If the summer of cricket is cancelled due to the coronavirus and India is unable to enter the country, what should replace that series?

Gerard Whateley believes Cricket Australia should bring back the Australia versus Australia A arrangement and stage it across all three formats of the game.

This would see the main Australian test, ODI and T20 teams taking on XIs made up of the next best group.

These players will be highly motivated to prove they’re on par with the main team and have likely been snubbed from selection in the past.

“If we got to the point where international travel still wasn’t a possibility, so teams couldn’t come here and India couldn’t come here to fulfil the schedule, and New Zealand couldn’t step in and provide an international summer, could we stage Australia versus Australia A in all three formats to provide cricket?” Whateley said on SEN.

“I think it would be gripping in a different, quirky, wonderful kind of way.

“If you made Glenn Maxwell captain across all three formats … what your searching for is a fair dinkum contest. You’re looking for tension, people with something to prove and a touchstone.

“Maxwell captaining an Australia A team in all forms would achieve that. Imagine that!”

Former Australian cricketer Simon Katich loves the idea.

“I agree that it would be gripping as well. The Australian public love seeing a contest and the beauty about the Australia A concept is that you’ve got this scenario where all the players know each other inside out and are highly competitive much like the state competition,” he told SEN’s Whateley.

“When you’ve got guys vying for spots in that Australian team, which we have seen in recent times, a number of young players have stepped into the main team and there’s a few probably experienced players that have been dropped.

“Guys like Glenn Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis and these guys that have been dropped, if they’re in the Australia A team then it augurs for a terrific contest and something that could be played in Australia. I think public would really enjoy it.”

Katich picked what his XI would be for the Australia A team for the 50 over format – not including anyone picked in the most recent ODI side.

Australian ODI side:

Aaron Finch, David Warner, Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, D’Arcy Short, Mitch Marsh, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa and Josh Hazlewood

ODI Australia A:

Josh Phillipe, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Moises Henriques, Travis Head, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Kane Richardson, Jhye Richardson, Nathan Lyon and Riley Meredith__

Looking to how the T20 version of Australia versus Australia A would work, Sydney Sixers coach Greg Shipperd also picked his team on SEN’s Whateley.

Australian T20 side:

David Warner, Aaron Finch, Steve Smith, Matthew Wade, Glenn Maxwell, Alex Carey, Mitch Marsh, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa (Ashton Agar 12th man)__

T20 Australia A:

D’Arcy Short, Josh Phillipe, Marcus Stoinis, Moises Henriques, Jono Wells, Sean Abbott, Daniel Sams, Jhye Richardson, Cameron Boyce, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood (Will Sutherland 12th man)

Whateley has also named his test XI for the Australia A side.

Australian Test side:

David Warner, Joe Burns, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Matthew Wade, Tim Paine, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood (James Pattinson 12th man)__

Test Australia A:

Marcus Harris, Jake Weatherald, Nic Maddinson, Will Pucovski, Alex Carey, Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green, Michael Neser, Mitch Swepson, Jackson Bird, Wes Agar (Ashton Agar 12th man)__