North Sound (Antigua), May 30 (IANS) Australia cricket head coach Darren Lehmann says the selectors will wait until early next week to make up their minds about Australia’s playing 11 for the first Test against the West Indies in Dominica.
The Aussies completed their only warm-up match of the tour here on Friday, a three-day game against a West Indies President’s XI that ended in a draw.
The wicket at Windsor Park in Roseau has traditionally favoured slower bowlers, meaning a dual spin attack of Nathan Lyon and the uncapped Fawad Ahmed is a possibility for the first of the two Tests in the battle to retain the Frank Worrell Trophy.
But the coach gave little away about the make-up of the XI.
“It’s going to have to be a late call. I’d love to give you the side earlier but it’s going to have to be a late call because this pitch here changed quite a lot in the 24 hours leading up to the tour game. So it’s going to be a really tight call either way we go,” Lehmann was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au on Saturday.
He gave a mixed report on the performance of Lyon and Ahmed — who bowled better than their combined match figures of 4/232 suggests.
“They bowled really good spells at certain stages and probably not as well as they would have liked, or the captain would have liked, at certain stages either,” said the 45-year-old.