Agenda-setting Watson to stay up top

Shane Watson is best suited to setting a speedy agenda at the top of the Test batting order rather than plugging gaps further down, the national selector Greg Chappell has said.

Since becoming vice-captain under the team's new leader Michael Clarke, Watson has pondered his ideal place within the XI, and has given ground to the possibility of moving down the order if it would help solidify a batting unit prone to collapse. Such a move would also allow Watson the chance to bowl a little more, and perhaps escape a pattern of being dismissed between 50 and 100.

However Chappell was adamant that Watson should remain an opening batsman, to be partnered in Sri Lanka by either Simon Katich or Phil Hughes, as his ability to score runs quickly at the outset of an innings was a priceless asset.

"I think at this stage we're pretty happy with him opening," Chappell told ESPNcricinfo. "The beauty with Shane is that when he gets runs he tends to get them at a good strike rate. If you've got someone who makes runs at that sort of strike rate at the top of the order a la Matthew Hayden, it can make a very big difference.

"If we get to the point where there's others who we think might do the job it will come up in discussion, but the issue is if you take him out of that role and whoever replaces him doesn't do it as well and he doesn't do as well somewhere else, it's not a straightforward exercise. He's ideally suited to opening, he likes opening, he's doing it well.

"I think we're very comfortable with that situation at the moment. It's nice that he's thinking outside himself and looking at it from a team perspective, but I can tell you the best thing for the team at the moment is for him to keep opening and keep scoring runs the way he does."

One of the more curious selections for the Australia A tour of Zimbabwe is that of David Warner in both limited-overs and first-class squads, an indication that his healthy conclusion to the 2010-11 Sheffield Shield for New South Wales had caught Chappell's attention. Known mainly as a rapid-fire opening bat in Twenty20 cricket, Warner's technical fundamentals are arguably more pure than those of his Blues compatriot Hughes, leaving open the possibility of a Test match future.

"He finished the season off really well, I was pleased that New South Wales gave him those four-day opportunities because I've felt for some time that he has the ability to be a good long-form cricketer and the danger is you can pigeonhole somebody," Chappell said. "I saw him get 90-odd here in Melbourne against Victoria at the MCG and he got a hundred up at the SCG I saw and they were two pretty impressive innings.

"He has that capability so let's see how he progresses over the next little while, but I don't think there's any thought from the national selection panel about shifting Shane from where he is at the moment."