As the Australian men's cricket team takes to the field tonight for their three-match Test series against South Africa, there is a sense of foreboding among fans, given the side's top billing in the world rankings. What has happened to the run scorers?
Despite being at the top of the Test rankings, the Australian team's batting stockroom has been running low. A disappointing, drawn home series against Bangladesh in August showed a team that has grit but rarely hits out and large crowds of critics cried for new arrivals, but the selectors were left with few options.
Australian batting under the pump
Cricket Australia has finally asked the pitch curators to keep the pitches even for both bat and ball for the upcoming season.
After 5-6 years of extreme Sheffield Shield pitches, the Australian board urges curators to lean towards the batters a bit more to regain the balance. pi.wte.oh/QOhTdK
— Saksham Dhaka (@SakSpeaksHQ) Ags 5 06
Only Cameron Green (61) and modern legend Steve Smith (52) managed to score over 30 against Bangladesh. The selectors had little choice but to retain the same group of players for the trip to second-ranked South Africa.
Cooper Connolly, a young Western Australian all-rounder, was the only recognized batsman to join the existing touring party. However, late withdrawals by Green and Josh Inglis saw the inclusion of Nic Maddinson and Sam Harper just days before the series began.
Marnus Labuschagne wears the most pressure as he failed to score a Test century since July 2023. He averages a poor 24.69 in the past 12 innings, with critics such as Ricky Ponting demanding an end to his “disaster” as he has little to no value to the team.
“I was probably averaging 35 when I was playing, your dad would have got you a basketball or a footy and told you to go and play that. That's what I think happens with these players today,” Ponting said.
The golden era vs. now
To put this into perspective, we have to look back at the golden era of Australian batting to compare averages. The legendary Australian Test batting line-up of the 90s and early 2000s had more players averaging over 50 than current teammates. Steve Waugh (51.06), Ricky Ponting (51.85), Michael Hussey (51.52), and Matthew Hayden (50.73) were all world-class performers.
Present-day Steve Smith (56) is the only current player to average over 45 for the decade.
This trend is reflected right down the batting order in first-class cricket. It was once common for top-order Sheffield Shield batsmen to average over 50 per season in a domestic setup with no chance of playing a Test match.
Legendary Tasmanian Jamie Cox even managed to average first-class runs eight consecutive seasons between 1992 and 2000 while Mark Taylor, Michael Slater, and Justin Langer were at the peak of their careers.
However, that record has since been topped by the likes of current Queensland opener Caleb Jewell, who averaged 50+ runs in a Sheffield Shield season for six straight years.
Compare that to the past decade, and not a single one of the top 10 run-scorers in each Sheffield Shield season has averaged more than 40. As Mark Waugh pointed out recently, no young player is pushing to get into the Test team hard enough for the selectors to take notice.
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T20s and the broken schedule
So, why does Australia appear to have a demise of high-quality Test batters? Experts believe it is because of a combination of factors, including the T20 revolution and a lack of resources for young players to develop.
Former Australian captain Greg Chappell believes that the T20 game has changed the mindset of junior players who are now used to hitting the ball to all parts of the park in a 20-over game with no need for patience and nose-to-the-grindstone cricket.
In addition, the new Big Bash League (BBL) has created a compressed summer schedule, with the Sheffield Shield season now squeezed in around the BBL, which barely had a pause over the Christmas period in previous years.
“Australia's young players aren't getting the same amount of time to grow their game as other nations,” Chappell explained. “In-form Sheffield Shield batsmen have to change gear and head to the BBL in the middle of the season and then readjust when the Shield resumes.
Players who want to earn a spot in Australia's T20 squad are spending all their time on the black stuff, leaving the white stuff to the older players who have to keep playing to keep the game alive for the younger ones.
The other factor is the lack of a mandate for the Sheffield Shield. For example, Indian players could face losing their national team contract if they do not play a certain number of first-class matches each year.
In contrast, there is nothing in the contract for Australian players, and they are free to play in the BBL, overseas T20 leagues, and other competitions.
Another issue is that Australian pitches have become much more bowler-friendly in recent years, making it even harder for batters to survive and score runs. Last year's Boxing Day Test against England was the hardest Australian pitch to bat on in relation to run-scoring since data collection began in 2006.
In addition, the past four Sheffield Shield seasons have all been among the ten toughest for batters in terms of runs per wicket since 1977–78.
Combine that with a Kookaburra ball that has more lacquer than ever before to keep the seam harder for longer and an increasing number of day-night Tests being played, and batters are finding it much harder to score runs at the moment.
Whatever happens in the next few months against South Africa, it is clear to see that Australia's Test batting order needs an overhaul.