SYDNEY: After fixating obsessively over one spot in the batting order for the best part of the spring, Australia’s media pundits and cricket fans have been handed a plethora of talking points by the abject defeat in the first Test against India.
India’s 295-run victory was sealed inside four days at Perth Stadium on Monday, shattering Australian confidence that Pat Cummins’s team could halt the long run of series losses at the hands of the game’s financial superpower.
If the humiliation of India being able to declare their second innings on 487-6 reflected poorly on the bowling unit, it was the Australian batting line-up dismissed for 104 in their first innings that bore the brunt of the blame.
Debutant Nathan McSweeney, who won the much-discussed race to open the batting, was not alone in being awarded derisory marks in the media player ratings with Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith also hovering around the 2/10 mark.
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Marnus Labuschagne, once the world’s top-ranked Test batsman, received 1/10 in one publication after making five runs in two innings in Perth, the second brought to an end when he was trapped in front by Jasprit Bumrah without offering a shot.
“The top order is a major concern,” former Test skipper Greg Chappell wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald. “To avoid forced changes, they must deliver in Adelaide. Marnus Labuschagne knows he is under pressure … he must rediscover his form quickly and revert to the free-flowing style of old.”
Chappell’s view that the players who underperformed in Perth be given a chance to redeem themselves in the day-night second Test in Adelaide was supported by other former players.
“I’m giving them Adelaide,” 119-Test wicketkeeper Ian Healy told SEN radio. “They can do it, they can do it, as long as they train smart this week and get really fresh and fit and strong.”
More importantly, perhaps, captain Cummins thought wholesale changes were highly unlikely after just one Test in the five-match series.
Good news/bad news
The good news for Australia is that they have played seven pink ball Tests at Adelaide Oval and won them all, including an eight-wicket victory over India in 2020 when they dismissed the tourists for 36 in their second innings.
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The bad news is that they have not won a home series after losing the first Test since they beat West Indies in 1968-69 and will probably face a stronger Indian line-up when the second Test begins on Dec. 6.
Paceman Bumrah, uniformly awarded 10/10 by Australian media for his performance in Perth, will hand the captaincy back to the returning Rohit Sharma, while Shubman Gill could be fit to play after recovering from a thumb injury.
For cricket writer Bharat Sundaresan, the biggest concern for Australia was not the playing talent in the squad but the body language of the home team in Perth when the match was not going their way.
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“It (was) a thrashing. It (was) a hammering worthy of the level of outrage from the cricket fans around the country,” he wrote in The Australian newspaper.
“More so in the wake of just how defeated the Australians looked at the end of day three, a day that will go down in infamy for the complete lack of challenge posed by them against the unrelenting assault by the Indians
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