‘Champions united’? Cam Green’s not in Ash Barty’s league. It’s time he imposed himself

Barty is a legend of Australian sport, with a couple of grand slam titles to prove it. It’s equally undeniable that Cameron Green is nowhere near that level. AnalysisSportCricketCameron Green‘Champions united’? Cam Green’s not in Ash Barty’s league. It’s time he imposed himselfBy Daniel Brettig February 16, 2026 — 6.00amSaveLog in, register or subscribe to save articles for later.Save articles for laterAdd articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.Got itNormal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text sizeAdvertisementIn Australia this summer, duty-free halls at international airports have been emblazoned with shots of Cameron Green selling high-end watches alongside Ash Barty.Green was very visible across the home Ashes summer in parallel television ad campaigns, and even sat down for a glossy interview with Esquire.Ash Barty and Cameron Green in an advertising campaign for Rado watches.The appearances, the adverts, the crossovers with Barty, an undeniable legend: all of these pointed to Green's status as a Big Deal in Australian cricket. Among contemporaries, it has been the captain Pat Cummins who's most often occupied similar real estate in major ad campaigns and luxury men's magazines.About the only thing missing from this picture, however, is arguably the most important. Green's recent performance for Australia has been spotty at best; at worst, his development appears to have stalled quite a way below his expected ceiling.Against Zimbabwe on Friday night, Green should have been the key man to break the back of Australia’s T20 World Cup chase in Colombo. Instead, his second-ball duck was the moment the early loss of Josh Inglis became a collapse, as Tim David and Travis Head closely followed to turn 1-24 into 4-29 and a defeat that puts Australia on extremely shaky ground for the rest of the pool phase.It certainly did not help the Rado campaign. Undeniably, Barty is a legend of Australian sport, with a couple of grand slam titles to prove it. Equally undeniably, Green is nowhere near that level.In a blurb accompanying one of the ads, Rado intones that Barty and Green are: "Champions united by excellence. Whether on the court or the pitch, Ash Barty and Cameron Green share more than talent, they embody Rado’s core values: dedication, precision, and the drive for constant improvement."For Australia’s sake, the hope must be that Green finally begins to make that improvement in the remainder of the Cup. With Cummins and Josh Hazlewood absent, Mitchell Starc retired, and a nasty injury cloud now hovering over captain Mitch Marsh, it is Green who really needs to step up, starting in the must-win game against Sri Lanka overnight on Monday.AdvertisementDejected, Cameron Green departs the crease after his second-ball duck against Zimbabwe.Credit: Getty ImagesMarsh suffered what was initially thought to be a fairly typical blow to the groin during a net session in Colombo during the days leading up to the first Cup game against Ireland. But when his discomfort lingered longer than the usual period in which teammates often struggle to hide their mirth, scans showed the consequences: evidence of testicular bleeding.That was enough to get Steve Smith booked on a plane from Adelaide, where he took part in Wednesday's LIV Golf pro-am at Grange, to join the team on standby in Colombo.But irrespective of whether Marsh stays or goes, it is Green who should be best-placed to have a major impact on Australia’s hopes.He has already been handed the prime No.3 spot in the batting order. It’s the same position from which Marsh made what is still among his most indelible contributions to Australian cricket, as the top order enforcer in a drought-breaking T20 World Cup campaign in the UAE in 2021.An intriguing element of the Green story is how his steady development as a Test batter started to come undone in the aftermath of his first impactful T20 innings for Australia. Green made a pair of rapid and eye-catching half centuries against India in late 2022. Those innings put him in high demand for the 2023 Indian Premier League, and he was sold to Mumbai Indians for a whopping $4.2 million.Green went on to India in early 2023 and performed well in the Test team, capped with his first Test hundred – in partnership with Usman Khawaja – in Ahmedabad. That innings helped take Green to a record of 941 runs at 37.64 from his first 20 Tests.Another image of Green from the Rado campaign.But where Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood and others had skipped the 2023 IPL due to the huge amount of international cricket on the table that year, Green stayed on and ended up spending about four months there.In 17 Tests since, either side of back surgery that kept him out of the picture last summer, Green has cobbled 795 runs at 28.39 with one hundred (a sublime 174 in Wellington) and one 50. Within a team that has struggled recently with the bat, Green’s returns have been mediocre rather than disastrous, but they’re not comparable to Barty’s achievements in tennis.The counterpoint to Green's struggles in Tests is that he has spent more time honing his T20 game, p