Then he would get the old Freo from the test team as well, Happy and they would bring in whoever they believe to be the next best option.
How hold do you think Quiney is?
He didn't mention age, with relation to the batting options he mentioned there, he just said "identifying talent", meaning he thinks Quiney has talent, that we perhaps ought to test out at the highest level.
From memory, Quiney is the same sort of age Mike Hussey and Adam Gilchrist were when they made their test debuts, for instance. Not saying Quiney is necessarily anywhere near as good as them, but if we draw lines through anyone around the age of 30, simply because of their age, we could miss out on the next Hussey, or Gilly. If someone could have 5-7 years of quality test cricket in them, we ought to look at them for sure. Especially if Ponting goes before the Ashes and we have two Ashes series to win.
David Hussey averages 54.84 at FC level, striking at 70.90
One would be inclined to think that a sustained period of run scoring resulting in a FC average pushing 55 may constitute "banging the door down" but that's neither here nor there.
The problem for Duss is that, because of his T20 and ODI commitments for Australia, plus his $1.4 mil contract in the IPL, he is hardly playing any first class cricket anymore, so he is almost "out of sight out of mind", as far as all that goes.
Runs used to spew out of him basically every time he touched English soil, but since he started playing in the IPL, he hasn't been playing much (if any) County cricket and he doesn't play much Shield cricket any more, either, so it makes it hard. From memory he made over 200 runs in his last Shield game (and was only dismissed once), so he can certainly still get it done in FC cricket, but he just plays so little of it now that it would probably be a risk to pick him for tests.
Then there is the likelihood of him not playing for long, if he did get a game, so that will lessen the appeal greatly, especially if they reckon there is someone else who would be as likely to succeed, who is much younger than him.
If we were picking someone largely for the Ashes in England, though, you could do a lot worse than pick someone who has had 4 1000+ runs seasons in County cricket, who has lots of international experience and is in good form (assuming he still is then), though.