Trever Hohns supports the decision to pick Tim Paine as the wicketkeeper for Ashes

The chief selector of the Australian national team Trevor Hohns’ decision to pick the 32-year-old wicketkeeper Tim Paine over the No.1 keeper ahead of Matthew Wade has raised a lot of eyebrow s. However, he has implored the fringe players to improve their performance in order to get a place in the national team, following their poor show against India.

One of the bombshells that Hohns delivered was the inclusion of the 32-year-old Paine over the incumbent Wade, favourite Peter Nevill and the third-choice keeper Alex Currey. The young gun keeper was the favourite to replace the duopoly of Nevill and Wade. The selected keeper has not kept wickets in the opening three games of the Sheffield Shield season, due to the presence of the national team keeper Wade. However, playing as a specialist batsman Paine scored a half-century against the England side in the warm-up game.

The right-handed batsman just averages above 29 at the first-class level, with an average of 35 in the four Tests that he has represented the national team. The last of which came against India, in October 2010.

Hohns said Paine was preferred because of his proficient glove work coupled with the underwhelming outputs from the other candidates. “It was fairly tough,” he told reporters in Brisbane. “We had a lengthy debate about the wicketkeeping position.

“He (Paine) is regarded as the best gloveman in the country. Then of course you go the other side of the coin, the unconvincing performances of the other wicketkeeping contenders,” he added.

The other controversial decision

The other controversial decision that the selector had taken was the inclusion of the southpaw Shaun Marsh over the mercurial all-rounder Glenn Maxwell for the No.6 slot. The selectors also dropped the young opener Matt Renshaw from the squad for the first two Tests.

“We just feel Shaun Marsh, in particular if we’re going down that path again, has performed much, much better and demanded to be chosen,” Hohns said.

“Both those fellas were spoken about, we came up with the fact they haven’t performed well enough in the early rounds of the competition this year,” he said. “As I suggested, they were going to be crucial rounds for everybody and everybody knew there were positions up for grabs so it was up to them to perform and present their case to us,” he concluded.