Head coach McDonald hints at top-order changes after WTC final defeat
Andrew McGlashan15-Jun-20252:11
Should Khawaja’s pattern of dismissals worry Australia?
Usman Khawaja has been backed to be part of the Ashes later this year but Marnus Labuschagne’s spot is becoming increasingly uncertain with Sam Konstas firming for a Test recall in West Indies following Australia’s World Test Championship (WTC) final defeat at Lord’s.There is a chance that Steven Smith’s finger injury could provide an opening for Labuschagne to cling onto his spot, after he earned a show of faith at Lord’s partly because he had been ever-present in the WTC cycle, but the point has been reached where even that may not save him. The selectors will decide in the next 48 hours whether batting reinforcements need to be added to the squad once there is further clarity over Smith’s prognosis, but regardless it’s difficult to see a scenario where 19-year-old Konstas doesn’t return at the top of the order.Related
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“It was a big discussion leading into this Test match and I was on the record a couple of weeks ago talking about the need to bed down that opening combination,” head coach Andrew McDonald said. “We’ve had a bit of musical chairs there so it might be the time.”Labuschagne was moved up to open alongside Khawaja at Lord’s, the first time he had done the role in Test cricket, largely to accommodate the returning Cameron Green at No. 3 and came away with scores of 17 and 22 to leave him with an average of 27.82 for the WTC cycle.”He’s a big part of the future of the team,” McDonald said. “Anyone that averages 45, 46 in Test cricket at that age is important. We’ve got older players there that are closer to the end than the start. We’ve got some younger players that are coming in.”If he can get his game in good order for the next four or five years, he can underpin that batting order. But at the moment, he’d be disappointed with the returns. He’s missed out on big scores. But we’re confident that he could return to his best and hence why we keep picking him. And at what point do we stop picking him?”I think most players across their journey get dropped at some point in time. I think he had a positive week here where he worked on the right things and had a great prep. There’s no harder worker than Marnus. Now it’s really just about the returns. And at the moment, as I said, he’d be disappointed.”Although Khawaja scored a career-best 232 against Sri Lanka three Tests ago, his twin dismissals to Kagiso Rabada at Lord’s have returned the spotlight onto him as it continues the problems he has had against pace bowling, particularly from around the wicket. However, he seems likely to be given the same run afford to David Warner when his position was called into question during the latter of stages of his career.”He’s on contract, he’s an important player,” McDonald said. “He gives us stability at his best at the top. And we like to look at our players at their best.”No doubt, a couple of failures here and people then start to talk about maybe it’s the end. I don’t see an end date with the way he’s training, the way he’s preparing, the way he’s moving. He went back to Shield cricket, got 100 last [season]. So I think he’s got plenty of runs left in him. It’ll come down to his inner drive and the way he prepares.”It was a bit the same with Davey as well. The way he moved, we saw some positives in that. We knew that the runs were around the corner. We feel as though Usman’s got a big part to play.”Josh Inglis, who scored a century on Test debut, could be in the mix for spinning conditions•Getty Images
Josh Inglis, who is the reserve wicketkeeper and the other spare batter in the current squad, would be another option to refresh the line-up, but McDonald indicated he would come into the thinking more in spinning conditions. He also confirmed they would consider Travis Head as an opener again if confronted by a significantly spin-friendly surface, although it’s unlikely pitches will be that extreme. He added there would need to be a balancing act between looking towards the Ashes and playing the conditions presented in West Indies, where Australia haven’t played a Test since 2015.”I’d like to think that we’re being flexible around our options in the batting order,” he said. “Other people are judging that and saying that’s unsettling. I think we’ve got a group that understands when we’re home it looks a certain way, when we’re away it can potentially shift.”Amid the scrutiny on the batting, McDonald did not believe the top order was the only area of the team that had fallen short at Lord’s. “I know you guys want to talk about the batting line-up and where Marnus fits and all of that,” he said. “But we’re looking into all three facets of the game where we need to keep improving to stay ahead of the opposition. I think that the bowling had some areas where we let the tempo of the game shift on day three.””We’re not a perfect team, we haven’t been across the journey. We’ve found ways to win and unfortunately this time we couldn’t conjure that up. We also lost 5 for [20] in the first innings as well. You put those seven wickets that we lost in the second innings and that’s 12 for not many runs. I think we are better than that.”But as we sit here right now, you got to say that South Africa were better in this Test match. We’ve got to look at the improvements that we need to make. There’s no doubt about that.”