Batting line-up reshuffle needed to end season of ‘predictable dilemmas’ for Australian Cricket
For Australian cricket this has become a season of predictable dilemmas.
The first and most obvious was that, without the Cape Town Three, Australia would struggle to build substantial innings.
And, sure enough, in their first significant challenge on the dry but hardly unplayable MCG track, Australia's top six failed miserably replying to India's 7/443 with scores of 151 and 261, the second instalment flattered by the heroic contribution of the game's new poster boy Patrick Cummins.
But to reverse an old golfing term, Australia's batting woes were as much a case of how as how many.
So profligate was the batting, so loose the shots that gifted wickets to the skilled and disciplined Indian bowlers, that to retain the same line-up, and certainly the same order, for Sydney brings to mind the now common definition of madness: doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result.
Erstwhile opener Aaron Finch must at the very least be shuffled down to the lower-order spot where he has done his best first-class work.
Mitchell Marsh's only claim to retention is his relief bowling, hardly a compelling case for a number six in a team that can scarcely afford the luxury of picking just five specialist batsmen.
Meanwhile Shaun Marsh, Marcus Harris and even Australia's top-scorer in this series Travis Head are surviving only because others are under even more pressure and there are few obvious replacements.
Which brings us to the next of Australia's predictable summer dilemmas, the 68-day gap between the sixth and seventh round of Sheffield Shield games, which in turn means there is no opportunity for Test aspirants to push their case and provides national selectors little fresh evidence upon which to base their best guesses.
You could argue Australia's budding batsmen had plenty of chances to bat their way into the team for the India series in the five Sheffield Shield games played before the first Test and the one contested after that.
Matthew Renshaw, the obvious long-term solution to Australia's opening dilemmas, was one player who conspicuously failed to take his chances, scoring just 199 runs at 19.9 in 10 mostly disappointing Shield innings.
Others such as discarded wicketkeeper Matthew Wade and Renshaw's fellow Queensland opener Joe Burns were overlooked by the selectors despite producing much more robust numbers.
But were the now month-old innings still front of mind as the selectors picked a team for Sydney, or were they diluted by the fact Wade, Burns and other potential candidates have donned their BBL colours?
The sole inclusion for the fourth Test, Marnus Labuschagne, made just 254 Sheffield Shield runs at 28.22 with a top score of 78 before the competition disappeared from the summer landscape. Yet add some handy leg spin and he is an easily justifiable selection given the dearth of compelling alternatives.
Regardless, the fact there will be no first-class cricket before the two Test series against Sri Lanka will again leave the selectors guessing unless there is a major form reversal in Sydney.
You might make a case that Test-class players are a rare breed and, in the absence of three bona fide performers, it is optimistic at best to suggest international-class batsmen will simply emerge from a few Shield day games no matter when they are scheduled.
The decision to push the Sheffield Shield to the seasonal margins was clearly predicated on the idea that Australia's Test team would be largely settled, as it had been over several mostly successful years when pick-and-stick and set-and-forget were legitimate selectorial mantras.
This is an extension of the squad mentality that has prompted Australia's high performance unit to bypass and, you could argue, disrespect the Sheffield Shield by putting a stronger emphasis on an "elite pathway" that would accelerate the progress of identified "talent".
There is a strong case now put by former Test players and Sheffield Shield graduates such as Simon Katich and Ed Cowan that this has badly hindered the development of Australian batsmen whose games are no longer being hardened in the once fierce first-class environment.
In Melbourne some commentators mocked the India's large and, from the outside, seemingly rambling first-class system. Yet, as Virat Kohli was quick to remind us at the MCG presentation, India is producing plenty of Test calibre players while hosting the lucrative IPL.
On the other hand you might suggest the dearth of potential Test batsmen in Australian first-class cricket is now so profound that the current Sheffield Shield scheduling is irrelevant.
Either way, you would hope one benefit of the boardroom and executive reshuffle at Cricket Australia is that a fresh sets of eyes will review and recast both the role and the scheduling of the Sheffield Shield, not stubbornly double down on past mistakes.
Meanwhile, there is another possible, far more optimistic — some might say far-fetched — outcome from a season that would always be a struggle for Australia's batsmen.
Imagine that Smith, Warner and Bancroft are successfully rehabilitated and reintegrated into the current line-up. That Harris and Head benefit from their baptisms of fire and become bona fide Test players and others such as Burns, Renshaw and even Glenn Maxwell make significant runs when the Shield emerges from hibernation, or with their English counties.
Despite the summer run drought, Australia might then have the depth of batting to complement its impressive attack by the time it contests an Ashes series in which it will be a despised outsider.
But for now the task of making enough runs in Sydney to put Australia into a competitive position seems imposing regardless how the selectors make their choices.
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ABC .net
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