Shane Watson wants to keep opening

Australia's new vice-captain Shane Watson wants to keep opening the batting but would be willing to shift down the order if the balance of the side requires it. In his 36 Test innings as an opener, Watson has averaged 49.88, but with young top-order batsmen like Phillip Hughes and Usman Khawaja coming through, and the veteran Simon Katich still in contention, Australia could have a glut of opening options.

"I do love opening the batting and at the moment my conversations with Michael [Clarke] and with the team hierarchy have been that things won't change," Watson told the Age. "But if the best balance for the team is batting a little bit lower, in the end we have to find out what the best combination for our batting order is going to be. It has been a weakness of ours over the last little while, our batting collapses more than anything, so over the next couple of months we will be talking about trying to find the right balance."

Australia's next Test tour is to Sri Lanka, likely to be in August, and the selectors need to make some decisions before then on the way forward for an Australian team with three batsmen on the wrong side of 35. One man whose position is not in doubt is Watson, whose last Test series on the subcontinent brought him scores of 126, 56, 57 and 32, against India last year.

"I feel like I am solid against spin but it's always a thing I can improve on," he said. "I have been lucky to play a lot of cricket in India over the last couple of years, but it is a continual development for me to find ways of moving my feet a bit more and not just sitting in the crease, finding that balance.

"I know it is going to be a huge challenge. One of the good things for my batting is actually knowing that Murali is not playing. They've got [Suraj] Randiv who is a high-quality spinner but obviously not someone who has got 800 Test wickets so that is going to be a bonus for us."