Image Credit- Getty
On the second day of Pakistan’s warm-up match against
a Victoria XI, Marcus Harris, who is one of those vying to replace David Warner
in Australia’s Test team, made the most of an additional red-ball innings with
a fast century.
At Junction Oval, Harris hit 126 off 131 balls, with
22 fours and a six during the innings. With Warner’s retirement after the
Sydney Test, the selectors will have to decide on a new opener early the
following month.
It remains to be seen if the innings would influence
selection, but Harris took full advantage of the hurriedly scheduled match that
the PCB had requested. The reason the game was played behind closed doors was
reportedly not because the guests didn’t want anyone to come, but rather
because it was difficult to recruit enough workers to open the venue on short
notice.
Despite not being a first-class match, Harris’s
century extends his remarkable record at the ground, where he averages 79.85 in
four-day cricket on what is generally considered to be one of the nation’s
flatter wickets.
Harris, who is without a BBL contract, averaged 31.33
in five Sheffield Shield games for Victoria during the season’s first half. In
Canberra, he also played Pakistan for the Prime Minister’s XI and scored 49.
In addition to Matt Renshaw and Cameron Bancroft, he
is one of three specialist openers under consideration to replace Warner.
However, there is still a possibility that the selectors will rearrange the
batting order to make room for Cameron Green. But thus far, the current XI’s
prospective promotion contenders have shown little enthusiasm for the concept.
Early in 2022, Harris participated in his 14th Test
match against England in Sydney. After the match, he returned with two
hundreds, and Usman Khawaja was used as a stand-in. Since then, he has been a
consistent reserve batsman for the Test team, playing in the Ashes series this
year, and he is under contract with CA.