DERBY: Peter Nevill appears all but certain to retain his spot in the Australian side for next week's third Ashes Test after taking the gloves on Friday on a rain-affected second day of the tour match against Derbyshire at the County Ground.
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Under heavy skies that led to the day's play being abandoned after lunch veteran wicketkeeper Brad Haddin found himself in the peculiar position of point, and then in the outfield, as Nevill stood behind the stumps with what was aside from the absent Steve Smith the Test slips cordon.
The 29-year-old also came in at No.6, two spots higher than Haddin, when the Australians batted on Thursday. They declared their first innings overnight at 7-413 and by lunch on the second day their county hosts were 2-81 in response when rain intervened.
Nevill's retention for Edgbaston would make sense. As important a player as Haddin has been to the fabric of the Australian team it was always going to be very difficult for selectors to leave out a player who did so well on his Test debut in such a thrashing of England, particularly when the 37-year-old hasn't had a good run with the bat.
Nevill, who was picked for the second Test when Haddin withdrew for family reasons, took seven catches at Lord's and scored a useful 45 that helped Steve Smith over the line for his first double century.
Should Nevill now continue to impress at Edgbaston and for the remainder of the series it would likely spell the end of Haddin's 66-Test career. The expectation was that he would probably retire after the Ashes in any case but with the transition to the younger man having already been made successfully, albeit in extremely unfortunate circumstances, the wicketkeeper's spot would now appear to be Nevill's.
Despite the looming ugly weather in Derby a full session was played on Friday. It featured a first appearance of bowling in first-class cricket for Pat Cummins since 2013, and he looked potent as he charged in opening the attack with Peter Siddle.
Cummins claimed the first wicket of the day, having New Zealander Hamish Rutherford caught by Nevill, before Shane Watson, in an impressive spell, had opener Ben Slater caught by a retreating first slip Adam Voges after top-edging the all-rounder shortly before lunch.
Australia's first-string attack of Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon were all rested from the match against Derbyshire, which winds up on Saturday.
