Cam Green might be worth $4m in the IPL, but should he be in the Test team?

Australia will have more chances to retain the Ashes, and maybe it was the knowledge of this luxury that led to their wastefulness on Wednesday.

If you could put the urn on a platter, it would look like this: Adelaide Oval, toasting heat, weakened opponent and the skipper is grinning and making a batting signal after the toss. Keep England in the field until Thursday afternoon when they’ll be hotter than the tea urn.

Responsibility for carrying out the plan, however, was passed on like it was too scalding to handle. Batsmen kept leaving hot messes for someone else to clean up. Eventually, the job fell to Mitchell Starc, of course, and Alex Carey, who does everything that Starc doesn’t.

By the end, the first day’s output of 8-326, which would have been outstanding in Perth and good in Brisbane, was just passable in Adelaide, a city where nobody usually turns down an invitation.

Opportunity knocked for every Australian batsman, but none more than it did for Usman Khawaja and Cameron Green. Khawaja, his late inclusion a 39th birthday gift, made sure that Steve Smith wasn’t missed too badly. Watchful early, Khawaja needed one dropped chance to trigger his return to rhythm.

For half the day he made his point, reminding all of his pure quality as a Test cricketer, tucking and caressing his way to 82 before being the next Australian to perish through carelessness.

If this was a day that was set up for anyone, though, it was one for the long-awaited Green. But, worth $4 million on Tuesday night, he was worth two balls on Wednesday morning, out to a diffident leg-side push.

Khawaja’s innings, and Smith’s return, will place some overdue selection pressure on Green unless he can displace it by the weekend. Bit by bit, his potential is evolving from when to if. Eventually he has to become the great white reality of Australian cricket.

It is, to be honest, a little puzzling how much Australia invests into finding a great Test all-rounder, considering they haven’t had one since Alan Davidson. They have had worthy spin-bowling all-rounders such as Greg Matthews, batting all-rounders such as Waugh twins Steve and Mark, bowling all-rounders like Shane Warne and Mitchell Johnson (and Starc!), but 60-plus years since Davidson and Richie Benaud retired, not one cricketer for whom Green is hoped to be the template.

Is Green instead the next Shane Watson? Maybe that’s an overreach, too: Watson was a capable contributor at the top of the order for nearly a decade. Lumped with the expectation of being his generation’s Keith Miller, Watson flattered to deceive but still carved out a useful Test career.

The comparison is as suggestive as the style of play. The stats are unnervingly alike. After 35 Test matches, Green and Watson had scored two Test centuries. Green averages 33.34 with the bat and has taken 36 wickets at 36.58. After his first 35 Test matches, Watson averaged 37 with the bat and had taken 45 wickets at 33.7.

Watson, in other words, was doing slightly better. At the end of his 59 Tests, Watson’s figures didn’t shift much, and nor did the widespread hope in Australia that he could be just that little bit better.

Like Watson, Green is a superb physical specimen who nevertheless reminds you of the adage that smaller people have an innate advantage with the bat, in the Test format anyway. Those big levers can create so much power and pleasure when they come through in perfect synch, but when the timing is a little off, as it was when Green played a fraction too early in Adelaide on Wednesday, the bigger player seems to have less time to adjust.

Perhaps it’s just a perception, or perhaps Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara were onto something when they said that being on the small side helped.

Between now and the end of the Adelaide Test match, Green will have more opportunities. Thanks to his team’s wasteful Wednesday – “Not a bad situation” was the best spin that the saviour Carey could put on it – Green will have chances to repay the long-term faith that has been placed in him.

Having slipped out of Australia’s best six batsmen, he might start, on Thursday, by earning his place with the ball. Even in 37-degree heat, that’s the supposed beauty of being an all-rounder.