Crunch time nears for Australia as selectors try to fit Ashes batting puzzle pieces together | Martin Pegan
The Great Australian Bat Off has returned for a brand new season with fresh faces and forgotten favourites bidding to join the cast for the Ashes series opener.In a major subplot, captain Pat Cummins is officially out of the first Test and is all but certain to be replaced by understudy Scott Boland, while the final auditions to claim a spot in the squad will be staged across the Sheffield Shield matches that begin on Tuesday as much as the T20 series against India.The main storyline will be familiar to seasoned fans as the Australia selectors largely repeat last year’s search for an opener to partner Usman Khawaja.But the return to form of Marnus Labuschagne, and injury concerns for Cameron Green and Beau Webster, are plot twists that have thrown up more uncertainty over which six batters will be included for the Perth Test.Green was pulled from the ODI series against India due to side soreness in what chair of selectors George Bailey said was a “conservative” call, but doubts remain over his ability to bowl early in the Ashes.
The 26-year-old has bowled four overs in a competitive fixture this year – taking 1-13 for Western Australia in a Sheffield Shield match earlier this month – and is not expected to be thrown the ball when he returns to face South Australia on Tuesday.Green has averaged 23.5 while batting at No 3 in Australia’s past four Tests but a strong finish to the West Indies series could be enough for him to continue in the role especially if he is not ready to play as a genuine all-rounder.Webster has also had an interrupted build up to the summer after rolling his ankle but has credits in the bank from a promising start to his Test career with four half-centuries.Concerns over Green’s bowling could work in Webster’s favour with his medium pace – or off-spin – a valuable addition to an attack already missing its leader.
The 31-year-old will play for Tasmania against Victoria this week and just needs to get through the four-day game unscathed to be included in the Test squad, though his spot in the XI is coming under threat from Labuschagne’s likely return.With Steve Smith to captain the side at No 4, Travis Head a lock in the middle-order, and Khawaja bringing continuity as an opener even amid signs of decline, selectors have enough pieces to complete their batting puzzle.But how they fit them all together – and whether some pieces might be forced into unfamiliar positions – could be decided this week.With Australia’s initial Ashes squad expected to be named at the end of this Sheffield Shield round, we look at the batters pushing for a spot in the XI to take on England in Perth.Test record: 5 matches, 163 runs, 0 centuries, average 16.
30First-class record: 24 matches, 1,321 runs, 3 centuries, average 31.45Australia have tried and tested four batters – Nathan McSweeney, Konstas, Head and Labuschagne – to open alongside Khawaja over the past year, with each of them failing to grasp the opportunity to make the spot their own.Konstas has come the closest with a famously dazzling debut against India in the Boxing Day Test before falling out of favour for the Sri Lanka tour and the winner-takes-all World Test Championship final.The 20-year-old is still seen as one for the long-term – and is again the incumbent after being recalled for three Tests in the Caribbean – though his meagre returns against West Indies and lack of runs to start the Australian summer have pushed him back down the pecking order.In Konstas’s favour is that he is making his way as a specialist opener and has already experienced the pressure cooker of two Tests against India, though he is still to prove he has the temperament and batting tempo to handle the heat of an Ashes series.
Test record: 58 matches, 4,435 runs, 11 centuries, average 46.19First-class record: 168 matches, 12,260 runs, 34 centuries, average 45.07The former No 1-ranked Test batter’s spectacular start to the summer with four centuries in five matches has already earned him a recall to the ODI squad and presents a strong case for his quick return to the Test team.The neatest solution for Australia would be to reward Labuschagne for his re-emergence with another shot at opening while keeping Green, Smith, Head and Webster batting at three to six.Sign up to The SpinSubscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s actionafter newsletter promotionThe 31-year-old opened in his most recent Test – the WTC final – though after having little impact with the bat in the defeat to South Africa, and only one century since a purple patch in 2022, he was dropped for the recent West Indies tour.
His two innings at Lord’s in June were the only times that Labuschagne has opened in a Test, while he was a mainstay at No 3 for more than five years and continues to bat there for Queensland.He would surely prefer to step back into the Test team at the more familiar first drop, but with uncertainty over whether Green can be trusted as an all-rounder who bats as low as No 6, Labuschagne might have to return through the back door alongside Khawaja.Test record: Yet to debutFirst-class record: 75 matches, 5,257 runs, 13 centuries, average 38.09The experienced left-hander has emerged as the opener next in line for a debut during the Ashes as he puts together a solid body of work at first-class level.The top-scorer in the Sheffield Shield last year, with 906 runs at an average of 50.
33, has picked up where he left off with three half-centuries in four innings this season,Weatherald’s most impressive knock in the recent stretch came with 94 runs from 99 balls to set up Tasmania for a three-run victory in a low-scoring tussle with Western Australia,The 30-year-old likes to dictate terms to the bowlers with positive play and would complement Khawaja’s more steady style well, while Australia have shown in the past that they are comfortable with two left-handers opening the innings,Runs against Victoria and an attack that will be missing Boland this week would put Weatherald right in the frame for a first international cap especially if there is a preference for a specialist opener,Test record: 14 matches, 645 runs, 1 century, average 29.
31First-class record: 127 matches, 7,809 runs, 24 centuries, average 37.72The versatile batter has hovered around the fringes of the Test team since losing his regular place after 11 matches in 2018, and has just been handed a first opportunity with the ODI side against India.Three useful innings, including a half-century in the third white-ball international in Sydney, showed that Renshaw is increasingly comfortable at the elite level.The 29-year-old started this season in fine touch with 248 runs in three one-day matches for Australia A and scored a century while opening for Queensland in his only Sheffield Shield innings so far.Renshaw initially broke into the Test side as a 20-year-old opener back in 2016, and is again batting at the top of the order for his state side, but has built up useful experience lower down that could appeal to the selectors.
Test record: 46 matches, 2,083 runs, 3 centuries, average 28.53First-class record: 121 matches, 6,402 runs, 13 centuries, average 33.34The Australia white-ball skipper has talked down his chances of being selected for the Ashes opener and is a smokey – at best – to make a shock return.But Marsh has proven in the past that he is more comfortable than most against express pace and on a bouncy deck which could suit a horses-for-courses approach to play at his home venue in Perth.Marsh has found runs while opening alongside Head in the recent ODIs against India, and put together big scores in earlier white-ball internationals against New Zealand and South Africa.
The 34-year-old will continue to lead Australia in five T20s against India starting on Wednesday, rather than press his claims in the Sheffield Shield, but the door has not closed on his Test career with coach Andrew McDonald naming Marsh as one player who could be selected based on white-ball form,
Could the internet go offline? Inside the fragile system holding the modern world together
It is the morning after the internet went offline and, as much as you would like to think you would be delighted, you are likely to be wondering what to do.You could buy groceries with a chequebook, if you have one. Call into work with the landline – if yours is still connected. After that, you could drive to the shop, as long as you still know how to navigate without 5G.A glitch at a datacentre in the US state of Virginia this week reminded us that the unlikely is not impossible
Fare game: what the battle between taxis and Uber means for your airport trip in Sydney and Melbourne
By the time you’ve exited the plane, edged through passport control and endured the baggage claim wait, your only thought may be of home or a hotel bed. But passengers at Australia’s major airports have recently noticed some changes as they contemplate the final leg of their journey.Since Friday, in a bid to deter illegal touts, a new taxi booking trial at Melbourne airport has allowed some passengers to pay a fixed fare upfront. And next month, Sydney airport will begin its own one-year trial of a $60 flat fare for the 13km journey to the CBD.The changes, supported by the taxi industry, are a sign of its struggle to remain competitive with the rideshare companies – especially Uber
Amazon strategised about keeping its datacentres’ full water use secret, leaked document shows
Executives at world’s biggest datacentre owner grappled with disclosing information about water used to help power facilitiesAmazon strategised about keeping the public in the dark over the true extent of its datacentres’ water use, a leaked internal document reveals.The biggest owner of datacentres in the world, Amazon dwarfs competitors Microsoft and Google and is planning a huge increase in capacity as part of a push into artificial intelligence. The Seattle firm operates hundreds of active facilities, with many more in development despite concerns over how much water is being used to cool their vast arrays of circuitry.Amazon defends its approach and has taken steps to manage how efficient its water use is, but it has faced criticism over transparency. Microsoft and Google regularly publish figures for their water consumption, but Amazon has never publicly disclosed how much water its server farms consume
AI models may be developing their own ‘survival drive’, researchers say
When HAL 9000, the artificial intelligence supercomputer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, works out that the astronauts onboard a mission to Jupiter are planning to shut it down, it plots to kill them in an attempt to survive.Now, in a somewhat less deadly case (so far) of life imitating art, an AI safety research company has said that AI models may be developing their own “survival drive”.After Palisade Research released a paper last month which found that certain advanced AI models appear resistant to being turned off, at times even sabotaging shutdown mechanisms, it wrote an update attempting to clarify why this is – and answer critics who argued that its initial work was flawed.In an update this week, Palisade, which is part of a niche ecosystem of companies trying to evaluate the possibility of AI developing dangerous capabilities, described scenarios it ran in which leading AI models – including Google’s Gemini 2.5, xAI’s Grok 4, and OpenAI’s GPT-o3 and GPT-5 – were given a task, but afterwards given explicit instructions to shut themselves down
‘He’s one of the few politicians who likes crypto’: my day with the UK tech bros hosting Nigel Farage
It is a grey morning in Shadwell, east London. But inside the old shell of Tobacco Dock, the gloom gives way to pulsating neon lights, flashy cars and cryptocurrency chatter.Evangelists for Web3, a vision for the next era of the internet, have descended on the old trading dock to network for two days. For many, the main event is one man: Nigel Farage.“Whether you like me or don’t like me is irrelevant, I’m actually a champion for this space,” the leader of Reform UK tells the audience of largely male crypto fanatics at the Zebu Live conference
‘Sycophantic’ AI chatbots tell users what they want to hear, study shows
Turning to AI chatbots for personal advice poses “insidious risks”, according to a study showing the technology consistently affirms a user’s actions and opinions even when harmful.Scientists said the findings raised urgent concerns over the power of chatbots to distort people’s self-perceptions and make them less willing to patch things up after a row.With chatbots becoming a major source of advice on relationships and other personal issues, they could “reshape social interactions at scale”, the researchers added, calling on developers to address this risk.Myra Cheng, a computer scientist at Stanford University in California, said “social sycophancy” in AI chatbots was a huge problem: “Our key concern is that if models are always affirming people, then this may distort people’s judgments of themselves, their relationships, and the world around them. It can be hard to even realise that models are subtly, or not-so-subtly, reinforcing their existing beliefs, assumptions, and decisions
The old man and the mirror: Aaron Rodgers meets the quarterback he used to be
Crunch time nears for Australia as selectors try to fit Ashes batting puzzle pieces together | Martin Pegan
‘I could have killed them’: Lawson’s fury after narrowly missing hitting marshals
NFL week eight: Broncos crush Cowboys, Colts defeat Titans, and more – as it happened
Pat Cummins ruled out of first Ashes Test, with Steve Smith to captain Australia
Mexico Grand Prix: Norris claims dominant win to lead drivers’ standings – as it happened