News site of the year

Sport
  1. Home
  2. Sport
  3. Cricket

Australia v Pakistan series: How to fix the problem at six?

Malcolm Knox
  • 13 reading now

Having gone to hell (or Hobart) and back in a tumultuous season, the Australian cricket selectors are back where they began. Nic Maddinson's failure to convert a start at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Thursday settles one question about the next week and the next month, though it's hard to see how his making a score would have settled it either.

Up Next

Channel Nine's Mark Nicholas on leave after illness

null
Video duration
00:59

More Cricket Videos

null
Video duration
00:27

Azhar receives nasty close-in blow at MCG
null
Video duration
00:59

Channel Nine's Mark Nicholas on leave ...
null
Video duration
01:30

Heat beat Thunder in Big Bash thriller
null
Video duration
01:30

Warner ton keeps Australia alive
null
Video duration
00:44

Fan's casual one-hander
null
Video duration
01:30

Sixers shoot to top of ladder
More videos

Azhar receives nasty close-in blow at MCG

Pakistan's double-centurion Azhar Ali is forced off the MCG after being hit on the helmet from a powerful Matthew Wade pull shot during the second session.

Australia are in a selection pickle for Sydney, and as for India, best for the innocent bystanders not to think about it. One pundit has already predicted a six-nil defeat in a four-Test series. Another has called on Malcolm Turnbull to have helicopters at the ready for an emergency evacuation.

The parts in the Australian team are meant to interlock like a Chinese box puzzle, but one side is never quite right. Bizarrely, the top five of the batting order appears the one section that is presently solved. Smith and Warner are as mandatory in a fight as Smith and Wesson. Matthew Renshaw will have his ups and downs, but his age, temperament and talent have him in for the long term. (Unless, at some point in India, the selectors axe him in order to save him, as they tend to do, as if the one way of building a young player's self-confidence is to tear it apart.) In Usman Khawaja, Australia finally have a No.3.

Peter Handscomb's footwork is light enough to dance on a cake without marking the icing, and the prospect of him in India will always make him watchable. A technique as eccentric as his means that when he hits a rough patch he will look horrible, but let's hope the selectors really do pick and stick when the glue dries out.

From there, it gets complicated. Maddinson had no excuses in Melbourne: no pink ball, no team-first tactics, and some sharp contributions in the field to make him feel he belonged. He left the ball decisively – as he had not in Adelaide or Brisbane – and batted with composure and neat timing until he misread Yasir Shah's flight.

Advertisement

Maddinson has used up his one-time- only 'gut feeling' selection, and will now have to fight his way back along the old-fashioned avenue, paved with runs and only runs. To go away and become a run machine, instead of going to India with his technique against spin far from resolved, can only be seen as a blessing in disguise.

Shaun Marsh, accomplished on the subcontinent, is hovering. It's a pity he can't bowl, just as it was once a pity that Jackson Bird could not bat. What Australia really need is for Shaun and Mitchell Marsh to recombine as one person, Shaun with the bat and Mitchell with the ball. Were they twins, they might be able to get away with it.

No. 6 remains the black hole in the centre of Australia's line-up. A specialist batsman's runs are needed, but the overs of a front-line bowler will be equally necessary, whether in Sydney or in India. Even had Maddinson made a big score in Melbourne, his bowling is not part-time quality yet, nor even permanent casual, perhaps only youth allowance at best.

Hilton Cartwright is a stab in the dark; but would one Test match in Sydney be any kind of selection trial for the Indian tour? (Cue Shane Watson's voice, like Banquo's ghost, from offstage: I told you you'd miss me when I'm gone â€Ĥ) As unlikely as it is that Australia's stability seems to be in their top-order batting, the pressure on selections is coming from the bowling department.

Josh Hazlewood is the attack leader and Jackson Bird has been excellent, but both need back-up for the long hours of donkey work ahead. Mitchell Starc's effectiveness would be greater if he could be used as a shock weapon, but he has been required to bowl long spells on barren strips, and if anyone has suffered for the absence of a fifth bowler, it is he.

Of course the elephant in the room is spin, as it has been for Australia since forever on the subcontinent. If only Steve Smith loved Nathan Lyon as much as the crowds do. If only the crowds didn't feel they had to fill the gap by loving Lyon up. If only Lyon could have had another confidence-building Australian summer before entering the subcontinental den, where he is less lion and more like a Christian.

It has not happened, however, and here the dominoes start to fall. The lack of quality overs from the spinner means too heavy a workload for the pacemen, which means a proper bowler is needed at No.6, which adds to the pressure on Nos. 1-5, which leads to batting collapses, batting angst and wholesale batting changes. Which is the hole the poor selectors went about patching up six weeks ago. But as India looms ever closer, it is becoming more and more evident that they were looking in the wrong place.

And that's without even beginning to talk about the No. 7.