One match into their mammoth year-long run of Tests, Australia are already weighing up changes to their batting unit as captain Pat Cummins admitted their poor showing against Bangladesh continued a longer-term trend.
Cummins insisted he had no regrets over his decision to bat first on the Darwin drop-in pitch despite his counterpart Najmul Shanto expressing relief that his team avoided being inserted on Thursday morning.
“Bowl first, for sure,” said Shanto when asked what he would have done if he had called correctly ahead of an opening session CricViz’s ball-tracking numbers suggested was close to offering as much seam movement as last summer’s MCG Ashes pitch did before lunch.
But, unlike in Melbourne’s two-day Test, batting conditions became considerably more favourable beyond the first couple of hours and Cummins lamented the headstart his top-order gave the unfancied Bangladeshis in that time.
The hosts conceded four wickets before the first interval on day one, subsequently failing to pass 200 in their first innings (dismissed for 198 in 53 overs) and 300 in their second (all-out 284 in 95.1 overs).
“Once you’re behind on a pretty good wicket against a pretty good side, it was really hard to wrestle the momentum back,” Cummins told reporters after a nine-wicket defeat that marked just a third loss from his team’s past 14 Tests.
Steve Smith (71 and 44) and Cameron Green (who atoned for his first-day exit on the stroke of lunch with a stirring 104 in the second innings) were the only Australians batters to score more than 31 for the match.
Australia’s biggest headaches are at the top with two of their top three, Jake Weatherald and Marnus Labuschagne, both averaging under 27 since the start of last summer’s Ashes.
Ahead of the Mackay Test beginning Saturday, Cummins said selectors may be willing to look for alternatives outside the 13-man squad picked for Darwin.
“I think it’s a balance of ‘It’s one Test’ – but it’s also a little bit of a trend as well,” he said. “So it’s trying to work out, do you need to intervene now, or do you let it play out and think (the current group) is the way forward?
“So I think that’s the question over the next couple days. We’ll sit down and have a think, selectors will have a think. Is there something there that’s going to take us forward, or is it something starting to become a trend that we think needs to be changed?
“Coaches will work with each player individually … Everyone got out a little bit differently.
“But I think it’s pretty clear it’s not quite functioning as well as we would like as a group.
“I’m sure the batters will get together and talk about it, maybe review some footage, review methods, their approaches to how they were this week.
“If we need to make some changes to our style, we’ve got a week or so, and we better do it pretty quickly.”
Josh Inglis was the spare batter in the squad but has batted in the top four only nine times in first-class cricket, averaging 15.22. He batted at four filling in for Smith during last year’s Barbados Test but, in first-class cricket, he has been more at home at five or below, from where all eight of his centuries have come. His most recent Test, in Adelaide during the Ashes, saw him deployed at No.7.
Matthew Renshaw is the only other regular top-order batter part of the wider Australian group that had training sessions in Brisbane leading into the Top End series.
Cooper Connolly, who batted at eight in his only Test in Galle last year, was also around and scored a ton in an ODI against Bangladesh from No.3 in June.
Campbell Kellaway, who was bowled by Taskin Ahmed for a duck in the Cricket Australia XI game in Darwin last week, and Nathan McSweeney, currently playing county cricket for Northamptonshire, would be picks from further afield.
“You’ve got a lot of available guys who are ready to go,” said Cummins. “That squad (in Brisbane) was kind of people in and around not only the red-ball but the white-ball setup as well. It was just about interaction and connection with the Aussie coaches.
“So we’ve got lots of guys that if they feel like they need to choose, it doesn’t have to be one of those six guys (outside the 13-man Test squad who have been training with the main group). You can choose from anywhere.”
Cummins acknowledged it had been difficult to judge how the Darwin surface would play given it had hosted a solitary first-class match in the previous two decades.
It had not offered the same early seam movement during that game, last year’s drawn Australia A v Sri Lanka A contest.
“At an (irregular) Test venue, it’s a bit hard to read the pitch,” he said.
“So you’re always kind of weighing up … first innings versus fourth innings, when do you think it’s going to be harder to bat? It was rock hard. I thought with a bit of grass, it might be tough for the first hour, but it felt like a pretty good batting track.
“Whereas it was hard to know what day four and five are going to do, but you feel like it might crack up in the heat and might spin. That’s pretty much how it played out.
“Do I regret it? Probably not. I’d probably do the same thing. If you get through that first hour, even the seam numbers weren’t very high after that first hour.
“So you’d hope as a team we could bat longer … You’d hope you earn the right to then be bowling on a late day-four, day-five wicket where it’s starting to spin.”
Cummins dismissed concerns over his fitness after not bowling himself during Bangladesh’s run chase, putting it down to a desire to improve their over-rate, but said the inclusion of Scott Boland was a possibility for next week’s second Test.
NRMA Insurance Bangladesh Test series
First Test: Bangladesh beat Australia by nine wickets in Darwin
Second Test: August 22-26, Great Barrier Reef Arena, Mackay, 10am (local)
Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster
Bangladesh squad: Najmul Hossain Shanto (c), Mehidy Hasan Miraz (vc), Soumya Sarkar, Shadman Islam, Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim, Litton Das, Amite Hasan, Jaker Ali, Taijul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud, Syed Khaled Ahmed, Ebadot Chowdhury, Shoriful Islam, Musfik Hasan
