da betsson： Former Australia opener and Victoria coach Chris Rogers believes both are capable of playing for Australia in the future after promising Sheffield Shield showings

da bet sport： Alex Malcolm11-Mar-2025Former Australia Test opener and current Victoria coach Chris Rogers cut a frustrated figure at the Junction Oval on Sunday evening following his side’s fourth straight Sheffield Shield loss. But his exasperated tone quickly changed when talking about the performances of two of his young batters in Harry Dixon and Campbell Kellaway in the four-wicket loss to South Australia.Kellaway, 22, top-scored in both innings on a tricky surface with scores of 79 and 77 in a game where the three other openers in the match combined for scores of 0, 0, 1, 19, 1 and 66.Dixon, 20, produced a stunning counter-attacking 76 in the second innings, his highest first-class score in just his third game, after watching a collapse of 5 for 20 from the non-striker’s end to ensure Victoria had a 300-run target to defend. He had been unlucky to be dismissed lbw for 0 in the first innings to a delivery that looked to have both pitched and struck his pad outside the line of leg stump.Related

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Victoria do not currently have a batting representative in Australia’s Test top seven and did not have a single batter selected on the recent tour of Sri Lanka. They have produced fewer Test batters in the last 30 years than any state in Australian domestic cricket.Rogers, who played 24 of his 25 Tests for Australia while representing Victoria having started his career in Western Australia, hopes both Kellaway and Dixon are prospects capable of turning that drought around.”Kellaway has been a work in progress for a number of years,” Rogers told ESPNcricinfo. “I think he’s played 29 first-class games now, and those two innings, I think, were probably his two best innings. They’re not his highest innings, but the way he went about it, the areas he scored, the tempo he went at, that looked like a player who could go on and open the batting for Australia.”And Harry Dixon, I think it’s a talent that everyone in Victorian cricket has been pretty excited about. And when you see a guy farming the strike and smacking the ball up onto the hill with all the fielders on the boundary, you get pretty excited about that.”

“He plays a style of cricket that’s not dissimilar to a lot of players that are coming through and it’s a bit more like Travis Head and Davey Warner. He can kind of hit that ball off the top of the stumps, the waist-high delivery, in front of square on both the off side and the leg side. I remember standing down the other end from Davey Warner when he would do that thinking how the hell have you managed to hit that ball there, when there’s no way I could. And Harry has that skill.”Victoria coach Chris Rogers on Harry Dixon

Dixon’s 76 off 86 balls featured six fours and five sixes and he scored 74 of them with the tail after Victoria slumped from 161 for 2 to 181 for 7. He smashed Australia Test squad member Brendan Doggett for consecutive sixes including one out of the ground with three men back on the fence on the leg side. The left-hander has been one of the least talked about talents to come from Australia’s 2024 Under-19 World Cup winning team.Chris Rogers played 25 Tests for Australia between 2008 and 2015•Getty ImagesWhile all of the recent attention has been focused on Sam Konstas after his extraordinary rise to Test cricket, it has been forgotten that Dixon comfortably outperformed Konstas at Under-19 level as his opening partner. Dixon was Australia’s leading runscorer in the World Cup posting three half-centuries and a vital 42 in the final. He dominated the 2023 Under-19 Ashes tour scoring two Youth Test centuries. He scored another Youth ODI century in early 2023 against England smashing 148 off 125 balls in Brisbane.Despite a desire to be an opener in all formats like his idol David Warner, Rogers sees him more in the Travis Head mould in red-ball cricket at least.”As a junior he’s been a top-order batter but that’s because I would have said he’s almost solely played one-day cricket, because that’s what you do playing junior cricket,” Rogers said.”Red-ball cricket is a bit different. He probably looks at the moment a bit more of someone the opposition doesn’t really want coming in that middle-order when the ball is a bit older and a bit softer and doing less because he can change the game in an hour or so. He plays a style of cricket that’s not dissimilar to a lot of players that are coming through and it’s a bit more like Travis Head and Davey Warner.”He can kind of hit that ball off the top of the stumps, the waist-high delivery, in front of square on both the off side and the leg side. I remember standing down the other end from Davey Warner when he would do that thinking how the hell have you managed to hit that ball there, when there’s no way I could. And Harry has that skill.”What I like too is he can score through the leg side when he needs to but he’s also really good through the off side. And technically I don’t think you touch him. I think he’s pretty much what he’s going to be. He’ll obviously learn the game, but the game will teach him. He’s someone to be very excited about, I think, for Victoria and for Australia.”Campbell Kellaway is having a break out season in 2024-25•Getty ImagesWhile Dixon looks ready made as a first-class middle-order player, Kellaway has been a slower burn at the top of the order. He began his first-class career in November 2022 and bounced around Victoria’s middle-order without ever nailing down a position despite being selected to play three matches for Australia A in 2023 after playing just five first-class matches and scoring only two half-centuries.He started the 2024-25 Shield season at No. 3 and made 55 on a difficult MCG pitch against a New South Wales attack that featured Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon in October and made 80 against ladder leaders South Australia at Adelaide Oval. He was moved up to open in the game against Queensland and made his maiden first-class century, scoring 122 in the second innings at the Gabba to help Victoria win after conceding a 111-run first innings deficit. He also posted his maiden List A century against NSW last month scoring 117* off 101 balls to help Victoria chase 311 inside 38 overs to qualify for the Dean Jones Trophy Final.Rogers has seen a development in his batting this season that goes beyond just technical improvement.”He hits more balls than anybody I’ve ever seen, and that’s quite something because I’ve seen the likes of [Steve] Smith and co,” Rogers said. “But he probably has worked, I think, predominantly on technical stuff, which has always been a bit of work in progress. But of late, it’s been more around how he’s been needing to play, especially opening the batting.”I know he’s batted No. 3, but open the batting it can be really tricky. And we’ve been sitting down and talking a lot more around that. I think last year he got a fifty here against Western Australia in the second innings, and he scored two twos in that 50, and one of them was an accidental inside edge and that’s probably not how you’re going to go as an opener.”You’re probably scoring quite a high percentage of ones and twos and playing within yourself to absorb the new ball, and then in this game I think there was over 10 twos in his first 50. So there’s just a bit more growth. It’s not bang four or block it. It’s more kind of in that mid range, working the ball, understanding risk management and all those kind of things. Even the positions I thought he was in when he was looking to drive were the best I’ve seen him.”Victoria are still a mathematical chance to make the Shield final despite currently sitting fifth on the table with one game remaining against Western Australia in Perth. They need to beat WA and need South Australia and Tasmania to beat Queensland and NSW respectively as two draws in those games won’t be enough.Despite still being a chance to play in the final, Victoria will consider debuting another youngster in Dixon’s Under-19 World Cup winning team-mate Oliver Peake. The 18-year-old left-hander was named in the squad against South Australia but ran the drinks. He made 99 in Victoria’s last second XI match against WA and recently went on Australia’s Test tour of Sri Lanka as a long-term development player.