Carey keeps the faith ahead of tough Ashes test

If Australia are to overcome India's resistance and claim their maiden World Test Championship Final win later today, a significant measure of that success can be sheeted home to their enterprising middle-order left-hander from Adelaide.

Under that scenario, Travis Head might seem odds-on to pocket player-of-the-match honours for his game defining 163 off 174 balls in its initial phase, but a case could also be made his fellow leftie and South Australia teammate Alex Carey has been almost as influential.

Carey followed his sprightly 48 in Australia's first innings, that ended with an unsuccessful execution of his signature reverse sweep, with an even more impressive 66no in the second to record the highest match runs aggregate of his 20-Test career to date.

In the process, he pushed his Test batting average to 34.91 and past his Australia wicketkeeping predecessors Tim Paine (32.63) and Brad Haddin (32.98), and into second place on the all-time list for the nation's premier glovemen behind Adam Gilchrist's peerless 47.60.

But it was the manner in which Carey scored those runs on a pitch that often exhibited irregular bounce across the first three-and-half days, and the circumstances under which he accumulated them that proved more than their sum total.

A natural timer of the ball, the 31-year-old looked as comfortable as any batter alongside his near neighbour and best mate Head and Steve Smith (121 in Australia's first innings) during his cumulative stays of almost four-and-a-half hours in the middle during this WTC Final.

And it bodes well for Australia's subsequent Ashes tilt that the left-hander is back to the sort of touch that netted him a maiden Test century against South Africa at the MCG last December, following an unproductive tour on spin-friendly wickets in India where he averaged 9.33 from six innings.

"He's batting beautifully," said Australia allrounder Cameron Green, with whom Carey shared a vital partnership during the first session on Saturday.

"He's obviously put so much time in over the last few months at home, to get into a really good space.

"He's looking back to his aggressive and positive self, that's what he's been talking to me about, wanting to show intent and that's exactly what he's shown out there from ball one.

"It's been very impressive."

Without the 59 runs that were added during Carey's first-innings unions with Smith (11), Mitchell Starc (15) and Pat Cummins (51) on day two, Australia's lead would have been barely 100 instead of the 173-run advantage they eventually booked at the game's mid-point.

And when he went to the wicket today, after the loss of Marnus Labuschagne in the morning's third over with the ball darting erratically, Australia was far from assured at 5-124 and holding a lead of less than 300 with India on the charge.

But Carey was as unfazed as he was unmovable, offering just one genuine chance – a slips catch that didn't go to hand when on 41 – as he fashioned partnerships with Green (43 when batting was at its toughest), Starc (93 as Australia wrested the momentum) and Cummins (10 before the declaration came).

Much of the work Green spoke about took place at Adelaide Oval's indoor nets where Carey became a regular fixture in the months after his return from the unsuccessful India sojourn, as he pursued changes to his game and his mindset that might make a difference on his maiden UK Test venture.

England has not proved a verdant field for Australia's Test 'keepers over the past couple of decades.

The high-water mark over that period was Haddin's return in the 2009 Ashes defeat, when he scored 278 from six innings at an average of 46.33 including a highest score of 121 in the opening Test at Cardiff.

But after that, batting returns from Australia's glovemen in the UK dwindled significantly.

Haddin scored 206 at (22.89) in 2013 and 29 from his only two knocks in 2015 before being replaced by Peter Nevill who was elevated partly on the strength of his batting credentials, but contributed just 143 runs (at 23.83) from his six Ashes innings.

And Paine managed 180 runs (at 20) in leading his team's successful Ashes retention quest four years ago.

Not surprisingly, the benchmark remains Gilchrist's 340 at 68 when Australia last won an away Ashes series in 2001, featuring the memorable 152 he peeled off in that series opener that propelled Australia past 550 and set the tone for their dominant summer.

While that campaign served to enshrine Gilchrist's standing as the pre-eminent 'keeper-batter of his, or any generation before or since, it also underscored the value of a number seven batter capable of regularly contributing consistent runs at a decent clip.

It's neither feasible nor fair to suggest any 'keeper-batter can challenge Gilchrist's record as a game-shaping number seven who, as former England captain Nasser Hussain would later opine, rival skippers dreaded seeing walk through the gate to bludgeon their already foot-weary bowlers.

But given Australia's middle-order batting frailties in England over the past 20 years – noting that even Gilchrist struggled in the epochal 2005 series, when he was tormented by Andrew Flintoff and finished with 181 runs at 22.63 in his team's 2-1 defeat – the surety Carey can provide looms as integral.

Before then, however, Carey's primary role will be as drum major behind the stumps as Australia's bowlers search for the seven India wickets that separate them from their first WTC title today.

As Green noted after day four which India finished on a high thanks to an unbeaten stand between ex-skippers Virat Kohli (44no) and Ajinkya Rahane (20no), maintaining intensity as well as patience on the field presents a challenge given the overt London crowd support for Australia's opponents.

"With the Indian crowd, they get up and about and they make you think you're behind the game when you might not be," Green said. "So I think it will be crucial as it was today to keep our nerve, and to know that one or two wickets and we're back on top.

"We have to definitely be patient. I still think there's a lot in the wicket.

"Fortunately we've got a nice rest now, and then come hard tomorrow with a not-as-hard ball (now 40 overs old), but also we've got a great opportunity when we get the second new ball as well.

"So there's not much stress in the changeroom."

Green's assessment of The Oval pitch, which proved problematic for batters across the first three days but seemed to flatten out as the unseasonal 28C early summer heat sucked out any remaining moisture on Saturday afternoon, differed markedly from India seamer Mohammed Shami's.

As his team's most economic bowler in Australia's second innings, claiming 2-39 from 16.3 overs at a cost of just 2.36 runs per over, Shami holds some insights that might prove handy for Cummins and his fellow quicks who leaked runs at the rate of more than 4.5 on day four.

And the 32-year-old believes the pitch is getting progressively better for batting because it was underdone when the game commenced last Wednesday, and the 280 runs India require with seven wickets in hand today is far from daunting.

"The wicket is continuously slowed down, because you play back-to-back for five days," Shami told reporters on Saturday evening.

"And I don't think the wicket was fully prepared for the World Championship final.

"It wasn't fully prepared, but the wicket changes day by day.

"If you bat well, 280 runs … is not a big score."

World Test Championship Final

June 7-11: Australia v India, The Oval

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Michael Neser, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, David Warner

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Ishan Kishan (wk), KS Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohammad Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat

Find out everything you need to know for the World Test Championship Final here