The Test match arena is cricket’s great leveller and Australia are getting exactly what they deserve as the cumulative effects of a string of soft selection calls and poor preparations add up to a pummeling in Perth.
At 3-12 at the end of day three, the victory target of 534 may as well be 1534 because they will be lucky to last the first two sessions on Monday let alone mount any serious challenge to India in the fourth innings.
The Australian camp has been rejecting calls for a long time to freshen up the team but the captain, coach and selectors have been in denial about what should have been obvious – that this team is living on past reputations rather than current form.
And that’s a recipe for disaster in any sport, let alone the five-day format of cricket where there is nowhere to hide.
The fork in the road was more than a year ago at the 2023 Ashes.
Manchester’s rain saved Australia’s skin in the fourth Test and allowed Pat Cummins’ squad to retain the urn when in reality, they were fortunate to hold off England’s Bazball momentum.
By returning home with the Ashes, it allowed the selectors to pat themselves on the back and yet again the bleedingly obvious call to tap David Warner after an underwhelming series on the shoulder and bring in fresh blood when the opportunity presented itself.
They would have been better off losing the Ashes so there could be no option but to make changes.
Cameron Bancroft, Matt Renshaw and Marcus Harris had mounted decent cases for a recall but they were left to wither on the vine as Warner was allowed another three Tests more than he should have before retiring at the start of this year.
What the selectors did not see coming was Marnus Labuschagne, Usman Khawaja, Travis Head, Steve Smith and now Mitchell Marsh entering a collective form slump as well as Cameron Green getting rubbed out of this summer due to back surgery.
The Smith to opener experiment was again the convenient call for the selectors as it allowed them to shoehorn Green into the line-up.
Marnus Labuschagne is dismissed LBW. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
And when it failed after four Tests, the selectors tried to claim Nathan McSweeney was the best candidate with panel chief George Bailey claiming his record at first drop or No.4 when early wickets fell at South Australia was strong even though statistical evidence was to the contrary.
Cummins and the senior players were integral in previous coach Justin Langer’s abrupt exit a few years back because there was concern that he wielded too much power in the dressing room.
Now the same can be said about the cosy relationship that exists between Cummins, coach Andrew McDonald and Bailey’s panel.
Decisions appear to be made to suit the players, not the Australian cricket team.
The players are too canny to say anything publicly, apart from veteran spinner Nathan Lyon who has been open about wanting to go on the 2027 Ashes tour, but it appears the established stars are all keen to plan out the final few years of their career to get their own fairytale farewell like Warner’s home-ground sign-off at the SCG.
McSweeney looked sadly out of his depth against Jasprit Bumrah in this Test with the Indian skipper claiming him for 10 and a duck.
Labuschagne also looked like a nervous debutant not a player who was once the ICC’s top-ranked Test batter – in his last 10 innings he has past 10 just once when he scored 90 in Christchurch – and is averaging 13.66.
For reasons known only to the Australian selection panel, they burnt the chance to give Labuschagne and Smith an extra Sheffield Shield hit-out leading into the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to play them in two of the three meaningless ODIs for the series against Pakistan.
Neither player necessarily needs to be in the team and after not playing a Test for more than eight months, any chance for some red-ball cricket should be locked in.
Cummins, after already skipping the white-ball tour to the UK in September, did not bother with a Shield outing but did turn out for a rare one-day cup match for NSW.
Head and Marsh were on paternity leave and nobody is going to begrudge them that time off but neither player can afford to fall cheaply again in the second innings.
Virat Kohli of India celebrates reaching a century. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Marsh is an all-rounder in name only – at 33, he is always either carrying an injury, returning from one or building up his bowling loads. He did not bowl in either of the two Shield matches he chalked up in October and his listless 12-over effort in the second innings was hardly the kind of support that Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc deserved after bowling themselves into the ground over the first three days at Optus Stadium.
Head has mustered just 209 runs at 23.22 this calendar year with 119 of them coming in one of his occasional whirlwind innings which are then offset by a string of low scores – 0, 0, 1, 29, 21, 18 and 11 in this instance.
His white-ball performances over the past year or so have been spectacular but that should not make up for the fact that he has become unreliable at Test level.
After the last rites have been delivered in this Test on Monday and Australia wonder how they have copped such a thunderous thrashing after bowling a team out for 150 inside the first two sessions of the match, attention will turn to the line-up for the second fixture in Adelaide on December 6.
Wholesale changes don’t need to be made but none of the top six batters should feel secure about their spot in the side, including Smith after his golden duck in the first dig, which could be yet another sign that his illustrious career is entering a final phase of diminishing returns.
(Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Beau Webster, as a potential all-rounder who actually bowls, young opener Sam Konstas or Josh Inglis as a specialist bat in the middle order should all be considered viable options to shake up this side.
But if you look at this selection panel’s history of erring on the side of “backing the player to come good”, there’s a fair chance that the same XI that has been thoroughly outplayed in Perth will be rolled out again in Adelaide against an Indian team which will be strengthened by the likely inclusions of Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill and perhaps Mohammed Shami.
Cricket Australia’s execs clearly see nothing wrong with the way the current brains trust has been resting on their laurels – after all, they recently re-signed McDonald until the end of 2027.
This Australian team, from the players to the coach and the selectors, has been allowed to dine out on its past success and that inevitably leads to failure in the future. And the future is now.
>Cricket News
%20(3).jpeg)
0 Comments