The opening batsman Philipp Hughes couldn’t find a place in the playing XI of the Australian Cricket team against Zimbabwe yesterday and he must have been disappointed by that.

The 25-year old left hander from New South Wales had piled on runs back home in domestic cricket and was believed to be a certainty in the XI in the absence of the regular opener David Warner, but, it wasn’t to be as the Australian think tank decided to promote the wicketkeeper batsman Brad Haddin to open.

Haddin did well as he had a 98-run stand with Aaron Finch for the first wicket and after that, it was just a hard hitting show by the Kangaroos which took them to a winning total of 350.

Hughes would definitely be feeling hard done by though as he had earned the right to open at least in the first 2-3 matches in the tri-series.

The upcoming World Cup would probably be the reason why the Australian management wanted to test the all rounders rather than Hughes.

As far as opening the batting is concerned, it’s Warner and Finch who are going to do it for Australia in the World Cup and unless one out of these two get injured before the tournament, Hughes is not going to be selected.

But, the bowling all rounder’s slot in the Australian side is still up for grabs with players such as Mitchell Marsh and James Faulkner making their claims for it. So, the Australian coach and the captain obviously had their reasons to overlook Hughes for these two players.

Nevertheless, Australia won the game comfortably with Zimbabwe not even able to get to the half way mark of the target that was set to them by the Kangaroos.

Mitchell Marsh was the man of the match for his innings of 89.