Australia vs Bangladesh series preview, Cameron Green fights for spot in Test team as Beau Webster emerges as premier all-rounder, latest news

For most of Australia’s Test squad, a blockbuster next 12 months offers the chance to cement their legacy as one of the greatest teams ever.

Cameron Green, though, is playing for something even more important: his career.

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Since making his debut as a 21-year old wunderkind with limitless potential, the Western Australian has tantalised with glimpses of his extraordinary talent with bat, ball and in the field.

But an inability to convert several starts into a meaningful score in the summer’s Ashes win, while finding increasingly disastrous ways to throw away his wicket, has left his spot in the team uncertain.

And it means a two-Test series against Bangladesh beginning on Thursday — a chance for some time in the middle ahead of greater challenges ahead for most of the squad — carries huge significance for Green in particular.

“He’s a talented player,” former Australian fast bowling great Jason Gillespie told foxsports.com.au ahead of the series.

“But how many opportunities do you get before someone else maybe deserves that opportunity?”

As still the youngest locked-in member of a rapidly ageing Test team, for which next year’s Ashes could well herald the end of an era, the time is now for Green to make good on his potential.

Fail, and the fallout could be disastrous … for the team, for the man himself, and for Australian cricket’s future.

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‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: GREEN’S ‘EXCEPTIONAL’ START

You can nicely divide Green’s Test career to this point into two halves.

The first — from his whirlwind rise to the baggy green up until losing his spot midway through the 2023 Ashes — the Western Australian regularly flexed his considerable skillset to become among the team’s most crucial contributors.

“He’s exceptional,” England captain Michael Vaughan gushed on Fox Cricket as a supreme spell of seam bowling routed the tourists under lights in Hobart to turn a tight tussle Australia’s way to end the 2021/22 Ashes.

Months later, on just his second overseas tour, Green handled a spinner’s paradise in Galle with aplomb with a mixture of deft footwork, sweeps and reverse-sweeps and seemingly endless patience to set up a ten-wicket win.

“We’re witnessing something special here with Cameron Green,” former Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin said of his 77.

“Every Test innings he’s getting better and better.”

Such was the team’s reliance on him that a cracked finger during the 2022 Boxing Day Test – having already captured his maiden five-wicket haul and a half-century – proved disastrous for Australia’s subsequent tour of India.

That series flipped on Green’s return: having come in with the team 2-0 down after two Tests, he stabilised both the batting order and the bowling attack for victory in Indore, then secured a maiden century to fully capitalise on a belter of a pitch in Ahmedabad.

Throw in a spectacular catch in the gully to dismiss Indian star Shubman Gill at a critical juncture of the World Test Championship final, and there was no question Green was a critical component of the best team on the planet.

The second half, though, has been turbulent to say the least.

ROLE RESHUFFLE LEADS TO ‘MOST DISAPPOINTING SUMMER’

Following that India series, Green’s batting average had risen to 37.64, with his bowling average a none-too-shabby 34.35 – the former better than, the latter only slightly behind, the world’s leading all-rounder in Stokes.

But having owned the No.6 spot in the order for nearly three years, his withdrawal from the third Ashes Test in 2023 would have long-term consequences.

In his first Test in four years, Mitchell Marsh filled in at No.6, struck an extraordinary century, and rode a six-month form surge all the way to an unlikely Allan Border Medal win.

Green would miss five of the next six Tests, but the role he had made his own had been lost.

The Western Australian has just one Test innings at No. 6 since – a 24 in the first dig in the first Ashes Test of 2025/26 – as first Marsh and then Beau Webster took their opportunities with aplomb.

He hasn’t lacked for opportunities to return to the XI, but every recall has brought with it a change of position and change of role.

A major reshuffle following David Warner’s retirement in early 2024 saw Green brought back at No.4, the spot he had made his own for WA in the Shield, with Steve Smith shifted to open.

He repaid the faith with a superb century against New Zealand in Wellington, rescuing a rocky start and reaching 174 not out.

But the next Test a week later would be his last for more than 12 months.

He looked all at sea against the moving ball against South Africa in the World Test Championship final last year, batting at No.3, before improving in the role in tough conditions against the West Indies on the tour that followed.

He finished third on the Frank Worrell Trophy run charts with an average beyond 30 – nothing to be sniffed at on a tour the Windies finished by being bowled out for 27 – only to be back into the middle order for the home Ashes last summer.

“He’s been up and down the order like a yo-yo – trying to find his spot and allowing other people to come in,” Warner told foxsports.com.au last year about his old teammate.

Concerningly, Green floundered, falling from No.5 back to No.7 by series’ end, with an argument Webster, brought back in at No.8 for the fifth Test in Sydney, should have been above him too.

“It’s been one of the most disappointing returns from an all-rounder that we’ve seen in a long time in Australia,” cricket commentator Bharat Sundaresan told SEN of a summer that included a disastrous run out on Boxing Day, backing away to be embarrassingly bowled at the Gabba, and a string of other reckless dismissals to throw away repeat solid starts.

“There’s an exceptional cricketer in there with his batting, bowling and fielding – but he gets out in some really soft ways,” former England captain Nasser Hussain surmised on Sky Sports.

‘DESERVES THE CHANCE’: THE UNDENIABLE TRUTH

Green’s movement up and down the batting order has no doubt contributed to his struggle to make his mark in recent years.

But the reason it has happened is that selectors have remained adamant throughout his ordeals that he remains in the top six batters in Australia when fit.

And on all available evidence, they’re right.

Green averages 57 in first-class cricket outside Tests, with 13 centuries in just 70 innings.

Whenever he has returned to Sheffield Shield level, he has plundered runs; a stint for Glamorgan in 2025 yielded three centuries in eight innings to make his recall as a batter only a formality.

“He’s piled on a mountain of runs for Western Australia, so he deserves that chance to continue to show what a great talent he is,” Gillespie told foxsports.com.au of Green’s future prospects.

“The selectors, led by George Bailey, and Andrew McDonald, clearly believe that Cam Green is a fantastic cricketer and they like having him in and around that team.

“I don’t mind talented players that perform well at domestic level being given an extended run with the national side.

“The chances are they are going to come good and have significant careers.”

Also in Green’s favour is the paucity of young options coming through the ranks in Shield cricket – especially with the bat.

Only NSW all-rounder Jack Edwards and Matt Renshaw made more runs at a higher average than his 355 at 44.37 last summer.

If it’s not Green, there isn’t exactly a queue of contenders ready to take Australian cricket into a bright new era.

As for Green’s Test stats, they aren’t dissimilar to Stokes’, who retired from Test cricket in July with a batting average of 34 and bowling average of 31, despite the worries.

Flintoff’s, for what it’s worth, were 31 and 32.

Just two players in history have averaged over 35 with the bat and under 30 with the ball in Tests – and Imran Khan and Keith Miller are unquestioned legends of the game.

But while he remains the youngest in the team, Green is also now 27.

That’s a year older than Ricky Ponting was in the 2001 Ashes, the series where he made the leap from promising youth to modern titan.

Smith was 25 when his path to greatness truly began in the mid-2010s. Steve Waugh, like Green an all-rounder of promise in his younger years, was 24 when he bossed the 1989 Ashes series despite zero Test centuries heading in.

Ian Botham was 25 when his heroics in the 1981 Ashes forever cemented his name in history. Stokes was only 28 when he did likewise to take England to 2019 World Cup glory, then backed it up with his classic century in the Miracle of Headingley.

The clock isn’t exactly ticking … but there comes a point in every career when potential comes second to performance.

For Green, with tours of South Africa, India and England, plus in all likelihood another World Test Championship final, following these two Tests against Bangladesh, that time has come.

“He’s got to be playing at full steam ahead,” former Australian Test all-rounder and Fox Cricket commentator Brendon Julian told foxsports.com.au.

Julian believes Australian cricket can no longer afford to coddle him, either.

“I’d be saying to him ‘Mate, you’re in the side as an all-rounder – you’ve got to make runs, take wickets’, because I don’t think his form is warranted that he’s got to be managed,” he said.

“I don’t think he’s a lock necessarily all the time.

“Have a look at his career, he’s played a lot of Test match cricket. Last summer wasn’t a great one for him, so I think he’s got more of a point to prove with his form.”

THE WEBSTER CONUNDRUM

Green’s biggest problem might not be injuries, or form, or even the constant rejigging of the batting order to fit him into more and more unlikely spots.

It might actually be the fact that he has spent the second half of his Test career going head-to-head with other all-rounders – and paling in comparison.

Marsh peeled off a century and six other 50s in a ten-Test purple patch after being recalled, putting Green’s batting numbers to shame so clearly that the one-time whipping boy became a national hero.

Then, when the Bison’s form tapered and with the 2024/25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy on the line, Beau Webster made good on his post-30s rise into international calculations with vital scores of 57 and 39 not out in the deciding fifth Test.

Since Green’s recall for the WTC final, the Tasmanian has four centuries in five Tests, compared to the Western Australian’s zero in nine.

A horror pull shot to give away his wicket in the fifth Ashes Test looked even worse for Green when Webster replaced him at the crease, batted beautifully with Smith, and finished unbeaten on 71 having taken the match out of England’s reach.

With the ball, too, there are concerns.

Having just returned to bowling, Green was predictably rusty in the Ashes; but by the fifth Test, it was alarming to see his 24 overs for the match go at over five an over for just one wicket.

Especially when Webster, stepping up as the de facto fifth bowler when Green could no longer be trusted, took three middle-order wickets with his languid but precise medium-pace.

“Beau Webster, every time he’s had his opportunity, he’s taken it,” Julian said.

It would defy Australian history to see the two all-rounders share the same team for long.

It took a farcical two-day MCG pitch and fears of similar at the SCG over the summer for selectors to pick them both in Sydney, and at the expense of a bowler rather than a top-six batter.

For Julian, it will soon be a case of the town not being big enough for the two of them.

“He’s (Green) got to be performing well, or Webster’s going to come in and take his spot,” Julian said.

“I don’t think there’s enough room to fit them both in the top six.

“It depends on conditions as well – if Nathan Lyon comes out and is fit, he’ll bowl a lot of overs, you won’t need to play two all-rounders in that side.

“You wouldn’t be going in with Webster going in at eight again. You’ve got to be going with your three quicks and your spinner.”

If Green can’t take his chance, it’s hard to see Webster missing his.

‘FIVE OR SIX’: THE KEY TO A TURNAROUND

37 Tests into his career, Green remains an integral part of Australian cricket’s future.

In just five of those has he not been the youngest member of the XI – twice in India in 2023 when Todd Murphy was selected, and the three-Test tour of the West Indies last year when Sam Konstas proved not yet ready for the demands of opening in tough conditions.

With a golden generation still performing admirably well into their 30s, and selectors mostly unwilling to blood future prospects in their stead, Green is the only guarantee to be still a Test prospect when the 2029/30 Ashes rolls around.

Now, after years of injury struggles and revolving role changes, is his chance for continuity.

Barring a major surprise, he will walk out at No. 5 or No. 6 for the first Test against Bangladesh on Thursday (depending on whether Alex Carey receives an extra promotion) and almost certainly the second too – with Webster slotting in behind them.

And Julian believes the spot in the middle-order is a far better fit.

“I never thought he was a top-order (batter) – five, okay,” Julian told foxsports.com.au.

“They’ve basically wedged him in there (the top order) because they didn’t really have an opportunity or a choice.

“I think he performs better down the order. I just don’t think, technique-wise, he’s good enough up the order.

“Ideally, he’d be five or six.”

Julian also believes the off-Broadway nature of these Tests – the first in Darwin in more than two decades, and the first at a non-major venue in Australia since Canberra hosted Sri Lanka in early 2019 – could also be handy.

“Instead of going on a massive overseas tour, you’re going up north to Darwin and playing two Test matches,” he said.

“It’s a great way to ease into the summer, it’s a good opportunity for these guys to get set.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a pre-season, because it’s a proper Test match.

“But no better opportunity – two Test matches, up in the north, the weather’s good, really good conditions. The pitch up there will be great.”

Heralded from the outset as a player unlike anything Australian cricket had ever seen – no less a judge than Australian legend Greg Chappell judged him “the best young player since Ponting” – Green was always going to struggle to live up to the hype.

But whether he ever becomes Australia’s Flintoff, or Stokes, or even another Jacques Kallis, is surely no longer the goal.

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If Green can again become the middle-order cog he was while cutting his teeth at Test level, a player capable of vital innings and partnership-breaking spells all while providing balance to an XI likely to undergo major changes in the years to come, all the patience will have been worth it and then some.

The road there begins in Darwin. Neither he nor Australia can afford many more potholes.