Ben Gardner assesses the questions facing Australia as they figure out their batting line-up to take on India at Sydney.
Australia don’t often get beaten at home, and it’s even rarer that their batting line-up is so comprehensively dominated as they were against India at Melbourne. As well as Ajinkya Rahane batted, this wasn’t a case of a freak innings or an incredible collapse allowing a touring side to catch them unprepared; instead, India smothered the hosts, building the pressure and probing until they got reward, and Australia didn’t have any answers.
Having been so comprehensively worked over, changes for the third Test were inevitable, and Joe Burns has already been confirmed as the first casualty. Desperately out of nick, his pressure-free fifty in the chase at Adelaide was seemingly a false dawn, and with an average of 10 this first-class season, few have disagreed with the call to leave him out of the 18-man squad for the Sydney encounter.
However, while he’s the only member of the playing XI at the MCG to miss out altogether, Australia could yet make more changes. David Warner and Will Pucovski, both picked in the squad for the first Test of the series before being ruled out by injury, have recovered enough to merit inclusion again. But each still has tests to pass and hurdles to clear before Australia will feel comfortable picking either.
While Warner’s groin injury will be more simple to assess, and looks on track to be sufficiently repaired in time for him to be recalled, Pucovski will require more delicate handling. The 22-year-old has now suffered nine concussions in his short career so far, with blows coming not just while batting, but also fielding at short leg and diving to reach his crease.
“You’re always concerned when people have multiple concussions and seemingly he’s one of these guys that it doesn’t need much to set him off with a concussion,” Peter Brukner, former Australia team doctor and professor of sports medicine at Latrobe University, told Sydney Morning Herald. “Some people you’ve got to really have a pretty significant whack to get a concussion but basically it seems every time he hits his head or is hit on the head he develops these concussion symptoms, which happens in some people.
“The concern is that with each concussion maybe less force is required. It’s a little bit easier, if you like, to develop a concussion. That’s one concern and the other is the great unknown: is there any accumulated damage from recurrent concussions [in cricket]? The science is not clear on that really.
“If you were a park cricketer, you’d say ‘retire mate’. But it’s his livelihood and his career. It’s a tough one.”
Australia will need to satisfy themselves not only that Pucovski has recovered fully from his last blow, but that the risks of a recurrence are small enough to not overly concern them.
Given how highly Pucovski is rated, if he is fit he is likely to play. Even if he doesn’t, Australia could pick two different openers for Sydney. Marcus Harris is another opening option included in the squad, and comes in having performed creditably in his nine-Test career so far, and with excellent Sheffield Shield form behind him this season.
However, Australia might be tempted to keep Matthew Wade at the top of the order. While he was originally promoted as something of a Warner-lite stop-gap, the left-hander showed a new side to his game at Melbourne, finishing the Test as one of the few to have enhanced their reputations. His 137-ball 40 in the second innings contained all the application needed of a top-order batsman and had some suggesting that him keeping the role on a permanent basis might not be too farfetched a possibility.
It was certainly enough to assure him of his place for Sydney, and if he is shuffled down into the middle order, Travis Head looks the most in danger of losing his place. Cameron Green received rave reviews for what was, on paper, a fairly middling Test performance, in which he didn’t look especially threatening with the ball and made only two runs more than his competitor for a middle-order berth. But whatever the reality of the situation, Australia certainly feel that, in Green, they have found their long-term all-round solution.
Head might justifiably feel hard done by if he does miss out at Sydney. His first-innings 38, taking Australia past 100 after coming in at 38-3, deserves more credit than it received, and it was only six innings ago that he made a brilliant 114 against New Zealand in last year’s Boxing Day Test to give Australia a series-sealing win. Having batted only once at Adelaide, and with two starts at Melbourne and decent Shield form to his name, it’s hard to label his form as being poor, and indeed he’s hardly looked out of place throughout his Test career so far. In 19 Tests he averages a tick under 40 and has been dismissed for single figures just five times in 31 innings. Many great players have started less impressively.
Equally however, you sense he can have few complaints if the axe does fall. He only has two Test tons to his name, and is yet to deliver a statement series performance. Australia have seen him as an investment for the future, a potential captaincy candidate even, and, given he’s only just turned 27 years old, he remains that even if they do feel that, in Green and Pucovski, they have a pair of 100-Test players on their hands, and that Wade is the more likely to score runs right now. Head right now might only be Australia’s seventh best batsman. That could be all there is to it.
