Australia’s ideal team for South Africa tour still no clearer than before Bangladesh visit

The quick-fire series in the Northern Territory did little to answer batting line-up questions and the top of the order remains an almighty jumble

Cricket Australia didn’t host a Bangladesh Test for 23 years for a simple reason: it would have cost money to stage and earned less money back. That wouldn’t have been a concern for whichever generation of players would have taken the field, but for the suits, the equation was lose-lose. Now that the mandate of the World Test Championship has forced administrators to end that long wait, the result for Australia’s current batting outfit was also been lose-lose, even if the series scoreline ended up lose-win.