Australia v Sri Lanka: Stay up to date with the latest news and action from the second Test
Australia has lost top spot on the World Test Championship table after a horror performance against Sri Lanka - which could have far-reaching consequences for the playing group.
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Making more conditions-based batting selections could be one of the significant take-aways from a horror second-Test loss in Sri Lanka which Australian captain Pat Cummins called a “reality check” ahead of next year’s tour of India.
Cummins said the day four batting capitulation in Galle, with Australia dismissed for 151 to lose by an innings and 39 runs, was a by-product of spending 181 energy-sapping overs in the field after failing to make a big first innings score.
But after his first loss in 10 Tests as captain, Cummins said the win in the opening clash last week in much tougher conditions was enough to go home happy the sub-continental improvements the Aussies were hoping were present.
“I think half our batting lineup and half our bowling lineup hasn’t played a lot over here in the subcontinent,” Cummins said.
“We turned up knowing it’s a tough place to win series and games over here.
“So to come away with a series draw, the same team that won last week … It might be a reality check that it’s tough playing away from home, in different conditions to what we’ve grown up playing in.
“We’ll sit down and review it and look at different areas and maybe tactics, but I think it’s those methods which might be quite different to back home, and trying to be good enough overseas.
“I think we got a lot of lessons out of it to take to India next year.”
Those lessons could mean making more considered selection decisions around batters as well as bowlers.
Having been willing to bench a world class player like Josh Hazlewood in favor of an extra spinner, batters who have shown a capacity to better handle conditions away from Australia may find themselves in the frame.
Selectors twice toyed with the idea of playing Glenn Maxwell and the sub-par performance of Travis Head, who made just 23 runs in three innings in Sri Lanka, could put question marks on his sub-continental future.
“I think within reason,” Cummins said of the selection considerations.
“You see that with the bowlers, someone like Josh Hazlewood sitting on the bench. Glenn Maxwell was a conversation around his batting for this game, so absolutely.
“The challenge with playing in Asia as well is unless you give people a go, you don’t know how someone like a Greeny (Cameron Green) can come out and show he’s well up to the task. Others might take a bit longer.
“So I think it’s striking that balance. Even guys who didn’t do as well as they’d have hoped, it’s two more Test matches under their belt that they’ll learn from.”
Cummins also conceded the process for reviews under his captaincy remained a work in progress after a first innings debacle in which the Australians lost all three reviews inside 80 overs of an innings that went for 100 more.
“We’re always trying to get better at that,” he said.
“In the past we’ve burned reviews that we’ve looked back and thought weren’t a good chance, but especially the two yesterday we were really confident on both.
“So try to perfect and improve our systems, unfortunately over here there’s so many balls near edges and pads, it feels like there’s more chances to use them.”
Smith’s awful review as Aussies disintegrate
An ugly Australian batting disintegration in Galle after one of the longest bowling efforts this century propelled Sri Lanka to a famous victory in the second Test in Galle and the first blemish in Pat Cummins’ golden captaincy run.
The fourth-day subcontinental capitulation to three Sri Lankan spinners, who combined to roll Australia for just 151 in less than two sessions on Monday, ended a six-week tour for most of the players who will carry the nightmare finish in to a four-Test tour of India next February, where they haven’t won a series since 2004.
WATCH STEVE SMITH’S REVIEW IN THE PLAYER ABOVE
After a record-setting batting display from local hero Dinesh Chandimal pounded the Australian bowlers into submission, the top order folded in quick fashion on the back of the monster 181 overs in the field across three energy-sapping days as the series ended in a 1-1 draw.
More horror reviews, first from David Warner, then Steve Smith as they questioned their plumb LBW calls, started the path to what became Cummins first loss in 10 Tests as captain with his team rolled in 40 overs to lose by an innings and 39 runs on a train wreck day.
Smith’s review in particular, which came after a discussion with batting brother Marnus Labuschange, was panned by commentators and only enhanced Australia’s already perilous position in a match littered with poor umpiring decisions which cost the Aussies badly.
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Chandimal had benefited from the lack of Australian reviews on day three when a nick behind was missed by umpire Kumar Dharmasena and smashed an epic double hundred, brought up with consecutive sixes smashed out of the ground off Mitchell Starc, as Sri Lanka produced its highest ever score against Australia.
The home team’s total of 554 came off a mammoth 181 overs from the Australians, the third most this century delivered in a single innings by an Aussie Test team.
Starting 190 in arrears, having bashed out a better-than – average 364 themselves in the opening innings, a positive second beginning from the Australian openers quickly turned pear-shaped as the Sri Lankan spinners unleashed weaponry Nathan Lyon couldn’t muster.
In a flurry of wickets 0-49 became 4-74 as the home team’s spinners found the Aussies listless in an effort sure to raise eyebrows ahead of a tour to India next year.
After Warner and Usman Khawaja went within 10 runs, Smith followed for a duck putting his hand up for a review which found the ball was crashing into the pegs.
Travis Head was then bowled for a second time in the match, once each by spinners Prabath Jayasuriya, who finished his debut Test with 12 wickets, and Ramesh Mendis, and his scores of six, five and 12 across the two-Test series pose serious questions about the left-handers capacity to tour India next year.
Man of the series in the Ashes, Head, who was preferred ahead of Glenn Maxwell in Sri Lanka, has mustered just 83 runs in six innings since the home summer, in Pakistan and then Galle, to highlight his significant subcontinental worries.
While Head’s capacity to make runs in Australia is unquestionable, selectors could be forced to make a hard call on him for next February’s four Tests in India with exposed form away from home making him a potential liability on wickets sure to suit their own arm of spinners.
Warner, who was out for 24, stretched his run without an international century to 52 innings across all three formats and continued a pattern of him being the first batter out in every Australian innings since he partnered with Usman Khawaja at the top of the order during last summer’s Ashes.
In 2022, Warner is averaging just 22 in Test cricket, with six single figure scores, and was, along with Head, one of just two top-six batters who didn’t score at least one half-century in Sri Lanka.
The slight hint of Australian resistance from Marnus Labuschange and Cameron Green didn’t last long with both batters again falling victim to the spinners, and 4-112 became 6-117 with all hope now lost.
The limp batting efforts of the Australians was made to look worse given only an hour or so earlier Chandimal went on a rampage with his own tail, smashing 42 off 18 balls after the fall of the ninth wicket, belting Australia out of the game.
It was the first double-hundred score by a Sri Lankan and he remained unbeaten on 206 to put his team on track for a second win of the weekend following the efforts of his countrymen to force their under-fire president to resign on Saturday.
The Aussies are set for double blow with Sri Lanka’s win set to displace them from the top of the World Test Championship table.
Next year’s WTC final at Lord’s remains a much-coveted target for Cummins and his men but the combination of a horribly slow over rate in Galle, which is sure to attract fines and a loss of points, plus the defeat will see the Aussies in fact lose top spot to South Africa, with the teams set to square-off against each other this summer.
The cut-off for the WTC standings will come after the India tour early in 2023, a country where Australia have won just three Tests, and lost 11, in the past 20 years.
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