Aussie cricketing great Mark Taylor laments the decline of opening batting craft as Test selectors mull who should be called up to fill the role this summer.
There has been no obvious choice to replace the retired David Warner at the top of Australia’s order.
The picture seems a little clearer but the puzzle is far from solved just two weeks out from the first Test against India.
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Nathan McSweeney has reportedly been elevated to open for Australia A against India A in the second tour match starting Thursday.
It is the safest indication yet that he will be named in the Test squad and make his debut in Perth later this month.
But McSweeney bats at No.3 for his state, and did so for Australia A in Mackay last week.
Cameron Bancroft, Marcus Harris, and Nathan McSweeney all average less than 40. Nine
Test legend Ian Chappell says a batter must want to walk out at the top of the order, or else he will likely fail as an opener.
“If you walk out to open the batting and in your head you’re thinking ‘I don’t want to do this job’, it’s not a good frame of mind,” Chappell told Wide World of Sports’ Outside The Rope.
While McSweeney has talent – two centuries in his last three Sheffield Shield matches for South Australia – his stats don’t exactly jump off the page.
The 25-year-old averages 38.82 from 33 first-class matches.
He is not alone in averaging less than 40 at that level.
Other contenders for Australia’s opening spot include the more experienced Marcus Harris and Cameron Bancroft. They average 39.62 and 38.87 at first-class level and have both failed in previous stints in the Test team, averaging less than 27.
A respectable Test batter generally averages above 45 against the red ball, although openers can get away with a lesser average if they have the ability to take the shine off the new ball to help their No.3, 4, and 5 batters.
Ricky Ponting – arguably Australia’s best batter since Don Bradman – averaged 51.85 in Test cricket and 55.90 in first-class matches.
A quote attributed to him circulating on social media this week claims he said, “If you were averaging 35 when I was playing, your dad would go and buy you a basketball or a footy and tell you to play that”.
The quote was posted by England great Kevin Pietersen on X, who followed it up with another post lamenting the decline of long-form batting around the world.
Cricket purists widely believe the introduction of Twenty20 cricket – which is now the most lucrative form of the game at a professional level – has led to a decline in batters being able to spend hours at the crease, which Test matches often require.
The rise of domestic T20 leagues has also led to a reduction in the amount of red-ball cricket available to players.
Taylor averaged 43.49 in 104 Test matches and was considered a specialist opener.
He says the skill of opening the batting in red-ball cricket has been diminished to the point it is no longer taken into account by selectors.
“It certainly was, but… these days you’re not getting the upbringing we used to have in my time,” he told Outside The Rope.
“Going back to the mid-80s, you played X amount of grade games, then you moved into the state team where I think I played something like 40 Sheffield Shield games, opening the batting against quality bowlers, against the Australian bowlers. Then you got a chance to play Test cricket.
Former cricketer Mark Taylor. Getty
“Now we’re almost picking our Test team not just from Shield form, but from how a guy goes in County cricket, or how he might have gone in the recent one-day series, or T20.
“Selectors would not look at white-ball cricket as an indicator for red-ball cricket, but now they have to because there is so much fragmentation of international cricket. So it is a little bit harder to pick.
“(Usman Khawaja) wasn’t an opener early on in his career, Justin Langer wasn’t an opener… and a lot of openers, like Matty Renshaw, he’s actually gone down the order now.
“So players are moving around all over the place, so it’s not easy for selectors to get a gauge on who actually wants to open the batting, who wants to be a full-time opener.”
It’s believed if McSweeney scores runs against India A at the MCG in the second tour match, he will be asked to open alongside Khawaja in Perth.