Australia’s domestic cricket competition is in a batting crisis. The question is why

This interactive graphic paints a disturbing picture for the future of Australian cricket. The Test team needs new batters, but where are they gloing to come from?

NSW batsman Simon Katich found himself out of the Australian Test team at the start of the 2007/08 season so he went about working his way back in the time-honoured fashion – by weight of Sheffield Shield runs.

By the end of that season Katich had amassed 1506 runs at 94.2, the highest aggregate in the history of the competition and a record that, looking back, seems destined to remain as unmatchable as Tendulkar’s haul of Test centuries or Bradman’s Test average.

Katich also captained NSW to the Shield title, and won back his place in the Australian team.

At the time, the record was celebrated but it didn’t seem unbeatable. Since the 10-team competition with an added final had been introduced in 1982/83, the 100-run mark had been broken 18 times in the 25 seasons before Katich’s record year – usually by multiple players.

In the 16 season since, it’s been done just three times, with two batsmen cracking the grand on each occasion. The decline reached its nadir (for now) in season 2021/22, when Victoria’s Peter Handscomb topped the scorers with 697 runs at 49.78, and only four batters topped 600 runs.

Simon Katich lifts the 2007/08 Sheffield Shield

While the drop off in Shield runs hasn’t necessarily been reflected in the performances of World Champion Australia’s Test team, it could be argued that success in baggy green has, at least in recent years, been mostly a product of an unprecedented bowling quartet.

In fact, with the recent retirement of Dave Warner, and Steve Smith and Usman Khawaja nearing the end of their careers, attention has turned to the Sheffield Shield production line, which appears to be struggling to keep up with demand.

While many factors have been blamed for Australia’s red-ball batting decline, from drop-in pitches, to changes in the Shield points system and even global warming, it’s hard to ignore the elephant in the room.

While correlation does not always mean causation, the drop-off in batter output seems to mirror the rise in franchise cricket.

What do you think?