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The quick-fire series in the Northern Territory did little to answer batting line-up questions and the top of the order remains an almighty jumble
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Sport — Geoff Lemon
Cricket Australia didn’t host a Bangladesh Test for 23 years for a simple reason: it would have cost money to stage and earned less money back. That wouldn’t have been a concern for whichever generation of players would have taken the field, but for the suits, the equation was lose-lose. Now that the mandate of the World Test Championship has forced administrators to end that long wait, the result for Australia’s current batting outfit was also been lose-lose, even if the series scoreline ended up lose-win.
Defeat in the Darwin Test will remain a punchline at Australia’s expense, especially if the upcoming cavalcade of cricket against South Africa, New Zealand, India and England goes poorly. The follow-up win in Mackay , no matter the ruthlessness of concluding it in five sessions, won’t provide corresponding solace, given the manner in which it was built.
Related: How Australia found themselves on the wrong side of cricket’s most profound upset | Geoff Lemon
Tearing up an opponent with the ball is something that the current Australian setup is always a chance to do. Before Mackay, no Test team had ever had all four bowlers in the 300-wicket club. Two of those four ended the match among the top 10 wicket-takers of all time. A sport that is fundamentally about outscoring your opponent becomes a lot easier when your opponent can’t score. Plenty of times in recent years, Australia’s bowling has ensured that not much is asked of Australia’s batting.
While losing in Darwin, where the visiting batters were able to cope with Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon, the home team’s batting failed badly enough to almost lose by an innings. While winning in Mackay, Australia’s specialist batting did not improve. Positions of 152-6 and 193-6 in the first Test worsened to 146-6 in the second. But this decline was offered a reprieve by such extreme bowling dominance that even one mid-strength score was enough to complete a win.
The upshot is that Bangladesh’s visit has left the ideal Australian team structure even fuzzier than it was before. A few weeks before travelling to face South Africa, a team with fast bowlers and conditions to suit them, Australia’s batting order has more question marks than the Riddler’s suit. Only one spot has more clarity thanks to Bangladesh: No 5 for Cameron Green. With more support, his rearguard century might have flipped the Darwin result, while even the ascendancy in Mackay might have been in trouble without his 67. After many mediocre returns, his patience and decision-making were encouragingly improved. There is more to do, but here’s the start.
Meanwhile, Steve Smith still looked clearly Australia’s best when up for the task, though the steel-trap concentration that once carried him to hundreds now seems more likely to run out of juice between the 40s and the 70s. Smith at No4 is the only other locked-in spot; Travis Head is a certainty to play, but after a series that was bust rather than boom as per the risks of his style, there is already conversation about whether his sojourn at the top of the order should be temporary, and whether he should take his talents back to the middle.
That’s also a function of other instability at the top after dropping Jake Weatherald, the lone sacrifice to atone for Darwin. Weatherald was allowed the latitude of a poor Ashes, selectors greeting that performance with encouraging spin and a national contract. There was a chance that he could make something of the opportunity. But if selectors were to make a move against him, it needed to happen back then. If deciding to keep backing him eight months later, that support needed to last beyond two innings. Now the team has the best of neither world. In his place, Matt Renshaw got 10 balls, a leading edge, and no chance to build momentum. Is he the right choice for South Africa? Nobody knows, least of all Renshaw.
Then to first drop, where Marnus Labuschagne’s chances of further appearances seem to be approaching an equivalence with Tahitian icebergs. Labuschagne’s return to his original country representing his adopted one would be a story with emotional weight, a bit like Weatherald being Australia’s first player from Darwin while getting to play an exceedingly rare Test in the Northern Territory. But if Weatherald’s full circle might also be his full stop, Labuschagne’s long parabola to South Africa might fall marginally short. The way he was last dismissed, moving so far towards off stump that he kicked a ball onto leg stump, before remonstrating with the upset furniture, speaks of a player at the end of his wick. Only devotional faith from selectors could light another candle for him.
It’s an almighty jumble at the top, and then you reach the lower middle, where Alex Carey’s commitment to a counterattacking wicketkeeper ideal made him bat more like a No 9 than a No 6, while Beau Webster at No 7 was a triple bust, backed in after a limited career to date that has produced some important fifties but no score more significant.
Not much of the picture looks compelling. Then again, nor does Test batting in most parts of the world, and South Africa have a ball-to-bat disparity more stark on paper than Australia’s. Perhaps the October series will be a battle of who can best patch together a bridge for that gap. Australia’s run of 20 Tests in a year has now had a couple chalked off, but the issues made evident in those two might well colour the 18 that remain.
Defeat in the Darwin Test will remain a punchline at Australia’s expense, especially if the upcoming cavalcade of cricket against South Africa, New Zealand, India and England goes poorly. The follow-up win in Mackay , no matter the ruthlessness of concluding it in five sessions, won’t provide corresponding solace, given the manner in which it was built.
This report is published with credit to theguardian.com. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on theguardian.com →
Source: theguardian.com · Geoff Lemon. Published 25 Aug 2026, 05:41 am.
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