Second-Test woes loom over Australia’s coming England tour as some careers end

‘It’s a bad thing for team harmony to have your senior men given one Test match and then spending the tour running Gatorades.’

Shane Watson walks to the dressing room after being dismissed in the first Test of the 2015 Ashes series. Picture: Getty Images.

When George Bailey says Australian selectors would reassess the squad after the first three Tests of the English summer, you can’t help but be taken back to the 2015 Ashes series and the heavy toll it took with careers even before the second match began.

In June Australia plays India in the World Test Championship Final, then adjusts its cloth if necessary for the first match against England at Edgbaston starting June 16, then prepares for the second under the gaze of Father Time at Lord’s.

Then it will be time to take stock.

All eyes, of course, are on David Warner, for whom each outing looms as an existential threat to his career with Bailey saying he is “at the mercy of selection”. A trio of IPL half centuries in Delhi’s quartet of losses have not eased any pressure on Australia’s most reliable opener.

Shane Watson, an assistant coach at the franchise, says Warner will emerge from his strike rate rut any time now, but he’s not going to say anything different given his role. Watson himself was one of the casualties of a 2015 Ashes campaign that turned into a passing out parade of Australian players – few of whom left on their own terms.

Ashes are always something of an end of a cycle for participants. One of Australian cricket’s two prized cherries – the other being India – players and selectors mark the course of careers around them.

Shane Watson after being dismissed LBW by Mark Wood of England during day four of the First Ashes Test match between Australia and England at Cardiff in July 2015. Picture: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

Watson was one of the first to be thrown overboard by selectors in 2015 – a move that signalled the chaos to come and the questioned the thinking that preceded.

In the loss at Cardiff, the all-rounder contributed 30 and 19 before being hit on a front pad that seemed to have assumed the size of a sight screen as the seasons progressed. It wasn’t the worst of outings, but Mitch Marsh had made a series of centuries in the tour matches.

When selectors announced they were making the change for the second game at Lord’s, there was a sense of shock in the Australian camp. You don’t bring an experienced player to England and abandon them after one match.

Brad Haddin’s Ashes were equally brief but the circumstances different. The wicket keeper withdrew from the second match because of a family medical emergency and was replaced by Peter Nevill on what was assumed by many to be a temporary basis.

When Haddin returned however selectors told him his place was taken – a move that upset teammates who had been told family came first in this set up.

Peter Nevill and Brad Haddin of Australia train during a nets session ahead of the Third Ashes Test in 2015. Picture: Getty Images

Watching all of this with growing alarm over his own form and fate was captain Michael Clarke.

“When Hadds is not reinstated for the third Test, lots of guys are scratching their heads and wondering,” he wrote while admitting he saw both sides of the argument. Haddin had been told that he almost didn’t make the squad following a poor West Indies campaign.

Clarke said in his book My Story that there was a chance the wicketkeeper would have met the same fate as Watson after the first.

“I don’t think the consequences were fully thought through. If Hadds, our vice-captain, was in any danger of being dropped, he should not have been in England,” he wrote. “Same with Shane Watson.

“Picking teams on performance is absolutely 100 per cent fine, but it’s a bad thing for team harmony to have your senior men given one Test match and then spending the tour running Gatorades. They don’t have to grizzle; it’s going to be evident in their morale, and it’s going to affect the morale of those who replace him.”

Clarke kept his place in the side but added to the weight in the side’s saddle bags that tour, battling form and the heaviness he’d felt inside since Phillip Hughes’ death. Captains don’t get dropped after one Test, but pressure rose on Clarke through the series and he announced after the disaster at Trent Bridge that the fifth would be his last.

Three of the side’s most experienced Test players’ careers ended at those 2015 Ashes.

Chris Rogers, too, decided the series was his last, explaining in his book Bucking the Trend that he went into 2015 “realistic enough to understand that once we’d made our defence of the urn won at home, Darren and the selectors would be keen to move on to someone younger”.

Australia is unlikely to witness a similar passing-out parade this English summer, but Ashes inevitably see careers come to a close.

Warner as previously noted arrives in the most danger, trailing behind him a string of low scores broken only by a vintage double century at the MCG.

Should his fate echo Watson’s he may at least be spared the indignity of carrying drinks for two months given the selectors’ indication they will reassess the squad after the second Test.

Usman Khawaja is the same age but has defied the usual career trajectory by finding the best form of his cricket life at a time when most find the life draining from their cricket. The father of two is enjoying a chance after thinking his Test days were over when dropped in the 2019 Ashes, but wouldn’t shock anybody if he decided to go out when on top.

Steve Smith and David Warner watch during day three of the Second Test between India and Australia last February. Picture: Fox Sports

In 2022 cricket seemed to be taking such a toll on Steve Smith that those around him wondered how long he would go on, but he seems to have found a new lease of life in recent times. He admits the India tour was most likely his last in those parts, it wouldn’t be unheard of for him to push on for into his 37th year and one last hurrah at the 2027 Ashes but it is unlikely.

Meanwhile, England cricket was delighted late this week to see that the 40-year-old James Anderson was on track for another Ashes when he dismissed the 38-year-old Alastair Cook in his first county game of the season.