The Ashes 2019: Aussie batting struggles in key warm-up overshadow great work from bowlers
Yes, there was some seriously good bowling, but the failure of the best batsmen Australia has to offer to handle tricky conditions with any real conviction proved a massive Ashes eye opener.
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Selection chairman Trevor Hohns and new Aussie team mentor Steve Waugh walked straight to the Rose Bowl pitch after a day of batting carnage in Southampton.
The pair of experienced judges poked at the dry surface which reduced the best batting line-ups two Australian teams could assemble to rubble amid some bowling displays to get both extra excited.
But the 17 wickets that tumbled, many meekly and with no double figure scores from the men most likely to fill the Australian top-order when the Ashes begin in a week, made for scary reading.
The 41 scored by Marnus Labuschagne, who could squeeze in to the top six by virtue of him being a right-hander, was more than the six recognised batsmen in his team combined.
Between them David Warner (four), Marcus Harris (six), Travis Head (one), Kurtis Patterson (two), Will Pucovski (four) and Alex Carey (six) made just 23 runs.
The commonality between all but one of them was problematic, too. Six of the seven were left-handers.
They were undone by some seriously good bowling, the best coming from James Pattinson, who only took one wicket, but was near-unplayable.
“He was very tough to face,” Labuschagne said of the resurgent Victorian, now an Ashes certainty.
“He was hitting the wicket hard, bowling a really good length, and over here if you are bowling that hard length it can be considerably harder to bat.”
But it was the pitch, made to order, sort of, for the Australians, which earned inspection from Hohns who could, in conjunction with fellow selector Greg Chappell, who is in Australia, have to convene a selection meeting early.
The Ashes squad was to be announced on Saturday morning (EST), when the game ends. But at the rate it’s going, early Friday morning (EDT) could be more likely.
Labuschagne was the only one to truly press his claims, too, but even conceded his 41 was not “the big hundred we are looking for.”
The Queenslander did declare the match was at an intensity above anything he had faced in county cricket this season, where he has over 1000 runs for Glamorgan.
To that end, as a warm-up, it was something the Aussies couldn’t achieve in a normal tour match.
“This game is very serious, a game we are all looking to perform,” he said.
“Everyone wants to make runs, take wickets, and we are getting the best out of each other by playing this hard cricket. It’s the best preparation.”
The lack of runs, given it was spread so broadly among batsmen for both teams, seemed less worrisome too for the individuals.
They all wanted big scores, but the bowling was too good.
Instead, Labuschagne said, they could win their way in to the Ashes squad with a team-first focus, which coach Justin Langer drilled in to them before the game began.
“It’s a tough game. On any given day someone is going to score runs and someone is going to fail,” he said.
“And we are playing as a team, and that has to be the focus. Once you get too personal, about your own performance, it does filter in there.
“The main thing has to be the team focus.”
Three days to go, maybe less, is all the team has to build some Ashes momentum, or least get the batsmen some confidence.
The bowlers seem to have loads of it.
Originally published as The Ashes 2019: Aussie batting struggles in key warm-up overshadow great work from bowlers