Ever since he took up cricket, Cameron Green has gotten huge endorsements from everyone around him. The latest testament to the massive potential that everyone sees in him is that the Australian selectors and management were convinced by Steve Smith to allow him to make a move to the opening position, following David Warner’s retirement which would allow Green to get into the Test side in the middle-order spot instead of making Green a Test opener.
Ever since being benched during the Ashes 2023, due to the exceptional return of Mitchell Marsh in the Headingley Test. which Green missed due to a hamstring injury, the talk in Australian cricket has been how to get Green, who is “too good to be on the bench,” back in the XI. They waited for Warner’s retirement to make space in the side, and Green was immediately moved into the XI, with Smith shuffling up.
His lanky frame, his being a pace-bowling all-rounder with age on his side, and a decent domestic record – all made up for Cameron Green being touted as the new shiny thing in Australian cricket. They call him a “generational talent,” which he is.
But has Cameron Green delivered consistently so far?
In 24 Test matches, Cameron Green averages 33 with the bat. He has recorded 6 fifties and 1 century in 36 Test innings. That century came last year in Ahmedabad, on what was perhaps the flattest and dullest pitch India have produced in the past decade; the game ended in a draw with both teams piling up over 450 runs in their first innings with four batters scoring centuries, and it didn’t even go till the fourth innings.
With the ball, he has picked up 30 wickets at an average of 36, which is not bad for an all-rounder and generally a fourth seamer in home conditions.
But Cameron Green needs to pull up his weight now. Now that Australia have kept the likes of Cameron Bancroft, Matt Renshaw, and Marcus Harris—three prolific domestic openers—out of the side to accommodate Green, Australia must demand more from him with the bat, at least until Mitchell Marsh is around. Green is not only being accommodated back in the playing XI, but he has been given his best position of number 4 at which he has succeeded in domestic red-ball cricket.
Former Australia spinner and veteran commentator Kerry O’Keeffe believes that Green “has to fire almost immediately” to get long-term backing and justify this move.
“He (Green) hasn’t got the acceleration early of a No. 5 or a No. 6, so four is perfect for him,” O’Keeffe said. “Green has said: ‘I like to take my time, I feel rushed batting five or six.’ They see him as a special player, they wanted to get him into that top order,” O’Keeffe told Fox Cricket.
“The fact that he’s said, ‘I felt rushed at five and six,’ is a jarring note. He’s a generational player. He averages, what, mid-30s?”
He added: “He really now has to start to do the business at four. It’s a senior position, his fellow players trust him to be the man. He has to start against the West Indies attack, which is not top notch but is not too bad either.
“Cameron Green has to fire almost immediately because the team has been constructed around him batting at four.”
Cameron Green was dropped from the ODI XI during the World Cup and hasn’t cemented himself in T20Is for Australia yet.
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