James Hopes worked tirelessly in a losing Sheffield Shield effort against Western Australia but the Queensland skipper wants his team to bounce back against NSW at the Gabba with some key players likely to return.
Hopes is disappointed with Queensland’s start to the season in Shield losses on the road to South Australia and Western Australia, largely due to dramatic batting collapses, ahead of the clash against NSW beginning on Sunday.
The skipper is confident the batting will be strengthened by the return of Usman Khawaja and Nathan Reardon while Ben Cutting and Cameron Boyce provide more fast and spin-bowling options – and Test star Ryan Harris is also an outside chance of playing.
“We are happy to get home but we are going to get a Blues team with a few fast bowlers trying to get into the Test team like (Patrick) Cummins, (Doug) Bollinger and whoever else they decide to pick,” Hopes said.
“We need to get ourselves up off the canvas and we are hoping to get a few guys back as well.
“We are hoping to get Usman Khawaja back, Ben Cutting will be back, Cameron Boyce will be back, Nathan Reardon will be back and we are hopeful we might even have Ryan Harris.
“(Harris) played a second XI game and got through some overs and played club cricket this weekend, so we are hopeful he might be back.”
Hopes put in a marathon effort with the ball in Queensland’s day-night loss to WA at the WACA Ground bowling 38 overs in the home team’s first innings finishing with 5-60 for the 11th five-wicket hall in his 92-match first-class career.
Despite WA only needing 17 to win late on Monday night, Hopes still managed to pick up the wickets of Cameron Bancroft and Michael Klinger to complete a terrific match with the ball.
He wasn’t as happy with the bat however – particularly his first innings 22, in which he was dismissed after getting a start.
Hopes knows Queensland’s batting in general needs to lift, after making just 163 in the first innings at the WACA and collapsing from 2-149 in the second to be all out for 210 on the back of losing 8-19 in the second innings in Adelaide.
“It’s our batting that is letting us down at the moment,” Hopes said.
“We have eight games to go and we have to not get too down about this start.”
