Australia's captain Michael Clarke is certain that Phil Hughes will open the batting in the three-day tour match against a Sri Lankan Board XI at Colombo's P Sara Stadium from Thursday. Beyond that things get rather tricky.
Because the match has been bestowed first-class status, the tourists may only pick 11 players, when they have more, particularly in the bowling department, in need of match practice. Apart from Mitchell Johnson and James Pattinson who were in the ODI team, each of Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle, Trent Copeland, Nathan Lyon and Michael Beer are yet to play on tour.
Compounding the headache is that Clarke and the tour selectors Greg Chappell and Tim Nielsen are far from certain about the composition of their best XI for Galle, where the conditions are likely to assist spinners. However they are uncertain whether it would be assistance enough to have Australia play multiple specialist spinners for the first time since Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill - plus Dan Cullen in one Test - on the 2006 tour of Bangladesh.
Shaun Marsh is expected to be given first look at the No. 6 batting spot, but his rival Usman Khawaja may find himself at the top of the order if it is decided to rest Shane Watson after his limited overs exertions.
"I can say Hughesy will open the batting for us and then it would be between Usman [Khawaja] and Marshy to bat No. 6 I would say," Clarke said. "Then we've got to work out do we pick two spinners, do we pick three quicks. Conditions in Galle will determine that one and it's a hard one for selection for tomorrow as well, are we sure which three quicks, do we go for the three who we think are going to play, is it our best attack? There's a lot of questions we need to answer."
