The PM’s XI at Manuka Oval will be played on 29 and 30 November. Photo: Cricket ACT.
I’m not sure who would have been more surprised by his call-up to the PM’s XI team to play England at Manuka on 29 and 30 November: Peter Siddle or the touring England team.
England probably thought they had seen him off after he retired from international cricket in 2019.
But Siddle, who will be 41 by the time the pink-ball day-nighter at Manuka gets underway, just can’t stop bowling.
His hat trick against England at the Gabba 15 years ago, on his 26th birthday, in the first Ashes test of the 2010-11 series, still resonates, albeit with no player from that era in the current touring team.
Siddle played Shield cricket earlier this year and has been playing in the Canadian Super 60 League, so it’s not as if he is coming out of retirement to play for the PM’s team.
His selection highlights the vast age difference between the veteran seamer and the 19-year-old Victorian player, Ollie Peake.
Two former test openers, Sam Konstas and Nathan McSweeney, get an opportunity to present their test credentials with England, using the game as preparation for the day-night second test at the Gabba.
There is a sense of déjà vu for Konstas, who used the corresponding game against India last year to catapult himself into the Boxing Day Test with a century at Manuka.
The PM’s IX has a long history in the ACT. PM’s XI captain Jack Fingleton, Prime Minister Menzies and West Indian captain John D Goddard toss the coin at the 1951 Prime Minister’s XI Cricket Match. Photo: Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. (Courtesy ACT Heritage Library).
There is a local feel to the PM’s team to be captained by Peter Handscomb, with the selection of former ACT cricketers Benji Floros and Sam Skelly now plying their trade in Queensland, while Canberra’s Jono Dean will be an assistant to coach Tim Paine.
The selection of the PM’s XI side is very much in line with the ethos of opportunity, with players such as Charlie Anderson, Hugh Weibgen and Campbell Kellaway preparing to showcase their wares.
As we saw with Konstas last year and David Boon in 1984, when he took apart a West Indies attack spearheaded by Michael Holding, hitting 134 off 136, the PM’s game can successfully be used as a platform into the test side.
Konstas will be hoping to use it as a springboard for a second time.
