2 months ago
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As Jake Weatherald’s head fell past his front leg once more to put his immediate Test career in serious jeopardy, Travis Head made the future of Australia’s batting emphatically clear.
His stout frame is what the Test order will be built around as generational change looms.
Head’s all-out assault as a Test opener rolled on at the SCG on day two, gorging on half-track new-ball offerings from Matthew Potts and thrashing anything wide through his favourite point region.
His five centuries in the past three Australian Test summers have spared an often misfiring batting line-up from greater scrutiny, and there is no real wrong answer to where he bats. As an opener or No.5, no one takes the game away from the opposition as quickly when everything is working.
Former Test skipper Michael Clarke has arguably seen as much batting turnover as anyone in Australian cricket: from his blonde-tipped arrival when Steve Waugh was bowing out, through the gradual retirements of Damien Martyn, Justin Langer, Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden, to a captain who had to make do without Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey, who left within 12 months of him taking over.
And for Clarke, the mustachioed man from Adelaide’s northern suburbs holds the key to life after Usman Khawaja and, sooner rather than later, Steve Smith.
Asked how Australia best handle the transitions he weathered for much of his career, Clarke pinpointed Head as the key, irrespective of whether he bats as an opener or in the middle order.
“I think Travis will get to make that decision [on carrying on as an opener] on his own,” Clarke said.
“If he wants to open, he’ll probably get that – he’s earned that right … But if we’re going to push Travis Head back down to five, then you need a specialist opener.
“The main concern for me with this team is trying not to lose two or three big fish at the one time.”
Unfortunately for Weatherald, his run of LBW and full-ball dismissals likely has another specialist opener spot opening up. For the fourth time in nine innings, England trapped him in front.
Each of those dismissals, along with his Boxing Day leg glance to a waiting Jamie Smith, has featured the telltale fall to the off side and happy exploitation of that by English seamers.
While Head rattled along unperturbed against the new ball on Monday, Weatherald could have departed on nine when he flashed an edge high and wide of Joe Root at slip.
He then should have been out when he pulled one straight to Ben Duckett on 14. Duckett’s poor series with the bat has been matched by his hands in the field.
Where Weatherald’s technical flaws have continued, Marnus Labuschagne showed the scoring intent he has lacked of late. His willingness to get onto the front foot throughout his innings of 48 from 68 balls was more akin to his strike rate of 62 during his last golden year of 2022 (957 runs at an average of 56).
During the increasingly stodgy two years leading to his axing last winter, Labuschagne’s scoring rate slumped to 45 runs per 100 balls.
The warning lights flashing in Adelaide and Melbourne – a combined strike rate of 37.7 – were heeded leading into Sydney, again with Potts especially obliging under darkening skies.
One selection query seemingly answered in Weatherald; another potentially rebuffed by Labuschagne.
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Until, of course, he clashed with Ben Stokes late in the day, then edged him straight to Jacob Bethell. Like his 65 in Brisbane that should have been a century, Labuschagne will rue the missed chance to enjoy the best of day three’s batting.
Instead, at some point on Tuesday, Cameron Green will take his place beneath the microscope.
He’ll do so after churning through 18 overs – the equal-most he’s bowled in his career – in England’s first innings.
Such is life when it’s not going quite your way, his no-ball that reversed Smith’s dismissal might have made for far less work had Green only managed to keep his foot behind the line.
Luckily for Australia, they have one of the world’s most audacious and unconventional batsmen to build around.
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