Australia’s change-resistant selectors can probably keep playing for the now without worrying about rebuilding their Test team for the future.
Not because it’s the right thing to do – quite the opposite, a strong selection panel is continually refreshing a team to ensure it’s as strong as it can be now and for the future.
With Australia A captain Nathan McSweeney likely to be the only player under 30 when the team is named for the first Test against India on November 22, it’s clear that the selectors are still prioritising winning this series instead of ushering in fresh blood.
But such is the parlours state of all the other Test-playing nations, the Aussies won’t face much opposition in their bid to remain the kings of five-day cricket for the next few years and into the next era when the veteran stars in the current team finally hang up their well-worn baggy green caps.
As long as Pat Cummins’ team regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and don’t collapse in their two-Test tour to Sri Lanka early next year they will be the top-ranked side heading into their title defence in the final next June at Lord’s.
India are considered the team most likely to threaten Australia’s status as world Test champions but they are facing a similar grey of reckoning with Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin in the twilight of their glittering careers.
They have already shown signs of a dramatic drop-off being imminent after suffering the ignominy of a 3-0 series sweep on home soil against New Zealand recently.
India need to win 4-0 in the five Border-Gavaskar Trophy matches Down Under to ensure they qualify for next year’s World Test Championship final after their Black Caps demolition.
On current form, they won’t be racking up a fifth straight series win over the Aussies and they may not even win a Test with Mohammad Shami sidelined, leaving a heavy fast bowling load on Jasprit Bumrah’s shoulders.
Virat Kohli. (Photo by Abhishek Chinnappa/Getty Images)
If you drink the Bazball brand Kool-Aid which has been served up in the UK over the past couple of years, you would be mistaken for thinking England have become Australia’s greatest Test threat.
In a word, no. They have just lost to Pakistan and sit a lowly sixth on the World Test Championship standings, needing a minor mathematical miracle to sneak into the trophy decider for the current cycle, which encompasses the Bazball era in all its self-aggrandising glory.
Because they have had more points than anyone deducted for slow over rates, even if they win all three Tests in their upcoming NZ tour, they still won’t even get to 50% on the table. But hey, they’re entertainer first, a cricket team second apparently.
James Anderson and Stuart Broad are long gone, Joe Root is still a run machine but getting long in the tooth at 35, Ben Stokes is struggling to recapture his best as his chronic knee problem takes its toll while the world-class player who could make all the difference, Jofra Archer, is rarely sighted in the international arena anymore as injuries pile up faster than one of his thunderbolts.
World Test Championship
| Won | Lost | Drawn | Percentage | |
| Australia | 8 | 3 | 1 | 62.5 |
| India | 8 | 5 | 1 | 58.33 |
| Sri Lanka | 5 | 4 | 0 | 55.56 |
| New Zealand | 6 | 5 | 0 | 54.55 |
| South Africa | 4 | 3 | 1 | 54.17 |
| England | 9 | 9 | 1 | 40.79 |
| Pakistan | 4 | 6 | 0 | 33.33 |
| Bangladesh | 3 | 7 | 0 | 27.5 |
| West Indies | 1 | 6 | 2 | 18.52 |
Apart from Harry Brook, there is no English player who you can confidently say will be a long-term star whether they stick with the Bazball hullabaloo or not.
Then there’s the battlers punching above their weight – New Zealand.
They managed to win in India despite being without their main man in Kane Williamson.
It’s a great story and after winning the inaugural WTC final after qualifying ahead of the Aussies when they were pinged for slow over rates, the Kiwis are a chance of making it back to the one-off showdown for the trophy.
If they win their remaining three Tests in the WTC cycle they could be one of the two final teams standing.
The very fact that South Africa are in the hunt doesn’t add much credibility to the state of Test cricket right now – the Proteas sent their B team to New Zealand last year while keeping their top-line stars at home to play in their T20 competition.
They have four Tests left on home soil – a couple against Sri Lanka next month then two more against Pakistan – in the qualifying period and could even top the standings despite their blase attitude to the red-ball format.
Sri Lanka are the only other team with a chance of making the final but would need to win in South Africa and upset the Aussies to snare an unlikely berth.
Pakistan are only a theoretical chance of making the final while Bangladesh and West Indies are making up the numbers while the other three Test-playing nations, Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe are literally and figuratively not even in the league.
With players in many of the nations not called Australia, England and India knocking back central contracts with their national governing body to pick and choose when they are available for international duty, does anyone realistically think one of the other countries is about to embark on a period of success in the Test arena?
(Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
Cummins and co might as well stick around into their late 30s – the Aussies could be playing in the next WTC final after this one and the Ashes in three years time with the same bowling quartet that has been an immovable force for several years already.
The selectors have proved over the past couple of seasons with David Warner in all three formats and Aaron Finch in the white-ball formats that they are reluctant to tap any long-serving stars on the shoulder unless their form reaches horrendous levels.
Nathan Lyon has already declared he wants to soldier on until the ‘27 Ashes when he will be a few months shy of his 40th birthday and there’s a fair chance that not only will Cummins at 34, Mitchell Starc (37) and Josh Hazlewood (36) be sharing the Dukes ball with him but Steve Smith, aged 38 by then, will still be in the line-up as well.
The best-case scenario for opener Usman Khawaja, who turns 38 in a few weeks, is probably lasting until next summer’s home Ashes while Alex Carey and Mitch Marsh are already 33 and Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne round out the 30-plus brigade of the current side.
Australia fielded the side with the oldest average age (33) in nearly a century last year and the record held by the 1926 side which was slightly under 36 may be under threat in the not-too-distant future.
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