Every Test cricket career has a beginning, a middle and an end.
There has been plenty of comment lately about the selectors for the men’s team having too many players close to the end of their career and not nearly enough who are starting out or in the sweet spot of their prime.
The Cricket Australia PR machine hit back by pointing out that the selectors have indeed made some tough calls in recent years, citing the axing of Travis Head in India in 2023, Mitchell Starc being dropped during the T20 World Cup the previous year and David Warner being put on notice as his form faded drastically before he eventually retired.
It could be argued that the Head decision was not necessarily a tough call but a blatantly wrong one, dropping Starc was significant but persisting with Aaron Finch had more of an impact on Australia not advancing beyond the group stage and that Warner was hardly perturbed by any warnings from the panel as he played out his elongated retirement tour before bowing out just as he had planned a year in advance.
The word was also put out that selection isn’t just about poring through stats to calculate the best XI, which is true, but some numbers should not be ignored either.
When you are regularly fielding a team containing 10 of the 11 players over 30, then it should be obvious that change is needed sooner rather than later.
Most players take time to find their feet at the elite level, peak in the middle parts of their career and then tail off before calling it a day or getting the tap on the shoulder.
The majority of the current Australian players are in that third category.
Travis Head is definitely in the prime of his career but the rest are either in the latter stages of their prime, like Pat Cummins and perhaps Marnus Labuschagne, or heading towards the tail end like Usman Khawaja.
All-rounder Cameron Green, when he returns from back surgery, will be a building block for the future but as it stands the Australian selectors have little to go on as far as any concrete evidence to be certain that anyone else will be the nucleus of the next great Test team.
Sam Konstas, Nathan McSweeney, Todd Murphy, Matt Kuhnemann and Beau Webster, at 31, have been given brief glimpses in the past couple of years but as the elder statesmen in the current line-up start to fade away, the risk is that there will be a huge downswing in results as the next generation get used to the hustle and bustle of five-day cricket.
Very few Test cricketers, even the ones who go on to become all-time greats are able to hit the ground running straight away.
Marnus Labuschagne. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
There are exceptions – in modern times, we’ve seen the likes of Scott Boland, Mike Hussey, Adam Voges, Brad Haddin and Mark Waugh being able to fire from the get-go after serving lengthy apprenticeships in first-class cricket.
Webster could end up falling into that category after an impressive Test debut in Sydney earlier this month but surely the Australian team cannot routinely make players wait until their late 20s or early 30s before being handed a baggy green. That’s a lot of runs on the board, literally and figuratively, before getting the call.
If you slice the 10 established Australian team members’ careers into thirds based on the matches they’ve played already, the numbers show that the majority of them are in their weakest statistical phase.
Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith and Mitchell Starc are statistically struggling in the third phase of their career when compared to the first two, surprisingly along with Travis Head and Pat Cummins.
Despite a few injury dramas in recent years, Josh Hazlewood is performing better than ever, Nathan Lyon is ageing like fine wine, wicketkeeper Alex Carey is Mr Consistency and Cameron Green had been improving steadily before his back problems ruled him out for the summer.
He is no longer in the team and unlikely to get back but the third part of Mitchell Marsh’s career with the bat was his strongest, even when you factor in his gloomy numbers from the Border-Gavaskar Trophy which led to his omission from the final match and the upcoming tour to Sri Lanka.
Aussie stalwarts from start, beginning and end
| Age | Tests | First third | Middle third | Last third | |
| UT Khawaja | 38 | 78 | 1812 runs at 44.19 | 2034 at 49.6 | 1789 at 38.89 |
| M Labuschagne | 30 | 55 | 1885 runs at 60.8 | 1509 at 53.89 | 952 at 28.84 |
| SPD Smith | 35 | 114 | 3590 runs at 57.04 | 3859 at 66.53 | 2550 at 49.59 |
| TM Head | 31 | 54 | 1098 runs at 40.67 | 1208 at 52.52 | 1260 at 39.37 |
| MR Marsh | 33 | 46 | 437 runs at 23 | 782 at 26.96 | 864 at 34.56 |
| CD Green | 25 | 28 | 464 runs at 33.14 | 363 at 36.3 | 550 runs at 39.28 |
| AT Carey | 33 | 37 | 500 runs at 33.33 + 47 dismissals | 481 at 28.29 + 47 | 552 at 32.47 + 61 |
| PJ Cummins | 31 | 67 | 107 wickets at 21.32 | 102 at 20.98 | 98 at 25.58 |
| JR Hazlewood | 34 | 72 | 97 wickets at 26.07 | 87 at 27.12 | 95 at 20.71 |
| MA Starc | 34 | 94 | 129 wickets at 27.66 | 129 at 27.7 | 112 at 28.79 |
| NM Lyon | 37 | 134 | 158 wickets at 34.37 | 199 at 30.52 | 182 at 26.8 |
Khawaja did well after getting his recall in the last home Ashes series of three summers ago but as his trips to the crease have yielded vastly diminishing returns over the past 12 months.
Labuschagne is unusual in that the first third of his career has been his best so far (1885 runs at 60.8) and after a slight drop-off in the middle stages (1509 at 53.89), the last third has been easily the least productive.
In his most recent 18 Tests, he’s averaging less than half of what he did in the same timeframe at the start of his career at 28.84.
Smith, despite two tons in the 3-1 win over India, has also delivered reduced output in this third phase of his career.
His average has dipped from a “best since Bradman” peak of 64.81 during his 2019 Ashes tour de force to now being 55.86, which is still superb and puts him among the very best to who have ever played Test cricket.
Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc. (Photo by Jason McCawley – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)
But the 35-year-old is unlikely to ever get anywhere near the 60 mark again even if he were able to have another series like six years ago in England when he was at his unstoppable best.
Head had cooled off over the past 18 months or so before returning to peak form against India recently to be the leading run-scorer for the series while it also seems incongruous that Cummins has not been statistically as strong with the ball in the most-recent phase of his career.
Although his haul of 98 wickets at 25.58 is still world class and there is no end in sight for the 31-year-old skipper.
Starc’s wicket-taking ability has decreased slightly and along with Hazlewood, a decision to scale back from representing Australia in all three formats is the right move in their mid 30s.
The rule of thirds in photography is all about achieving balance – when it comes to selecting the Test team, that balance is off with too many players in the less effective final third of their career and nowhere near enough replacements getting repetitions in so that Australia can maintain their dominance into the future.
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