Positions vacant: five spots going in the top six of Test team

Australia’s Test top order reads wrong. Sounds wrong. Looks wrong. In fact, there’s only one player whose spot is secure.

Australian batsmen (clockwise from top left) Usman Khawaja, Aaron Finch, Shaun Marsh, Marnus Labuschagne, Travis Head and Mitch Marsh.

The top order reads wrong. Sounds wrong. Looks wrong.

Justin Langer has attempted to wave a magic selection wand and yet abracadabra, it’s blown up in his face. Pending an Australian batting revival to match Brian Lara’s double-hundred at Sabina Park in 1999, two words ought to accompany the build-up to the first Test against India: “Positions vacant”. Langer has ditched certain personality types in the earliest days of his rule. Those types are the aloof and the cocky.

Exhibit A: Matthew Renshaw. His non-selection has been a shocker. The 22-year-old is the most promising long-term opener in the country. He was the leading runscorer in last season’s Sheffield Shield. He’s made three centuries in 11 knocks during an industrious English county stint for Somerset. Langer has stated his desire for character over cover drives. Renshaw is more your David Gower-type character. Hardly a grizzled warrior, more of a giggler. But he’s totally and utterly deserved to be in the Australian XI in the United Arab Emirates. What a slap in the face he has received. Test teams need cover drives, too.

First-class averages are the barometer of quality long-form batsmen. Renshaw’s number is a relatively modest 40.18. But only Usman Khawaja (44.52) and Shaun Marsh (40.52) have a higher return among Australia’s current top six. The rest of Australia’s specialist batsmen against Pakistan have first-class averages of, and we kid you not, 36.6 (Aaron Finch), 37.13 (Travis Head), 31.92 (Mitchell Marsh) and 33.83 (Marnus Labuschagne).

Usman Khawaja has cemented his place in the Australian Test team’s top order. Photo: Getty Images

One Australian batsman has a first-class average above 40. One! They’re worse than second-rate numbers. They’re proof of mediocrity. There was a time when you had be knocking on the door of 50 to get within coo-ee of the Test XI, and now five of the top six are in the low-to-mid 30s.

You’ve gotta be careful what you write in these situations. At Kingston during Australia’s 1999 tour of the Caribbean, the West Indies were 4-35 at stumps on day one. Obituaries were written and dispatched to Australian newspapers. The death of Windies’ cricket! Lara’s finished! The hosts had just lost 5-0 in England. They’d been skittled for 51 in the first Test against Australia. Between the reports being written in Jamaica and published in Australia, Lara made 213, Jimmy Adams batted all bloody day and Windies’ cricket was alive again. But still, something has been amiss with Langer’s selections since day one. A top six of Khawaja, Finch, Marsh, Head, Marsh and Labuschagne … there’s something missing there. Well, two things. Steve Smith and Dave Warner. But before they return next year …

Glenn Maxwell was one of only three Shield batsmen to average 50-plus last season. The others were Joe Burns and Cameron White.

Maxwell has been more deserving of the tour of the UAE than Labuschagne and Finch but for now, he’s just hanging around like a bad smell for the ODIs and T20s in the UAE, which means he cannot play in the Shield, which means he cannot stake his Test claims … what a mess.

Victorian 20-year-old Will Pucovski celebrates his double centry against Western Australia in the Sheffield Shield match at the WACA this week. Photo: Getty Images

Meanwhile, 20-year-old Victorian Will Pucovski is doing just that, staking his claim for higher honours with a Shield double century.

Maxwell is a polarising figure who’s polarised himself out of Test reckoning. His non-selection in the overall squad has stunk as much as Renshaw’s omission from the final XI.

Finch has acquitted himself reasonably well — but reasonably well is not meant to be anywhere near enough.

Langer has a problem with the Marsh brothers. He’s always been their most vocal supporter. As Western Australia coach, he’s spoken passionately about their qualities as players and individuals while the masses have called for their heads. And yet one of his most difficult tasks may be to sack one or both. Let’s imagine a world without the Marsh brothers. New era, fresh breed. Maxwell for Shaun. Marcus Stoinis for Mitchell. He’s more dangerous with the ball and just as explosive with the bat.

Stoinis can fill Mitch Marsh’s all-round role in a heartbeat. If Shaun Marsh keeps failing, he has to be cast aside — for the leading batsman in this year’s Shield competition. Give the bloke what he deserves. The age and stage of his career should be immaterial. If it’s an old coot like Callum Ferguson, welcome him back. If it’s a young buck, roll the dice. There’s five Shield matches before the first Test against India. That’s a hell of a lot of cricket. Langer needs to start again, wipe the slate clean. Make his batsmen earn it the old-fashioned way.

Few sights top the romance of a young batsman making his Test debut. The thought that we might be witnessing the birth of something special.

Will Pucovski drives against Western Australia. Photo: Getty Images

The batsman to raise his hand most authoritatively in the opening days of the Shield has been Pucovski. He’s batted at No 3 and made 243. He’s elite. It’s written all over him. In only four Shield appearances he’s racked up 188 and now a double ton. If he keeps this up, Langer has to throw him into the first Test against India. He’s taken bigger gambles already.

Pucovski’s knock came at a fair old clip — 331 balls. Only eight other batsmen in the 126-year history of the Shield have scored double centuries before their 21st birthday. It’s a small but select group that includes the sort of prodigious talents that have thrived in the Test arena. Huge scores from young blokes are a rarity and a sure sign, abracadabra, that they have a real magic wand. A wooden one. Don Bradman, Ricky Ponting, Ian Chappell and Doug Walters are among those to have made 200s before they’ve turned 21.

Australia’s top six against India? The Marsh boys will probably start the series against India but there’s no guarantee they will finish it, not even with their mate Langer at the helm. Granted, the only players who can adequately replace Steve Smith and Dave Warner are Steve Smith and Dave Warner, so Langer is fighting a losing battle.

You’d love to unleash Maxwell — and Langer probably should.

Here’s a line-up that reads, sounds and looks more right than the one on the scorecard in Abu Dhabi: 1. Matt Renshaw. 2. Aaron Finch. 3. Usman Khawaja. 4. Will Pucovski. 5. Glenn Maxwell, 6 Marcus Stoinis. With asterisks next to the names of all the incumbents except Khawaja. How many positions are vacant? At the time of writing, five.