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Opinion
At the start of the day, there were a lot of unanswered questions surrounding Australia’s selection decisions going into the second Test against India at Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi.
After 87.4 overs, 284 runs, and 10 wickets, we have a few answers, and it’s not as bad as you might think.
It’s certainly not as bad as my mate Craig thinks. In regaling me with his opinions in between laps at the pool tonight, Craig’s volume wound up such that he ended up informing basically the entire 50-metre pool of his concerns around Australia’s selections.
If you only look at the scorecard, you might think that only Usman Khawaja was able to reverse the poor showing from the first Test – and that Peter Handscomb continued to prove the selectors right.
Both men batted well, showing that runs could be made on a spinning pitch. Handscomb was particularly solid and has rewarded the selectors while proving why he should have long been considered for selection.
Khawaja, on the other hand, showed why he has become almost undroppable, with fluid grace and temperament, taking on the Indian bowlers where possible and demonstrating what confidence at the crease looks like.
Marnus Labuschagne, Travis Head, and Alex Carey, however, should all consider themselves unlucky, rather than embarrassed. Labuschagne got trapped by a ball that turned sharply, bowled by one of the better spinners currently playing the game. Similarly, Alex Carey was surprised by a turning and bouncing ball after only five balls.
Travis Head, on the other hand, played the subcontinent spin better than many thought, and was only undone by a fast ball from Mohammed Shami that tempted him outside his off stump.
Travis Head. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, no one will be as critical of Steve Smith’s chasing the ball than Steve Smith will be, so we can leave that alone for now.
As Paul Suttor has already aptly highlighted, and which was demonstrated again today, it looks like the end may have come for David Warner.
Australian cricket has long (looooong) been loath to drop a ‘great’, preferring instead to give each player the opportunity to hang up the boots “on their own terms”. However, as Suttor rightly pointed out, “Australia’s selectors are doing David Warner a disservice by not tapping him on the shoulder.”
With hindsight (though, admittedly, many predicted this very problem), it would have been better for Warner’s legacy had he bowed out before this Indian tour.
A doubt-breaking double-century in Melbourne against South Africa reminded us of his quality, but with a tough Indian tournament to be followed by an Ashes campaign, in England, with Stuart Broad waiting for him, one wishes for Warner’s sake that he had hung up the Baggy Green a few weeks ago.
Australia fielded a front-line bowling attack headed up by three spinners – Nathan Lyon, first Test debutant and hero Todd Murphy, and bolter (and another debutant) Matthew Kuhnemann.
With only captain Pat Cummins to bowl pace (though I remain convinced Marnus Labuschagne will still bowl some of his medium-pacers), and much-better-than-part-time off spinner Travis Head bolstering the mainline spinners to four, it’s definitely an odd-looking Australian Test team.
But injuries ruled the day for the selectors, in the end, and with nine overs bowled before the close of play, it looks as if the world hasn’t ended and that the sun will come up again.
Rumours circulating suggest that, had they been fit, Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green would both have played, and Josh Hazlewood remains sidelined with a persistent Achilles problem.
Critics concerned about the fluidity in Australia’s line-up (of which there are many) seem unwilling or unable to acknowledge the restraints placed on selectors by these injuries.
Former Test player Matthew Hayden, part of the local broadcast team, pointed to the uncertainty in Australia’s selections as the cause behind the team’s poor performance in the first Test and flagging performance on day 1 of the second Test, while in literally the very next breath referring to the injuries plaguing the team.
And though nine overs is not much of a sample size, Cummins, Kuhnemann, and Lyon all bowled really well. Cummins bowled a better line and length than he did in Nagpur, while for his first overs of international cricket, Kuhnemann troubled both Indian openers Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul.
At the end of the day, many of the concerns and hype around Australia’s selection decisions have proven to be well short of the mark. Moreover, many of the complaints offered up at the end of the first Test and renewed around the second Test’s selection debate stem from an almost national inability to recognise when we have been beaten.
In the immediate aftermath of the first Test, Allan Border described Australia’s performance as “embarrassing”. Maybe he can back that argument up, but it’s a typical Australian response to a bad performance. It looks self-sacrificial, but it’s really self-righteous. The Indians batted and bowled better than the Australians did.
In fact, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin bowled supremely well, and would have tested any team that turned up to face them at Nagpur.
So maybe, just maybe, things aren’t actually as bad as some are making it out to be.
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