Watson will have to stay healthy if he is to fill Ponting’s spot on the Test roster

With former Australia captain Ricky Ponting having bid the game he grew up playing farewell, Cricket Australia and the national selectors have been left with the tough task of finding a suitable candidate to fill the veteran’s spot on the national team, and as of right now, all-rounder Shane Watson has emerged as the frontrunner.

Australia captain Michael Clarke himself stated that Watson was capable of filling Ponting’s spot, but will have come in at number four instead of three.

Watson, who is currently the vice-captain of the national team, has been identified as the x-factor for Australia’s back-to-back Ashes campaign this year, but with Watson constantly succumbing to injuries, he will have to live with the fact that he cannot open the batting for his country any more since his time off allowed Ed Cowan to come in and prove that he and David Warner make an excellent opening pair.

“We haven’t even discussed it yet [as a full selection panel], so I’m obviously putting a personal opinion,” Australia coach Mickey Arthur said. “Without wanting to name names, it will probably be a guy who will come in and bat three and possibly a move for Watto at four, it just looks right and gives us a bit of stability.

“Michael and I, once we see who that guy is – and we’ve got in our minds who we think the guy is, but we still need to discuss that as a selection panel – and then sit down in Hobart next Monday when we arrive there and we’ll make a decision on what our preferred batting order is going to be.”

With the number three spot up for grabs, Phillip Hughes and Usman Khawaja have emerged as the early frontrunners to take over, but Rob Quiney may also be in the picture, despite failing to make any decent scores during the first two Tests against South Africa.

Since the end of the 2009-2010 Australian summer, Ponting, Shaun Marsh, Quiney, Watson and Khawaja have all held the number three spot for brief periods of time, but none of them have been able to secure it for themselves due to having a rather poor combined average of just 26.38.

Furthermore, since Cowan and Warner became Australia’s opening pair, the middle order batsmen have scored 2861 runs compared to 1483 by the top three batsmen, which is almost double.

“Cowan and Warner showed us glimpses this series,” Arthur said. “I thought they were good in patches, but we need a lot more consistency, especially from our top four because we know at five and six we’ve got the best batsman in the world going into this Test match [Clarke] and Mr Cricket in Huss. We know that we’re really well covered at five and six. We just need one, two, three and four to be giving us a really good platform and that’s something we’ll have a look at.

“When you’re looking at Cowan, you’re looking at Warner, you’re looking at whoever comes in again and then Watto, there’s no massive amount of Test caps there when you take Watto aside. You’ve got to give those guys time to grow and be a little bit more consistent. They’ve shown us they’ve got the goods, we’ve just got to be patient with them.”

With Australia currently involved in a three-Test series against Sri Lanka before heading off to India ahead of their back-to-back Ashes campaign, the national team have to ensure that their batsmen and bowlers, especially their pace bowlers, stay healthy throughout the year.

Despite the top order continuing to struggle and two of Australia’s pace bowlers, James Pattinson and Pat Cummins, being ruled out of action for the entire Test summer, Arthur believes that the team are making a lot of progress and branded 2013 as an important year for the side.

“If I look over the past year and I go back to the Test match we had in Hobart where we lost to New Zealand, that was a time for real reflection and a time for change and I think as a Test unit we can take a lot of pride from what we’ve done over the last year and I certainly think we were in a far better place now than we were this time last year,” Arthur said. “We’ve just got to keep building. We’ve got a big series now against Sri Lanka and we’ve got to keep building through that.

“We’ve got a real tough series in India and that is followed by obviously what is the ultimate and that’s the Ashes. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got a settled unit, very clear on what their roles are come those big Tests that lie ahead of us. But I’m still really happy we’re going in the right direction.”