The Problem In The Top Six

Peter Langston | October 28, 2024

Even though India are currently getting a towelling at home at the hands of the Kiwis, with Santner delivering an early Christmas present this week in Pune, its hard to imagine them not stretching the Aussies at home over the southern summer.

Its now ten years since Australia has won a series at home against the Indians. Ten years of fast decks and Australia batting and bowling lineups which bristled and threatened against Indian teams that seemed weak and in which Virat Kohli played only minor roles, yet India still won the series.

They'll arrive here underdogs again, following their weak showing against a moderate New Zealand.

Australia, however, has problems and its not the ones which are playing out in media discussions. Its not the opening position and whether the Australian team perennial hi-viz brigade of Harris or Renshaw should now be anointed after the failed experiment ... its not the discussion about ultra fast tracking the NSW wunderkind Sam Konstas, whose century scoring habits have been thick and fast since his debut at St George at only 14. Its not the rotation of the fast bowlers or the usual bonkers playing schedule.

Those discussions are all a distraction from what happens after the first wicket falls. Australia's real problems lie at three and four, where the Brothers Caffeine, with their once extravagant leaves and unconventional movements at the wicket now exposed as their confidence has plummeted and their missing off stumps can no longer be found.

Despite their spectacularly incongruous nomenclature - the syllable and vowel expansive Marnus Labuschagne and the dialectally sparse Steve Smith - and their outstanding records up until and including the West Indies series nearly two years ago, they are now the weakest link in the Australian batting.

Confidence players, both, their cricket worlds had been rosy. The nicest way to describe either of them at the crease - after salivating at their expansive shots - was unconventional. Some, me among them, preferred weird. That's okay. Batsmen don't all have to be side on and classical in the mold of Gregory Stephen Chappell. Bradman himself was no picture portrait from the textbook as he annihilated a limited range of Test playing nations on an even more limited variety of batting surfaces in the two countries he played in. Because of an incredible marriage of eye and hands and the audacity that comes from being prodigies in a modern game that rewards theatre and bluster more than it does the steady accumulator, they were potent weapons and their confidence knew no bounds.

Superstars we call them. Legends. Bright, shiny things that can do the impossible over and over and over ... until ...

They have both been struggling with the "until" since late 2022.

Bowlers developed a plan and those sneaky buggers love to share amongst their brethren and descend on you from the top of their run, set on revenging every audacious scoop or ramp or pull or leg glance from outside off stump that you have perpetrated against them.

Even if you have been living under a rock in outer space or duped by the hype surrounding these two, the figures tell no lies. In cricket, like in baseball and perhaps in golf, the stats are your most effusive flatterers and also your harshest critics.

Since those two floggings of the Windies in Nov/Dec 2002, the figures are throwing darts at both of them.

Smith was averaging 64.31 after his unbeaten double hundred at Perth and Labuschagne close behind with 61.43 after his 163 at Adelaide. Its a different story now. Australia have played South Africa, Pakistan and the West Indies again at home - not exactly a daunting task - and England, India and New Zealand away, all of the latter three, harder assignments. In that time, Smith has averaged 37.8 in forty innings, a drop of nearly 8 runs per innings in his current career average (56.97) and Labuschagne 32.47 in thirty nine, a staggering drop of nearly 12 (49.57). Both have made just 8 scores over fifty - Smith 3 centuries and 5 fifties and Labuschagne 1 and 7. That's only 20% of their innings making the sort of significant contributions that win Test matches. Up until the decline outlined here, 42% of Smith's innings were 50 or more and 45% for his latte buddy. Others have carried the can for their previously untouchable team mates.

Both have fallen out of relationship with their off stump. Labuschagne has no idea where his has gone. Previously, one of the best leavers of the very ball which undoes more Test batsmen than the rest - moving away beyond the fourth stump line outside off - he just can't stop playing an insipid angled bat at it. Subsequently, he has lost his guides and slaps from cover point to third man and his cover drive is a nervous thought in the back of his mind. Smith, by comparison, knows its there but just ignores it or treats it like its close relatives at middle or leg and just puts everything he owns in front of it or beyond and plays to a packed leg side. It works when the ball goes away and he can launch a cover drive but those degenerates of the bowling fraternity keep bringing it back or at worst, aiming straight at the very stump he ignores the importance of. Its not arrogance but the same floored technique that confidence covered before this.

Smith's impertinence was even rewarded after he admitted to "boredom" at number four and instead of David Warner's retirement making for one change to the order, it made for two. Khawaja, Head and Marsh all covered the scoring hole that resulted.

Steve Smith is perhaps the more protected of the two wild species. There is a delusion we readily convince ourselves of, born of deserved admiration for a fine player which causes us observers to overlook even prolonged periods of poor form in the latter stages of a career. Smith’s previous dominance was, dare I say it, Bradman like. He could do no wrong and didn't. Smith can rightly be regarded as one of the greatest batsmen to have worn the Baggy Green, an epithet Labuschagne does not yet deserve but it’s the latter who appears to be worrying about it and trying to work his way out of what is a monumental slump.

Confidence is a strange thing and once that first dent appears, its only the best of them that can continue on in what is a second hand car but still drive like Peter Brock. The afore-mentioned Greg Chappell was one. Ponting, Steve Waugh and Justin Langer others, but it's lack has consumed many good 'uns before now and will again. Smith may be too close to retirement for retrieval and he will no doubt still have his moments but they just won't be as often or as close together.

Maybe there is still hope for Labuschagne but it will take some pretty canny man-management to change his self-talk or maybe quieten it long enough for muscle memory to save him.

Either way, Pat Cummins has a problem at three and four and the time is running short to fix it. You better believe that England's Big Ginger and that crazy puppet master Baz McCullum, both with axes to grind with Australia and more than willing to swing them to excise bad memories of playing in the extreme Aussie heat - physical and psychological - will be paying attention.

The Indian series this summer is another opportunity to fix things. So far, sentiment and mates-rates have maintained an ailing status quo but woe betide if the Head and Marsh attack-at-all-costs gambit stops rolling sevens or Khawaja cant keep batting for 80 overs in every Test. If so, Australia's losing streak at home will equal the ten year, three consecutive series losses to South Africa post 2008 and Australia's batting lineup then was far superior to the current six.

David Warner's eventual replacement won't be the only bloke sweating as Bumrah runs in at Perth next month.