Who will partner Hayden

Since the great Justin Langer retired at the end of last summer one of the great discussion points in Australian cricket has been who will take his place. A number of possibilities have been put forward: Phil Jacques, Chris Rogers, moving Mike Hussey back to the openers slot (freeing up a middle order birth, possibly for Brad Hodge), and more bizarrely Shane Watson.

I think you can rule out Watson. It would be pure madness to go for a makeshift opener when you have two specialst openers in Jaques and Rogers who have been scoring mountains of runs in first-class cricket for years, and a third in Hussey currently in the middle order. I'm surprised, and frankly a little concerned, that Watson is being discussed as a serious contender even by Ricky Ponting. Anyhow, I think his latest injury will probably rule him out of contention.

That leaves Hussey, Jacques and Rogers. Given how successful he has been in the roll, I'd like to see Hussey remain in the middle order. I might be a little biassed, being from his home town of Wollongong, but I think Jacques' form on the recent A tour to Pakistan may have given him the edge over Rogers. Many have seen this tour as a straight shoot-out betweenthe two for the vacant position, and if this is the case, Jacques has certainly won. In the two "tests" Jacques made 370 runs from three innngs at 123 including two centuries, compared to Rogers' 110 runs at 37.

I guess time will tell. You can see Chris Rogers' profile here, and Phil Jacques' here.