As Australia headed to India this year to contest the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, one thing they were relying on was experience. David Warner and Steve Smith would lead the batting on their third Test tour to the country, after 22 seasons of IPL between them. Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Starc couldn’t boast such IPL records but would also make their third Test trip. Patrick Cummins would lead the side after making his return to Test cricket in 2017, waking up Indian batters with bouncers on a Ranchi track that was fast asleep.
The best-laid plans of mice and men. Starc started the tour injured, denying Australia the benefits of his reverse swing and his lower-order runs. Warner started poorly before having his arm broken by Mohammed Siraj and being sent home. Cummins meanwhile started the tour knowing that his mother was ill, without knowing that he would have to leave after the second Test as she entered palliative care.
The graveness of that situation has showed up the absurdity of some of the lamentations about the team’s results on the field. At the same time, the tour goes on and the tourists have to find a way back into it when the third Test starts in Indore on Wednesday. Starc is finally ready to play, albeit with some limitations still in the damaged finger on his bowling hand.
So is prodigy all-rounder Cameron Green, who at number six joins a batting order full of India debutants: Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Alex Carey. Even Usman Khawaja, vastly experienced elsewhere, has been batting for the first time in India. Peter Handscomb is effectively Khawaja’s opposite, having now produced his best performances across two India tours while playing only a dozen times elsewhere.
These are the players with the task of changing a dreadful batting tour. Australian teams have been bowled out 76 times in India. The 91 all out in Nagpur to start this series is the lowest score of all. Delhi’s 113 to squander a winning position is sixth on that list. Only twice in Test history has Australia lost nine wickets more cheaply than that day in India’s capital - the infamous 2011 Cape Town 9 for 21, and while slogging 47 more declaration runs in the 2005 win over the short-lived World XI in Sydney.
What Australia really need, above all else, is the return of Smith to making runs. Perhaps his temporary return to captaincy can help him click. His 2017 tour was one of the greats: Alastair Cook is the only other visiting captain to have matched Smith’s three centuries in a series in India. Recapturing that peak is unrealistic, but something half as good might do the job.
“It normally brings the best out of me, I’m excited about leading this week,” he said before the match. “I know these conditions well. It’s kind of like my second home playing over here. I’ve played a lot in India, I understand the intricacies of the game and what the wickets are likely to do. I’m looking forward to it.”
The changes to the batting order look obvious: Head in to replace Warner and join Khawaja at the top of the order, Labuschagne and Smith forming their bloc in the middle, Handscomb up to five to replace the underperforming Matthew Renshaw, and Green with Carey to round things out.
The bowling is trickier. Smith mentioned that Green’s inclusion opened up possibilities of an extra batter, retaining three spinners, or going for extra “air speed”. None of these seem likely. Green as a fourth bowler would leave the attack light. Lyon worked well with spin juniors Todd Murphy and Matt Kuhnemann in Delhi, but Murphy didn’t bowl in training the day before the Test, suggesting his side strain remains an issue. Air speed would suggest having uncapped fast man Lance Morris pepper India, but Morris spent the same training session as a net bowler sending down off-spin.
All of which means that the likely configuration will be Scott Boland, who was good in Nagpur, to join Starc, Green, Lyon and Kuhnemann, unless there’s a late decision to add Mitchell Swepson’s leg-spin to Lyon’s off-breaks and Kuhnemann’s left-arm orthodox. The Indore pitch is bare at both ends, but the likelihood of slow turn makes this move unlikely. As has been the case through this tour, injury and absence have made most of Australia’s selection decisions for them.
