The South Australia fast bowler had been due to tour the West Indies before injury but is on track to start the Sheffield Shield season
Andrew McGlashan11-Sep-2025Brendan Doggett is in the “prime of his career” and has been backed by his South Australia coach Ryan Harris to be able to step into Test cricket during the Ashes if needed.Doggett was part of the Australia Test squad last season, having first been called up back in 2018 for a series against Pakistan in the UAE, and was a traveling reserve for the World Test Championship final against South Africa.He had been due to tour the West Indies before being withdrawn because of a hip injury but is on track to start the season for the double defending champions although from there will have his workload managed in conjunction with the Australia set-up.Related
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The depth of Australia’s pace bowling has been brought firmly into view with Pat Cummins’ back injury, and while Scott Boland will be the next in line for a spot in the startling XI, Doggett is likely only one more injury away from a debut.”He’s had a really good winter,” Harris told ESPNcricinfo. “He came back from the World Test Championship with a couple of niggles [but] he had good time to let them heal.”He had a really good programme that he was following and he was diligent. We didn’t take him to Darwin in our pre-season camp and let him just get himself right down here.”We’ve got a couple of trial games [this week] which he’ll bowl some good overs in. But what I’ve seen in training, he’s up and about. He’s ready to go. He’s bowling fast and he’s moving the ball, which is good. He’ll definitely start for us.”Doggett’s elevation to the Test squad last season came on the back of a career-best 6 for 15 against India A in Mackay. He capped his summer with a career-best match haul of 11 wickets in the Sheffield Shield final, where South Australia secured the title with victory over Queensland, to finish with 44 first-class wickets at 20.56 which followed 32 wickets at 21.90 the previous season.”He’s definitely ready [for Test cricket],” Harris said. “[With] his mind, I think, and the confidence he has now in his game. He was a bit mixed [up] probably a couple of years ago where he was trying to swing it and he wasn’t trying to swing it, but he’s worked it all out.”He knows what he needs to do. He knows when he has step it up and bowl quick and knows he can control his pace. He’s in the prime of his career now. There’s no doubt that if Brendan gets a call, I have absolute full confidence in that he can go in and do a good job in that team.”There will be a balancing act for the selectors in the lead-up to the Ashes in ensuring the fast bowlers in the mix have enough work to be ready while avoiding pushing them too far.It is expected that Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood will combine the ODIs against India with potentially one Sheffield Shield game for New South Wales before the first Test, while Boland is expected to play at least two four-day games for Victoria. Lance Morris, who would have been in the frame, has been ruled out for 12 months after undergoing back surgery.Brendan Doggett will likely be around Australia’s Ashes squads•Getty Images
Cameron Green has been left out of the T20I tour of New Zealand so that he can play for Western Australia in the first round of the Sheffield Shield, which could mark his return to bowling following the surgery he had a year ago.Speaking earlier this week, Cummins said he was confident in the fast-bowling reverses Australia had heading into the summer.”We feel really well placed,” he said. “A lot of planning goes in. It’s not just a month before, it’s 12 months out. Someone like Jhye Richardson, hopefully he will be available for some of the summer. There’s [Michael] Neser. Brendan Doggett was part of squads last year. Sean Abbott. So I’m really confident in our depth.”Obviously there is a bit of Shield cricket and white-ball cricket before that to make sure everyone is up and raring to go.”Those who are involved in the one-day leg of the Australia A tour of India or the T20I tour to New Zealand will miss the opening round of Sheffield Shield matches which start on October 4. The men’s domestic season starts on September 16 with the 50-over Dean Jones Trophy.