Australia’s shocking Boxing Day showing exposes batting as national sporting embarrassment
Australia’s shambolic showing in the Boxing Day Test has exposed a disturbing lack of batting depth and technical flaws which develop from the earliest ages, writes Robert Craddock.
Australia’s lack of batting depth is becoming a national sporting embarrassment and the disturbing reality is any new hero will get there despite the system not because of it.
Australia’s golden generation of batsmen has faded to the point where, with David Warner and Steve Smith sidelined, there is just one Test standard batsman (Usman Khawaja) available for selection and he’s not exactly shooting the lights out.
No feature of Australian cricket is designed towards producing a version of anchorman Cheteshwar Pujara, the only Indian Test star who does not have an Indian Premier League contract for his cultured game is a slow cooked roast rather than a chicken nugget.
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You’d never want six Pujara’s in the top order but if you haven’t got one of him you are like a building without a concrete base.
The cracks come soon and often and eventually you just know the whole show will come crashing down as it has in Melbourne.
Australia’s batsmen have never had more, nor produced less.
Specialist batting coaches at all levels, video analysis, tailor-made pitches to train for spin or speed, million dollar contracts and bats that can hit a ball from Melbourne to Mildura.
Yet, with their techniques moulded by the compromising forces of T20 cricket, most struggle to bat for a session, lacking defensive “shape’’ as Kerry O’Keeffe calls it.
Aaron Finch, who looks mentally shot, gets nailed by the straight one so often that like Saturday he becomes vulnerable to the wide one. Marcus Harris gets starts but often falls to hitting the ball in the air just when set.
Travis Head is a fighter but still burdened by white ball excesses.
Mitchell Marsh averages 28 in Sheffield Shield cricket so if he shines as a Test batsmen it just defies gravity. With five scores above 50 in 53 Test innings, and an average of 9.9 from his last 13 knocks, he simply hasn’t delivered and looks mentally defeated as well.
Shaun Marsh is not the worst and worth retaining but when people are still making up their mind about you 17 years after your first class debut, it’s a sign you may never truly break through.
But the story — and the potholed road forward — goes much deeper than the current team and starts at the bottom.
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Many children start cricket in the T20 Blast where the emphasis is on freeing the arms and going heave ho. Some junior coaches don’t even teach old fashioned defence yet they do teach reverse sweeps.
Many junior competitions have a limited number of balls batsmen can face. Some do not even count getting out. Runs are all that matter.
They develop batsmen who do not have the repeatable techniques that make champions.
Tennis great Andy Murray tells the story of Ivan Lendl explaining to him that the first secret to being a champion was playing “boring’’ tennis.
“If I hit 20 crosscourt shots in a row at training and got bored and tried something funky he would stop the session and say “you need to be mentally tough and keep maintaining that line.’ Can we please have another 10 crosscourts in a row.’’
There are no Ivan’s or Andy’s in the Australian top order. Techniques seem to change by the innings.
As O’Keeffe points out, Australia lacks the second and third gears where the obstinate Pujara lives.
Many of the Australians are either dot ball or boundary hitters. Australia’s batsmen should have been essentially trying to bat for a draw at the MCG on Saturday — yet they still hit three straight sixes.
The selectors will cop their predictable hammering but really it would not matter who they choose.
Australian cricket and cricketers have never been richer. It’s batting depth never more shallow.
Go figure.
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Originally published as Australia’s shocking Boxing Day showing exposes batting as national sporting embarrassment
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