He’s the most exciting player in Australian cricket, but there’s a long way to go before Jake Fraser-McGurk can be considered for Test honours, according to legendary former Test skipper Mark Taylor.

The 22-year-old has burst onto the scene over the past year, earning an international debut after dominating in the BBL and domestic one-day competitions.

Fraser-McGurk’s ability to turn a game on its head is second to none, which is why many questioned why he was left out of Australia’s T20 World Cup squad.

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The right-hander should feature in the green and gold kit again this summer in the white-ball formats, but don’t expect to see Fraser-McGurk donning the baggy green during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series against India.

Fraser-McGurk hasn’t played in either of South Australia’s two Sheffield Shield games this season, and while selectors have shown in the past they will account for white-ball runs when picking the Test squad, that won’t be the case here.

Many have pointed to David Warner making his debut at Test level off the back of T20 success as a reason why Fraser-McGurk should be considered, but according to one of the country’s greatest opening batters, there’s a clear difference between the pair.

“I don’t know at this stage [whether he could play Test cricket], but I couldn’t put him in there right now,” Taylor told Wide World of Sports.

“If you look back at David’s career, yes he started as a T20 player, but he always had a fairly sound technique as well.

“He didn’t need a lot of fine-tuning to turn that ability to hit the ball into making runs in longer formats and I’m not sure that Fraser-McGurk is that sort of player yet.

“There’s no doubt he can whack a ball over the fence a number of times and can change a game, but he certainly hasn’t shown me enough to suggest he could do that against India or England over a five-day game.” 

Across his 16 first-class appearances to date, Fraser-McGurk has scored 550 runs at an average below 20, scoring just one century at Shield level.

The big-hitting opener has been far more proficient in the shorter formats, including a List A record for the fastest century in history off just 29 balls last October.

While there are areas of Fraser-McGurk’s game that need attention – and that will come, especially given his age – Taylor concedes selectors have taken a different approach in recent years due to the lack of red-ball cricket.

“The problem that the world of cricket has these days is that’s now the norm,” he said.

“With the amount of T20 cricket, both here at home and around the world, players get less opportunity to play Sheffield Shield or red-ball cricket.

“I think selectors these days are making decisions not just based on red-ball runs. They just look at overall form and go from there.”

Fraser-McGurk has been selected for the upcoming ODI series against Pakistan, which kicks off on November 4.