Mitch Marsh's ever-improving bowling is at a point where he could play as a third seamer in the SCG Test.
Marsh grabbed a career-best haul of 4-61 in the Boxing Day Test, bowling Australia to a 177-run victory.
Josh Hazlewood was sore and went wicketless in the match, while Peter Siddle was nursing an ankle issue and only bowled nine overs on day four.
Steve O'Keefe is expected to play the three-Test series finale in Sydney, with Siddle or Hazlewood to miss out.
Both Steve Smith and Darren Lehmann have supreme confidence in their allrounder to step up again if that is the case.
"He's almost a frontline quick now and that's a great thing to have in your top six," Lehmann told ABC Radio.
"I know England have got it with (Ben) Stokes, they had it with (Andrew) Flintoff before.
"We've had that with (Shane) Watson at various stages. It's important to have that."
Smith suggested he'd be more than happy to have Marsh as a third pace option in Sydney.
"When he's in a good rhythm he's as good as any of the bowlers around the country at the moment, and he hit that rhythm," Smith said.
"At the start of the day his job was to bowl cross-seam and bash the wicket hard and try and get the ball scuffed as much as possible to get it going reverse.
"He did that job really well and got the rewards late in the day for the hard work he did."
Marsh dismissed Marlon Samuels, Denesh Ramdin, Jerome Taylor and Jason Holder on Tuesday.
He sent down 17.3 overs and regularly hit the 140 km/h mark.
"It's probably as well as he's bowled in Test cricket," said Mark Taylor on the Nine Network.
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