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Marcus Stoinis will have to wait to make his Test debut after Tim Paine confirmed Australia will take an unchanged XI into the second Test against Sri Lanka in Canberra.
Stoinis was brought into the squad just hours after Australia's massive win at the Gabba, replacing Matt Renshaw, and the all-rounder was believed to be a good chance to earn a baggy green in the final Test of the home summer.
But Paine said he was pleased to be able to take the same team into the Canberra match, meaning no room for Stoinis or young gun Will Pucovski.
"Coming off a good win, we are happy with our combination," Paine said.
"This pitch is probably slightly different, and we think we'll be able to get more overs out of Marnus [Labuschagne] on a pitch like this."
Continuity appears to be the order of the day for Australia, with Paine also indicating there were never any plans to leave the out-of-form Mitchell Starc out of this match, or to hand Pat Cummins the new ball.
"I think Jhye [Richardson] bowled beautifully with [the new ball] and we've used Starcy for a long time with the new ball," he said.
"We think he is still our best new-ball bowler when he gets it right so we'll always give him the first few.
"Hopefully he can swing a few and if he does he's more than likely to get an early breakthrough. But what we have done is bring Pat on a lot earlier than we have in the past.
"We're still reasonably happy with [Starc's] output.
"He's not 100 per cent at his best but I think that's a sign of how good a bowler he is that he's still finding ways to pick up wickets at certain times.
"Like I said post-Brisbane Test, when he gets it right he's going to be devastating. Hopefully it will be this Test straight-up tomorrow morning, or potentially some reverse swing."
Aside from the bowlers, Paine says this Test represents a big opportunity for Australia's rookie batting line-up to establish themselves as Test players on what he calls "traditionally a good batting wicket".
"It's another great opportunity. We've used that word a lot this summer, but I thought Travis and Marnus in particular batted really well [in Brisbane]," he said.
"Those two are really close to [a Test ton], and I think this wicket will be another great opportunity for our batting group to get that hundred that we haven't been able to score this summer.
"We'd like to tick that off."
The second Test begins at Canberra's Manuka Oval on Friday morning.
Topics: cricket, sport, canberra-2600, act, australia
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