Zeroes, heroes, hacks and a hat-trick – report card from the Caribbean
A mixed bag of fantastic and faulty. Several students showed exemplary effort and results – others left their batting averages at home | YOUR SAY on Australia’s performance.
Usman Khawaja: 2/10
As Bob Dylan sang, “It’s not dark yet … but it’s getting there.” Khawaja would be on the chopping block if Sam Konstas wasn’t hogging it. You cannot cough up a series average of 19, with neither mindful half-century nor blistering ton to be seen, and maintain the privilege and responsibility of opening for Australia.
I disagree there’s a vacancy atop the order. I reckon there’s two. Khawaja needs runs, runs and a bucketload of runs in the pre-Ashes Sheffield Shield matches as desperately as Konstas does. The 38-year-old hasn’t yet played his way out of the team but … sing it, Bob … he’s getting there.
Sam Konstas: 1/10
A chirpy, chatty, hardworking, fun-loving, ambitious, normally upbeat young chap whose confidence has been torn to shreds. The effervescent personality helped his elevation ahead of Nathan “Buddha” McSweeney, for he would be a cheerful and uplifting dressing room presence in the manner of a young Steve Smith, circa 2010-11 Ashes, who explained his role thus: “Having fun and making sure everyone else is having fun, whether it be telling a joke or something like that.” England’s slips cordon roared all summer, “Tell us a joke, Smithy!” Until they realised what a serious player he was. Konstas’s horror show has become no laughing matter. He did nothing in the Caribbean and can expect nothing from here.
Cameron Green: 6/10
I have one general, golden rule when it comes to cricket opinion. Adam Gilchrist is probably right. He wasn’t completely sold on Green as the Test No.3 before the experiment began at Lord’s, and continued against the Windies, and really we’re none the wiser. Green actually did enough against the Windies to keep the lights on, to keep us interested, facing more balls than anyone and making a rare half-century – but let’s be fair dinkum. He’d be a dream No.6 if the top order wasn’t such a nightmare. Standing a mountainous 198cm, striding out with the physical presence of Warwick “The Big Ship” Armstrong, he could flog older balls and weary attacks while avoiding his very real tendency to poke tentatively and ruinously at new cherries.
Steve Smith: 5/10
Legend. Guru. Doyen. All-time great. Missed the first Test with a busted finger then chipped in with a decent tally. Let’s be fair dinkum once more, though. He should be batting three for the Ashes, in a Superman cape, in the role of saviour, the great hope of the side, answering the SOS caused by the so-so batting, following in the famous footsteps of first-drop royalty in Bradman, Ponting, the Chappells, and so on and so forth. He’d waddle to the middle to rousing ovations … bring that on. Smith should take on the greatest challenge, duty and honour among batters. Green at three feels like a maybe. Smith is a heck yes. You get a goosebump at the thought of the legend, the guru, the doyen, all-time great in the marquee role in his kingly robes. He likes to bat at four but Australia needs him at three. You build your top order around that.
Travis Head: 6/10
Topped the batting charts while averaging a modest 37.33. Barely a pass mark for Test players but Head was the best of a bad bunch. He hasn’t cracked a whirlwind hundred since his back-to-back barnburners against India in December but I reckon his next five years will be dynamite. The 31-year-old is playing about 40 years after his time. Rod Marsh, Dennis Lillee and Ian Chappell would have loved him. You want him coming in at 3-300, not 3-30, as keeps happening, denying him the chance to launch into his best, most free-spirited mode. If Smith bats at three, Head is four. I like that.
Beau Webster: 5/10
He’s done nothing wrong but if Green is bowling in the Ashes, as expected, Webster gets the old heave-ho? He’s a dyed-in-the-wool allrounder who’s made valuable runs and a couple of half-centuries, and he’s bowled respectably, and caught brilliantly, but he’s still the poor man’s Green when both are fit. He’s good for a dashing 50 but No.6s are meant to be good for booming 150s. Two allrounders in the top six is one too many and Webster’s gotta go at some stage.
Alex Carey: 7/10
Intriguing figure. Has there ever been a more gentlemanly gloveman? Well, apart from Jonny Bairstowgate, which proved the existence of mongrel beneath the studious exterior. I bet his kit bag and hotel rooms are impeccably neat. He could bat three, or six, or five, or four, or one, or two, if he wasn’t too knackered from his day job behind the stumps. He’s clearly one of the top six batsmen in the country and trailed only Head as the series’ most successful run-gatherer. Worth his weight in gold for his reliable, no-nonsense temperament, the smooth and tidy glovework, and the generous, gentlemanly runs.
Pat Cummins: 10/10
Led a series whitewash despite the batting failures. Slogged a coupla handy runs. Bowled with the venom of Fred “The Demon” Spofforth. He’s one of the great modern leather-flingers and when you think about the highest dining table in Australian sport, Cummins is on it.
There’s Gout Gout giggling in the corner, and Oscar Piastri politely introducing himself, and female Olympic swimmers, and three-quarters of Australia’s women’s cricket team, and Cam Munster, and a couple of Matildas, and Minjee Lee, and Grace Kim … and they’re all feasting alongside Cummins. You cannot do more than he’s doing.
Mitchell Starc: 11/10
The second-most entertaining cricketer in his marriage. Makes a pink ball dart around like Harry Potter’s snitch in a game of quidditch. I’ve watched Starc at full steam from behind a net and thought, how does anybody play that? It’s terrifying. When his long, lanky, giraffe frame is in sync, he’d be an absolute nightmare to face. Perhaps it’s killing Konstas. Imagine having to face Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood and Boland in the nets every day. Starc has made a mockery of Shane Warne’s belief he was soft. Only lionheart quicks play 100 Tests. He marked the occasion at Kingston by taking a five-for in 15 balls, the fastest in history. Beyond perfect. Nearly as great to watch as Alyssa Healy.
Nathan Lyon: 5/10
Didn’t do much. Didn’t have to, the bludger. Bowled a mere 32 overs across the first two Tests before his sacking for the day-night Test. Which turned out to be the right call when the cult hero’s cult hero, Scott Boland, took a hat-trick, no doubt tempting selector Tony Dodemaide to holler: “I told you so!” Here’s the fascinating part. The lionised Lyon seems certain to be punted for the second Ashes Test. That’s a pink-ball affair at the Gabba. The team’s computer nerds will again highlight that spinners aren’t required under lights. Lyon reckons he should be in the XI in all conditions. The selectors disagree and, as we saw at Kingston, they’re right.
Scott Boland: 10/10
What a marvel. What a source of awe and wonder. Seriously. If you ever feel overlooked, if you’re forever on the sidelines while others get all the success, praise and plaudits, but if you keep turning up anyway, without complaint, just quietly waiting for your opportunity to rip in, Boland is your man. Here’s what we’ll never know. How great he would have been in a different time or place. He’d play 100 Tests for another nation, or for Australia in a different era. He’s played only 14 as perennial understudy but taken 62 wickets at the 24-carat average of 16.53. Given one Test in the Windies, he took a hat-trick as though ye cricketing gods were saying: “We see you, mate! We see you!” Fox Cricket’s Mark Howard is right: “Build the man a statue!”
Josh Hazlewood: 10/10
Australia’s leading wicket-taker on the tour until Starc went bonkers with the snitch on the final day at Kingston. You just cannot fault the quicks. Australia’s batting is collectively B-grade but the bowling is Double-A-plus. Hazlewood could run in during a gale, or a tornado, or a tropical cyclone, or an earthquake, or a tsunami, or a financial crisis, or personal discombobulation, or World War III, with an old ball, or a new ball, or a red ball, or a pink ball, or a white ball, and hit the top of off stump. His career and Carribean statistics speak for themselves. As does the fact he’s great enough to consistently keep Boland out of the XI. Then again, why not play four quicks every Test?
Josh Inglis: 1/10
Made a hash of his Ashes audition. Played the first Test as cover for the injured Smith. Took the long handle and suffered an embarrassingly reckless dismissal. Then he took the short handle, well, he took no handle at all, shouldering arms to a ball needing the attention of both. Twin failures, hacking it around, and yet he’s better than that. Absolutely capable of pushing for an Ashes berth if he fires in Sheffield Shield and Australia A opportunities. As Justin Langer says in a text when asked about his preferred top six for the Ashes: “Great question. There’s still a bit of water to go under the bridge for that call from me yet.” Inglis’s hopes are still afloat.
Marnus Labuschagne, Sean Abbott, Matthew Kuhnemann: 0/10
Happy holidays.
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