Australia break out the Beer

North, Doherty, Bollinger pay the price of defeat against England.

SYDNEY: Australia dropped three players and gambled on spinner Michael Beer after just five first-class games for next week’s crucial third Ashes Test against England. Marcus North, Xavier Doherty and Doug Bollinger paid the price for Australia’s 71-run defeat to England in the second Adelaide Test, while Simon Katich was forced out with injury.

Beer, who is playing his first Sheffield Shield season with Western Australia, gets a surprise call-up in the hosts’ hour of need ahead of former first choice Nathan Hauritz. Selectors admitted they were taking a huge gamble on unheralded spinner Beer.

Phillip Hughes and Steve Smith were also summoned for the Test starting on Thursday.

“He’s got no international experience and it’s a big call from us to throw him into this position,” said Australian chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch. “But we think a left-arm orthodox spinner is the right thing both for the Ashes and for our future,” said Hilditch, adding Beer would play in the third Test.

Smith replaces the North at number six in the batting order, while Mitchell Johnson and Ben Hilfenhaus, discarded for the second Test, come back into Test reckoning ahead of Bollinger. Hughes will replace Katich, who will miss the rest of the Ashes series with a torn Achilles tendon.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2010.