The Dark Knight wrote:Just watched the highlights, Maxy killed it. Finally a series win over India, you ripper. I wonder if Finch will now start at the top of the order in the ODI series? Got quite a few options for the two openers spots apart from him- Carey, Khawaja, Short and Marsh have all opened in ODI's before.
The first ODI is on Saturday, without Finch you could go something like-
Short
Carey
Khawaja
Marsh
Handscomb
Stoinis
Maxwell
Cummins
Coulter-Nile/Richardson
Zampa/Lyon
Behrendorff
I know that it's handy to kill two birds with one stone and have a keeper as an opener but I'm not sure that Carey is up to it on the big stage yet.
When the world has been blessed with Gilchrist, McCullum, Kaluwitharana and co. we adapt it as a "pre-requisite" now for an Aussie keeper.
To me, you pick the best keeper floating about that is able to strike at over 80, if he can open then that's just a bonus, you can always make up for it with an upper order all-rounder like the Saffers did with Kallis.
You have picked the strongest side there with who's over there atm, I'd play Richardson and Lyon although Zampa is impressive on the sub-continent so you can't go wrong there, and I'd open with safooty's favourite son "Shaun Marsh", bat Maxwell ahead of Stoinis and slip Carey in at 7.
Moving forward I'd really like to see a left/right opening combo and Head squeezed into the ODI team to bat at 4 or 5 but keep him away from T20's, pretty happy with the rest of the group though, hopefully Starc can get his mojo back as he would give us that extra bit of venom that Richardson or NCN don't have.