Pucovski, Harris expected to face Pakistan in practice match

Marcus Harris will get another chance to push his case to replace David Warner after Pakistan successfully requested for an additional tour game to be played ahead of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.

Victoria have rustled up a side made up of players not featuring in the KFC BBL, with state captain Peter Handscomb expected to lead an XI featuring two more former Test players in Harris and Will Pucovski.

The practice match is a reasonably last-minute arrangement. It will be a two-dayer played at the Junction Oval on Friday and Saturday ahead of the second NRMA Insurance Test beginning on Boxing Day. The match will not have first-class status.

"That was something extra we added into the schedule because it wasn't there earlier," Pakistan coach Mohammad Hafeez told reporters on Sunday.

"We wanted to have more practice rather than only one practice game. That had first class status, so we couldn't give all the bowlers the chance to have a feel.

"But that's the reason we wanted to have that practice game so more of the guys could get a feel for a match scenario. We felt that would work well."  

Australia's players will have a lower key eight-day break between Tests. They are expected to return to their home cities following the ongoing match in Perth before reconvening in Melbourne on Friday and Saturday. 

The practice match will mark Pucovski's first hit against international opposition since his Test debut almost three years ago.

But there will be more interest in whether Harris can put up a big score given he is one of the frontrunners to replace Warner when he retires from Test cricket next month.

Harris does not currently have a BBL contract, unlike fellow contenders Cameron Bancroft and Matthew Renshaw, who are playing for the Sydney Thunder and Brisbane Heat respectively.

Renshaw outshone the other two with an unbeaten 136 in the Prime Minister’s XI game against Pakistan last week, though both Harris (49) and Bancroft (53) looked the part.

Pucovski is further back in the running. The 25-year-old remains one of Australian cricket's most promising batters, but has struggled to put a full season together having battled mental health and concussion concerns.

There have been encouraging signs more recently. While he is averaging just 21 in the Marsh Sheffield Shield this season, he has played all but one match for Victoria, coming off a season playing league cricket in Surrey over the winter.

Warner's first-innings 164 in Perth all but guaranteed he will get a fairytale farewell in his home Test at the SCG.

But who will take his spot for the ensuing two-Test series against West Indies, and then a tour of New Zealand of the same duration, is unknown.

One of the options that has been floated is for allrounder Cameron Green to come in, either to open or go into the middle-order. The latter route would see one of the incumbents bumped up to partner Usman Khawaja against the new ball.

Pakistan's coach Mohammad Hafeez had complained about the slowness of the Manuka Oval pitch for their only tour game against the PM’s XI before beginning their three-Test series against Australia.

Cricket Australia has pointed to extreme weather in Canberra as a mitigating factor, with operations and scheduling boss Peter Roach insisting the organisation wants to be a leader in providing top-shelf conditions and facilities for visiting teams.

"We understood the comments from Pakistan," Roach told cricket.com.au.

"We've been on record about wanting to be the leaders in terms of providing good warm-up venues for our opponents.

"There was certainly a time when, hand on heart, we probably couldn't say that we were doing as well as we should have. We know there are challenges when we go overseas occasionally.

"But I'm encouraging our teams to continue to lead that … hopefully there has been some payback when we go back there next time in terms of what sort of facilities we get and where they put us, so they think 'they looked after us last time, we should do the same'.

"I think around the world we're getting better at that."

NRMA Insurance Test series v Pakistan

First Test: December 14-18, Perth Stadium (1.20pm AEDT)

Second Test: December 26-30, MCG (10.30am AEDT)

Third Test: January 3-7, SCG (10.30am AEDT)

Australia squad: (first Test only) Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Lance Morris, Steve Smith, Mitch Starc, David Warner

Pakistan squad: Shan Masood (c), Aamir Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel and Shaheen Shah Afridi