Jake Weatherald spent Monday morning in the Perth nets, Australia badge on his chest for the first time, trading drives with Usman Khawaja in adjoining lanes. Both left-handers stand tall at the crease, but similarities largely stop there. One is an established Test run-machine, the other still waiting for a maiden cap, yet the pair have already found an easy, slightly mischievous rapport.
Weatherald fired the opening shot on the Grade Cricketer podcast, admitting he was unsure whether Khawaja even knew his name after “playing against him for 10 years”. Instagram loved it. Khawaja’s reply, a deadpan “Who this?”, kept the joke rolling. On his official first day in the national dressing-room, Weatherald was still laughing.
“He still calls me Jack, so we’ll get there eventually,” he smiled. “Hopefully, if I get a game, he can find Jake there somewhere.”
Humour aside, Khawaja could hardly be blamed for a little confusion. Should selectors confirm Weatherald for Friday’s series opener, the Tasmanian will become Khawaja’s seventh Test opening partner in just two years. Four days out, no final decision has been shared with the squad – a small sign of how unsettled Australia’s post-Warner top order remains.
Statistically, Weatherald offers stability. All 145 of his first-class innings have come at the top; he owns 13 hundreds and more overall runs opening than any of the other candidates. Khawaja, for context, has 11 first-class hundreds as an opener, though nine arrived in Tests and have come at a rate most Australian greats would covet.
Numbers, of course, only count for so much. An Ashes debut, under the lights in front of 60,000 people, asks different questions. At 31, and having handled tougher moments off the field, Weatherald still looked every inch the new kid on Monday: leaning on the boundary fence, staring up at the sweeping stands, letting imagination take over.
“I’ve played a little bit of Big Bash cricket here, but at the same time, to represent your country in a place like this, it’s such a cool stadium,” he reflected. “To look out and see what it looked like, obviously with everyone full and obviously walking out to bat, I was sort of imagining what it’d be like to go out there.”
The practical challenge, he accepts, begins once the first ball leaves James Anderson’s hand. “I think that’s going to be the true test for myself, to go out there and just try and operate the same way. And if I walk out there and nick off first ball then I walk out the innings after and try to repeat the same thing again, in terms of my process.”
On Monday he was still minus an official Test number. Eleven of the 13 squad members fronting media had theirs stitched above the Cricket Australia crest; only Weatherald and seamer Brendan Doggett were blank. The left-hander did, however, have the initials “JW” pressed below the collar, along with the number 66 on his back – the same as Joe Root. Whether it is a playful nod to Root, Chuck Berry’s ‘Route 66’ or nothing at all, nobody asked. He merely grinned, tugged at the fresh fabric, and headed back to the nets.
Selection meetings continue through mid-week, and team management have suggested conditions will guide the final call. Whatever the verdict, Weatherald sounded content to wait, guitar-loving calm intact.
“If it’s this week, brilliant. If it’s later in the summer, also brilliant,” he said, tucking bat under arm. “Right now I’m just trying to enjoy each minute in the kit, even if the bloke next to me still thinks my name’s Jack.”
