LIVE: Aussies slammed for ‘poor’ selection call
Former Test spin bowler Nathan Hauritz has hit out at Australia’s treatment of Ashton Agar.
Agar, 29, has been given the cold shoulder by selectors despite being one of four specialist tweakers originally picked to tour India.
He and Mitchell Swepson missed out on the Nagpur Test. Then when Swepson had to fly home for the birth of his child, the Aussies jettisoned Matt Kuhnemann into the touring squad from Queensland.
Kuhnemann was then picked to make his Test debut in Delhi, despite being a left-arm orthodox bowler, the same as Agar.
Agar has played five Test matches for Australia but has seemingly now fallen to, at best, fourth in the spin pecking order.
“Having a bloke (Kuhnemann) fly in, and even if he did bowl well in the nets for three or four days, it’s irrelevant to me,” Hauritz told ABC.
“It’s like, what message are you sending to this kid (Agar)? Pick him in a Test, take him on a tour and then you don’t play him in either of the Tests.
“It’s a pretty poor message… I’m not a big fan of it at all.”
Kuhnemann took two wickets – including that of Virat Kohli – in his debut innings in the baggy green.