BAGGY GREEN FOR BAILEY?

Australian team is currently at No.5 in test rankings. But in ODIs it is a different story. They are second just behind India. How can this be possible? The answer for this question is George Bailey. He is the main difference between the Australian One day and Test teams. As a test side, Aussies suffered a lot due to the inexperience in their batting department during the first leg of
Ashes. Youngsters like Warner, Hughes and Khawaja cannot bat for a long time and the outputs were disappointing.

In ODIs, they do have a stable set of batsmen at the top. Finch can provide the firepower at the top, followed by Watson's inputs and the available of much better ODI bats like Bailey and Clarke definitely helps the team. Apart from Bailey and Finch, all the others like Clarke, Watson and Hughes do play in tests. This pretty much shows why Bailey's the biggest difference between ODI and test sides. Finch's stats do read that he's not so consistent. In the just concluded India-Australia ODI series, Bailey formed the nucleus of Aussie batting well supported by some valuable contributions from Maxwell, Finch and Hughes.

After the form of his life performances against India, it's no wonder that people want him to wear the baggy green for the return leg of Ashes which is about to start very soon. But the question is, can Bailey be successful in the longer format of the game. To be honest, it does not mean that scoring more and more runs on flat Indian batting paradises facing not so famous bowling attack would not enable him to bat against quality English attack at the Gabba. But at the same time, the current probables for the spot do not seem to be better than Bailey.

The main thing that's negative about Bailey's selection in the Ashes squad is that his average in domestic shield tournament last year. His performances in last year sheffield shield tournament were disappointing. But the way he did bat in India clearly suggested that he clearly understood his game and he can convert the same confidence into the longer formats too. He was very good in rotating the strikes and had a very sound technique against spinners like Jadeja and Ashwin. His first class stats also suggest that he can make up a decent bat in the longer formats. He has 5,936 runs at 38.29 average. He has 14 centuries and 30 half centuries to his name in the 96 games he played.

With the stage is now set for the away leg of the Ashes in Australia, there can not be any better chance for George Bailey to prove his credentials in facing the red ball. Now that he has got a couple of sheffield shield games after he's back from India, he has to bat sensibly in those games to get the baggy green cap to become permanent member of Australian team across all the formats.  From what we have seen so far, It's very clear that Bailey has  very strong will power and confidence in his abilities. So, let we hope that George Bailey can make it to the Australian test team and will turn out to be the missing jigsaw card for them.