Brad Haddin

This is Steve Smith's team

The three newcomers and Matthew Wade will inject freshness and fight into the Australian side looking to save face in Adelaide

Brad Haddin
Brad Haddin
23-Nov-2016
In a four-day game for Australia A against Gloucestershire in 2013, Nic Maddinson scored 181 off 143 balls with 22 fours and nine sixes  •  Getty Images

In a four-day game for Australia A against Gloucestershire in 2013, Nic Maddinson scored 181 off 143 balls with 22 fours and nine sixes  •  Getty Images

Steven Smith's captaincy starts here. If there was any doubt over control of the Australian team and its selection, the XI unveiled for the day-night Test in Adelaide sets those aside.
Having pleaded for a group of players he can take into battle with him after the innings defeat in Hobart, Steve appears to have got his wish. He has a bat-all-day opener in the 20-year-old Matt Renshaw, an adaptable and capable middle-order player in Peter Handscomb, a potential match-winner at No. 6 in Nic Maddinson, and a proven fighter with the gloves or the bat in Matthew Wade.
The decision to move on from Peter Nevill and back to Wade will have been a particularly tough one for Steve and the coach Darren Lehmann. Nev is a terrific team man and a wonderful character, so an asset to any dressing room. He certainly has not been dropped for reasons relating to character or anything like that. It is more a case of sacrificing a gloveman in the search for more runs from Wade and the lower order alongside him.
Whatever you may think about how tidy or otherwise Wade can be behind the stumps, his enjoyment of a scrap down the batting order is obvious. The two Test hundreds he has made, in Dominica against West Indies and at the SCG against Sri Lanka, were fantastic rearguard innings in conditions other batsmen found difficult. On both occasions he was able to build partnerships with the tail to help set up a winning position. Australia have lacked that lately.
Something that has changed about Wade since he was last in the Australian Test side is that he has taken up the captaincy of Victoria with plenty of success - the last two Sheffield Shields, in fact. By all accounts captaincy has not overly changed his aggressive demeanour on the field, but it has enhanced his appreciation for all the roles in the team. He's had good results, too, from using spin bowlers like Fawad Ahmed and Jon Holland, so I'm hopeful he will be able to work productively with Nathan Lyon this time around.
There is actually potential for a really damaging partnership to be set up between Wade and Maddinson, who is among the most talented players of his generation. I was in Bristol in 2013, when, playing for Australia A, he tore up Gloucestershire's attack to make 181 from 143 balls. Those are the sorts of innings that win matches, and Maddo is more capable of putting them together than most.
In addition to his power, placement and ability to play pretty much every shot in the book, Maddo has also been impressive in the way he thinks about the game. I was a big fan of the decision to give him some captaincy experience with the Blues last summer, and he has demonstrated on a few occasions, either on the field or in conversation, that he can come up with the sort of tactical thought that marks him as being ahead of the game. Steve has known Maddo for years, and I won't be surprised to see them swapping ideas over the course of this Test.
Another step up the batting order and Handscomb will walk in at No. 5. He is regarded as one of the best players of spin in the country, and uses his feet to good effect. Something else that has impressed me about him is how he approaches training, which I saw first-hand when doing some coaching work with Australia A earlier in the year.
The fundamental thing I liked about Pete is that he wasn't afraid of getting uncomfortable in training. We did several batting drills where he wanted to be taken out of his comfort zone - one of which was me firing balls down at him from a shorter distance than normal to test his reflexes and technique under that pressure. Players who seek out difficult experiences in training, to stretch themselves, invariably perform well on the field because they have made the game easier for themselves by doing so.
Apart from his batting, Pete is also an excellent slips fielder, a trait he shares with Renshaw. The injection of a couple of high-quality specialist catchers will make a difference to the Australian team, and may in fact contribute to the sort of presence and energy that Steve has called for. Runs, of course, are the biggest thing the team will be searching for after their recent run of outs, and Steve will walk onto the field in Adelaide knowing the changes to the team have offered up a fresh a chance of that happening.

Former wicketkeeper Brad Haddin played 66 Tests for Australia