Australian batsmen worse off than their Bangladeshi counterparts?

Is he the lone ranger in the Australian batting camp?

If you can’t bat you can’t win. It’s one of the oldest sayings in cricket but it’s also one of the game’s ultimate truth.

And after the dire displays at Lord’s, a lot of England cricket fans are saying the same thing. Australia cannot bat.

It was evident how far a once great nation has fallen behind when the crowd sung at the end of the second Test: “Are you Bangladesh in disguise.”

Coming into the series, every eye was on Michael Clarke to score the bulk of the Aussies’ runs after averaging over 100 in Tests in 2012 since he began his reign as captain. But so far, he has failed to replicate his Bradman-esque form.

Out of the top seven that played at Lord’s, Clarke’s 51 was the sixth highest total scored by a batsman. This is from a batsman who has played so well at Lord’s in the past with a 91 and a magnificent 136 to his name when he played the old enemy.

Maybe it’s the lack of match practise or the stress of captaincy has finally got to him, or maybe a big score is just an innings away before the old Clarke is back. But the fact is when Clarke doesn’t fire, the Australian batting looks as fragile as a autumn leaf.

Shane Watson is the epitome of wasted talent. A powerful assualter of opening bowling when in full flow but once the ball has lost it’s lacquer, he’s a wicket waiting to happen. His 31% of LBW wickets is the highest of any opening batsman in cricket history and at the age of 32, it’ll be very hard to change his technique.

What’s worse for Watson is that he appears to be the lightning rod for all the problems Australia have suffered in terms of PR. The list includes, sent home during ‘homework gate’, being called a cancer by sacked coach Mickey Arthur, wasting a plum DRS review for (guess) an LBW that cost Chris Rogers his wicket soon after and being sent offensive tweets by Steven Warner.

The dark clouds surrounding Watson must suggest there is a deep sense of distrust between him and the majority of the Australian public and squad. It’s one thing to drop a player for bad form but if a player attracts this much criticism from so many sources, you know he is capable of polarising the dressing room.

Speaking of Rogers, this series has shown just what he is. A stop-gap opener who isn’t quite cut out for Test cricket. For someone who had just one Test cap to his name at the age of 35 to suddenly be thrown into the deep end of opening in an Ashes series was maybe a bridge too far to cross.

He tries his hardest but the superior bowling talents of Anderson and Swann have cruelly exploited his flaws. He’ll probably last the remaining three Tests but will be lucky to play in Australia in the corresponding Ashes.

Usman Khawaja

Usman Khawaja and Phil Hughes have been given chance after chance to succeed in the Test arena but have consistently failed. They occasionally put together a noteworthy innings or two but can they be relied upon when the chips are down? I highly doubt it.

Hughes’ knock of 81 was when Ashton Agar was hitting the ball all over the wicket and was able to play in the shadows. Just where he likes to play. He’s scored one century in five years since his breakthrough against South Africa. His dismissals are normally loose off side drives or tortured edges or pad in front to spinners. Basically, the manner of dismissals not befitting Test cricket-standards.

Khawaja does offer some promise in Test cricket but not much. This is just my opinion but anyone with an average under 30 after 12 innings shouldn’t be playing Test cricket. His footwork looks wooden and the way he played against Graeme Swann suggests a mental deficiency that a Test cricketer doesn’t need – especially the way he got out.

The fact that even the Australian selectors – notorious for bringing in the youth over experience – kept bringing him out of the side for Hughes suggests that even they don’t trust him. His half century will give him a chance throughout the series to show what he can do but his tortured face against Swann and Joe Root suggests that spin will cause him endless headaches.

Steven Smith is a useful player to have in a side. His batting can be fluent and can rack up runs quickly. He is also one of the better players of spin in the side and looked fairly comfortable against Swann in both Tests and was a tad unlucky to get out to a stunning catch by Ian Bell. As he showed on the final day at Lords, his spin bowling can take wickets late in the innings and is a lot more dangerous than ‘wonderkid’ Ashton Agar.

But, again, his batting is really more of a number seven or eight level than number five or six and his spin bowling is just on a back-up level instead of being in the frontline.

Much like Khawaja, Smith’s footwork is too rigid but because he prefers to attack on the front foot, it means he keeps edging behind after an expansive drive if there’s a hint of swing. In essence, he is a Stuart Broad type batsman. An attacking player that can hurt any attack on a good day but is just too inconsistent to warrant a place in the top six.

So there you go, aside from Michael Clarke, there is only one or maybe two batsman in the current Australian top six that I would stick with. And even those two in Khawaja and Smith are more for the future rather than the present.

And if you look at Bangladesh’s top six, in Tamin Iqbal, Shakib Al Hasan and Nasir Hossain they have at least three players who I think are better batsman then those other five in the Australian ranks. Maybe that mischievous song wasn’t totally wide off the mark after all.