Skipper Pat Cummins is confident the batting aces can again return to the dizzying heights of their prime years.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they do. I think when they were averaging 60 each year you thought,‘That’s gonna be an outlier’,and four or five years later,we’re in awe they’ve kept up that standard,” Cummins said.
“We’ve toured India this year,some of the wickets in Australia haven’t been like they were five,six years ago either.”
Only the top liners would knock backSmith’s year of 879 runs at 42,but for the man dubbed the best since Bradman it is well down from the mid-70s he averaged leading into the fateful events of Cape Town,or his Ashes in 2019.
Since Labuschagne’s coming of age in the 2019 Ashes,he has boasted end-of-year averages of 65,67,66,56. His current mark sits at 36. His knock of 63 on a tricky MCG wicket was high class and,according to Cummins,worthy of a century on a better batting track.
“You see the hours they put in the nets,they are still hitting it as well as they ever have,” Cummins said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they started churning out hundreds all the time.”
After the 2019 Ashes,international attacks began bumping Smith,figuring that if they could not get him out they would make life extremely unpleasant for him at the crease. It led to a drop in his strike rate.
More recently,he is showing signs his eye is not as sharp,trapped in front missing straight balls he previously would have scored from,and nicking off balls he would have left in his prime.
Labuschagne’s strength early was his judgment of what to leave,but he is now more vulnerable to the channel outside off stump,an area he averaged 64.7 from 2018-22 but only 17.4 this year,according to figures on Fox Cricket.
His strike rate is also down. Of the top 25 run-scorers this year,his strike rate of 43.35 is the lowest.
“He’s struggled to find his rhythm,” former England captain Michael Vaughan said on Fox’s telecast. “I’m not too sure if there’s been a technical change,or just mental.
“To me,he’s just trying to survive those channel deliveries. I get the sense with Marnus that he’s just thinking about survival.”
Alex Carey’s drop-off since his controversial stumping of Jonny Bairstow becomes more alarming by the day. Twelve months ago,he scored what shaped to be a groundbreaking century here. Now,he is averaging just 16 since the Lord’s Test.
Selection chair George Bailey said before the Tests the panel had not discussed Carey’s spot in the team,but they were also adamant before the World Cup he was their man,only to dump him for Josh Inglis for the second game.
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