Jackson Bird hopes to find a spot in the Aussie squad for Bangladesh tour

The long standing pay dispute battle between Cricket Australia (CA) and Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) came to an end on Tuesday. After months of discussions and negotiations, both the parties finally reached a conclusive agreement. Australia’s 300 professional cricketers agreed to sign the new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) offered by the CA. Meanwhile, the reuniting of both the parties also gave a green signal to the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) for the tour to go as per schedule.

Amidst all the pay-dispute talks, Australian fast bowler Jackson Bird is hoping to find a place in the Test squad for the Bangladesh tour. Bird last donned the baggy greens against Pakistan in 2016. He was also a part of the squad in the Test series against Sri Lanka and India. The right-arm quick bowler claimed 13 wickets in three Test matches last Australian summer.

Hopeful of selection going my way

The Australian selectors already named the side that would travel to Darwin for the pre-Bangladesh tour camp and it included Jackson Bird’s name. “I haven’t really heard much about selection at this stage. I’m assuming they’ll make a decision this week. Fingers crossed I do get the nod,” Bird said.

“Hopefully selection goes my way, but it’s out of my hands,” he added.

Always nice to be on the field

The pacer has not played any competitive cricket for the last six months, which is a long time. He was a part of the A team which was to tour South Africa for the tri-series, but the tour was cancelled as the players pulled out due to the pay-dispute. “Yeah it hurts, it’s always nice to be playing cricket,” he said.

“I haven’t played a game of cricket since the warm-up game against India A in February, so it’s been quite a while since I’ve played any competitive cricket. It would have been nice to get another opportunity to push my claims for higher honours, but it was important from the playing group perspective that we stuck together with all the other players and did what was right for that,” Bird stated.

“So it was completely understandable why we didn’t go, but it was a bit disappointing that we couldn’t go over there and push our claims,” added the paceman.

Tough competition in the team

The pitches in Bangladesh assist the spinners and they will feature more spinners. On the other hand, Australia’s pace attack is pretty settled with the likes of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Patt Cummins and James Pattinson fittingly form the first choice attack. “It’s a good thing for Australian cricket to have them all fit and firing at the same time, but probably not a good thing for the other blokes behind them trying to get into the side,” he stated.

“When those guys are fit, I’m definitely behind all those four. I’d like to think that I’m the fifth fast bowler behind those four. If you’re not in the side you have to be ready to go at all times in case there is an injury, which there often is with fast bowlers. You’ve just got to make sure that when you do get an opportunity, like I did last summer, you’re ready to go and bowling well.” he said of Starc, Cummins, Pattinson and Josh Hazlewood.

“With those four bowlers around, it’d pretty hard to get a spot in the final team because they’re four of the best fast bowlers in the world,” concluded Bird.