Bulls Set For Shield Opener

The Bulls take on Tasmania at Allan Border Field from Saturday with the squad released today to be finalised prior to the toss.

Khawaja will play the opening Shield game for the Bulls as part of Australia’s build-up for the upcoming Ashes series.

Queensland Cricket will work with Cricket Australia and support their plans for Khawaja’s individual playing preparations between now and the opening Test of the Ashes series on 21 November.

Fellow Ashes contender Marnus Labuschagne will captain the Queensland team this weekend.

With batter Lachlan Hearne and pace bowlers Tom Straker and Xavier Bartlett in India playing for Australia ‘A’, the Queensland selectors have included allrounders Hugh Weibgen and Hayden Kerr in the squad.

If chosen in the starting team, Weibgen and Kerr would make their first-class debuts for Queensland, with 20-year-old Weibgen already making his mark in his initial two One Day Cup games for the Bulls.

In just his second game, his unbeaten century helped the Bulls clinch a thrilling win over Western Australia at Allan Border Field to deliver an unbeaten start to the limited overs season for Queensland.

Kerr, who relocated to Queensland in the winter and was contracted as a replacement for Ben McDermott, has previously played Shield cricket for NSW.

Also included in the squad is Gold Coast batter Hugo Burdon and Valley paceman Benji Floros, who each made their first class debuts last season.

Burdon is coming off a century as captain of the Queensland Second XI in their outright win over South Australia in Brisbane last week in the Toyota National Second XI competition.

The match will be the first played under Cricket Australia’s recently unveiled injury replacement trial rule across the first five rounds of this season's Sheffield Shield competition.

Presently teams can make unlimited concussion substitutions across all four days of a Shield game but under the trial, there will be an additional like-for-like injury replacement available to both teams up until stumps on day two.

Teams will be allowed to replace any player with another player of the same skill set (for example, a fast bowler for a fast bowler, a batter for a batter, a spinner for a spinner) because of any injury or illness that has occurred from any point after the toss.

Teams will need to make a request to the match referee to approve the replacement.

The match will be streamed live through the CricketLive app and online at cricket.com.au

Admission is free.

Sheffield Shield
Queensland v Tasmania
Allan Border Field
Sat – Tues, 10am daily.

33. Marnus Labuschagne (c)
29. Hugo Burdon
21. Jack Clayton
25. Benji Floros
49. Hayden Kerr
18. Usman Khawaja
20. Michael Neser
59. Jimmy Peirson
77. Matthew Renshaw
14. Gurinder Sandhu
4. Mitchell Swepson
23. Hugh Weibgen
24. Jack Wildermuth
(12th man to be named)