West Indies are without all-rounders Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard, who have still not been forgiven for their role in the abandonment of last year’s tour of India, while opener Chris Gayle prefers to play lucrative Twenty20 cricket. We have a young team we are moulding.
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“With the exception of a forced change through the injury to Mitchell Starc we have chose to keep an unchanged squad following a successful series win against a strong New Zealand side”, national selector Rod Marsh said.
“I had a week home [following the recent Sri Lanka tour] and I actually had time to see a series when Australia came to the Caribbean and Steve Waugh stood up to the West Indies fast bowlers and had a good rivalry with Curtly Ambrose”, Holder told reporters here.
Bushrangers coach David Saker has cheekily suggested that Australian selectors might have to consider playing three Victorian fast bowlers in this year’s Boxing Day Test against the West Indies in order to attract a decent crowd at the cavernous MCG.
“If we get early wickets with the new ball, we can get to Sean Marsh and those guys who are working their way back into the side, you know, put them under pressure to score it should be a relatively competitive series”.
But Holder believes Australia’s batting line-up – likely to be comprised of Shaun Marsh, Adam Voges and Mitchell Marsh in the middle order – can be exposed.
Holder said their experience, achievements and wealth of knowledge would inspire his team.
“We still have three days practice before the warm-up game and then three more days before the Test match, so I think it is about getting ourselves sharp enough going into the warm-up game and taking the warm-up game as serious as possible and making sure that during the warm-up game we do the things we want to do during the Test match”.
They last won a Test series in Australia in 1992.
Australia are probably at the top at the present time so of we can just be a little more fearless and show we are not frightened for them. “We’ve come with a lot of belief”, he said. “We have to play aggressive cricket, we have to play smart cricket”, he added.
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Simmons is back at the helm for the Australian tour which starts with a four-day clash against a Cricket Australia XI at Brisbane’s Allan Border Field on Wednesday after issuing an apology to the Windies board.
