Australia’s selectors are due to meet on Thursday morning to select the sides for Melbourne and Sydney after a rain-affected draw in Brisbane left the Border-Gavaskar Trophy poised on a knife’s edge at 1-1.
Labuschagne averages 16.40 across five innings in the series, with 64 of his 82 runs coming in one hit in Adelaide. McSweeney averages 14.40 with a highest score of 39. Khawaja is averaging just 12.60, having been arguably Australia’s most reliable batter in 2022 and 2023.
It appears unlikely that any change will be made despite the lean returns.
“Everyone’s always hoping to score more runs,” Cummins said after rain ended the third Test. “I think the trend in world cricket pretty much all around the world is the top three is a really hard place to bat at the moment. Particularly here in Australia, the wickets are tough. I think there’s little snippets that have been important. Again, that first innings, Trav walks in 35 overs into the game, I think that makes a big difference, the same in Adelaide. Obviously they [the top three] would be hoping to score more runs, we’d like them to score more runs, but I think they have made some important contributions that others have benefited from.”
By that measure, Australia’s top three are doing their jobs given Head’s two centuries, plus Steven Smith’s century and Alex Carey’s 70 in Brisbane put Australia in commanding positions in both games. It is clear that Australia are content, given the quality of Bumrah and the difficulty of new-ball batting, to simply ask their top three to absorb pressure and buy Head time to come in and play the way he does.
“The trend is, it seems like, five, six, seven is sometimes where a bulk of the runs are scored in Test cricket all around the world,” Cummins said. “I spoke ahead of this summer when there was all the talk about batting orders, we didn’t really want to move our five, six, seven – they’ve been so important to many of our wins over the last couple of years. We’re not beholden to stats, we know there are certain roles, there are easier times to bat, harder times to bat, just like bowlers, so you are always looking at the best seven batters who will function as a unit and place them as best you can.”
Cummins was particularly supportive of the job McSweeney has done in his first three Tests, having been asked to debut as an opener with no prior experience at Sheffield Shield level and just two brief innings in the role for Australia A.
“It’s been really hard for the opening batters for both sides really,” Cummins said. “I’ve been really impressed with the way he’s gone about it. Even today, someone starting out his career still being selfless enough to go out there and try to play shots rather than try and preserve and get a score. Really impressed with him, again probably hasn’t scored the runs he would have liked, but he has played some important knocks that have set up a win in Adelaide and a really good result here.”
Alex Malcolm is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo
Source: ESPN Crickinfo