for Nathan Coulter-Nile that ensures the paceman will miss the entire first half of the Sheffield Shield season.
The tall right-armer's ability to rattle opposition batsmen with pace was the key to his elevation to Australia's squad for next week's Hobart Test in spite of not having played a shield match this season. Selectors believe Coulter-Nile is needed in the aftermath of losing their two fastest bowlers: Mitch Johnson to retirement and Mitch Starc to injury.
"Once Mitchell Starc went down, I think everyone's mind went straight to Nathan Coulter-Nile," chief selector Rod Marsh said on Tuesday about their "gut feeling" selection of the West Australian for the start of the series against the West Indies.
"I guess we're at a situation now where because of the two Mitchells, one retiring and one being injured, that we do need a bit of pace up front. That doesn't guarantee him a game of course in Hobart but he's in the 12."
Coulter-Nile's only matches at domestic level this season have been three one-dayers during the Matador Cup, due to injuries suffered before that tournament and then during it. A Futures League match last week that was supposed to prepare him for a return to the shield ended as the reason he could not do so, because he was suspended one match for dissent to an umpire.
In the absence of any recent shield matches, the selectors have instead relied on the 28-year-old's solid form for Australia at one-day level, rather than the impressive shield form of other pacemen such as Jackson Bird.
"We've had our eye on him for a long time and we've been very pleased with the way he's gone when he has played. But, as you all know, he's also been a fast bowler who hasn't been injury free," Marsh said of the tall right-armer.
"He comes back well. Fresh. He came back very well, fresh in the Australia A series in India earlier this year, so we're not too concerned about that.
"In an ideal world, yes, it would have been good if he had been playing shield cricket the whole season and taken 40 wickets. In an ideal world. But we don't get too many of them, so we'll go with our gut feeling on Coulter-Nile. We like him as a bowler."
Marsh staunchly defended their decision not to choose Bird, the Tasmania atop the shield wicket tally with 18 at an average of 24.77.
"We don't think anyone is unlucky in this selection. We think we've picked the best squad we possibly can, as we always try and do," he said.
While Coulter-Nile has been added to the squad, it is expected that James Pattinson, who was 12th man in Adelaide and has played in three shield matches this season, will replace Starc in the XI.
"It will be nice to see 'Patto' back to where he was," Marsh said. "He's a boy that once he steps over that boundary rope you'd rather him on your side than theirs. He's a beauty."
Coulter-Nile's elevation to the squad will prevent him playing in WA's home match against Tasmania starting on Sunday. His next opportunity to play in the shield, which is about to be halted for the Big Bash League, will come in early February.
Coulter-Nile has experienced many injury problems throughout his shield career, in which he has taken 111 wickets at an average of 27.86 in 30 matches. His ability to play the last five matches of last season for the Warriors, culminating in an appearance in the shield final, was seen as a key milestone by his coach Justin Langer.
"I've spoken to [coach] Darren Lehmann and Rod Marsh about it; I think the penny has dropped for him. He's got himself super fit ... to get through five back-to-back shield games is a great credit to him," Langer said after last summer's shield final.
Victoria fast-bowler Scott Boland has also been announced as a standby player in case any of the other three pacemen in the squad - Josh Hazlewood, Peter Siddle, James Pattinson - are unit to play in Hobart.
Boland, 26, has emerged over the past two years as a key bowler for Victoria, especially when Pattinson and Siddle are unavailable. In the shield match in Perth that Coulter-Nile missed due to suspension, he bowled the Bushrangers to victory in the second innings with a career-best 7-31.
Unless there are specific injury concerns among any of Australia's bowlers, Boland will not join the squad in Hobart, and will instead stay in Melbourne to play the shield match against South Australia due to finish the day before the Test. Should there be any injury concerns Boland would be flown to Hobart and his place in the team taken by another fast bowler, even if the match has already started.
Team management have been worried about Hazlewood's workload since the first Test against New Zealand. Siddle also endured back spasms during the Adelaide Test, caused by a jolt he suffered on the opening day of the match, but captain Steve Smith expressed confidence the 10-day break between matches would be ample time for him to recover.
Marsh confirmed Hazlewood was likely to need a rest at some stage during the three-Test Frank Worrell Trophy series.
"It would be very difficult for Josh to get through six Test matches in a summer and then go to New Zealand and play two more - and you've got to understand we've also got a one-day series," he said.
"We'll just see how he's tracking. If he's strong and he's fit [he will play] - and it helps if you don't have to play five-day Test matches too, it really does. I think the last couple of days of a Test match can be quite difficult for a fast bowler if you're bowling 60-plus overs in a Test."
The replacement of Starc with Coulter-Nile and the addition of Boland as a standby player are the only changes to Australia's Test squad for the match at Blundstone Arena.
AUSTRALIA (from): Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Joe Burns, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Peter Nevill, James Pattinson, Peter Siddle, Adam Voges. Standby player: Scott Boland.
