Following the crushing first Test loss to India in Perth in November, there was a moment when Australia’s Test team looked as though they may have reached a cliff much sooner than predicted.
Ten weeks, five Test wins and two significant series victories later, that seismic defeat in Perth feels like nothing but a bump in the road, with the horizon looking even better than expected.
Australia finish a seven-Test home and away summer with five wins, a loss and a draw. It is a worse record than the six wins from seven they produced in 2023-24, but the performances were far more impressive.
Last summer they used just 12 players across seven Tests home and away, playing three of them without a single player under the age of 29, and produced less than convincing series wins over Pakistan and New Zealand whilst drawing with West Indies at home in between.
This summer they played 18, with Cameron Green missing all seven through injury, Josh Hazlewood playing just two and Pat Cummins missing two, winning two series with two completely different XIs.
Three players under 25 debuted, including two under 21. Two stars of the Sheffield Shield in Beau Webster and Josh Inglis came in and performed like the ready made players that they are. A new baggy green was handed out in four straight Tests, something that hadn’t happened for 27 years.
It was a summer where Australia showed versatility and adaptability in both decision-making and execution across a vast spectrum of conditions and opponents.
The team and the selectors wore the criticism of running a closed shop after the defeat in Perth, instead opting to calmly stay the course and make just one injury-forced change in Adelaide. But they made bold calls when it was least expected. Having won in Adelaide and dominated four of five rainy days in Brisbane, they made the brave decision to pick the 19-year-old Sam Konstas in Melbourne.
After winning in Melbourne, there was an expectation that nothing would change in Sydney. But their best player from the previous summer, and arguably the most popular player in the dressing room, Mitchell Marsh was dropped after scoring just 73 runs in seven innings and replaced by the Shield’s best allrounder in Webster.
In Sri Lanka, Australia’s long-standing tradition of valuing incumbency over innovation was thrown into the Indian Ocean and the result was a 2-0 sweep that left locals wondering which team was the home side.
Across their last four Tests in Asia, including the last two Tests in India in 2023, they have found a blueprint for success under stand-in captain Steven Smith. With Travis Head opening, picking one fast bowler and playing three spinners, or a third spinning allrounder, Australia have won three Tests and drawn one, their best four-Test stretch of results on the subcontinent since 2004.
Australia’s finger spin stocks have hardly ever been deeper, with Matthew Kuhnemann starring in Sri Lanka alongside Nathan Lyon while Todd Murphy continues to impress despite limited opportunities.
Reports of Smith’s decline as a Test batter were greatly exaggerated, as were fears of Australia’s batting depth overall.
Smith plundered four centuries in five Tests against peak Jasprit Bumrah in Brisbane and Melbourne, and against two of the most successful spinners to ever bowl in Galle, to zoom past 10000 Test runs and nudge his Test average back towards 57, while looking every inch the batting savant he was six years ago.
The performance of Inglis and Webster, although he didn’t make a century, and the looming return of Green means Australia is now flush with options ahead of the World Test Championship final which will create a selection squeeze.
There will undoubtedly be pressure on Marnus Labuschagne after a summer where he averaged just 25.63 without a century. It is worth noting though that he and Head were the only Australia batters to pass 50 three times against Bumrah.
Amid the optimism of a batting cupboard that is chockablock, it is also worth acknowledging that seven of Australia’s centuries were scored by the usual suspects in Smith, Head and Usman Khawaja, while the other two were made by the wicketkeeper Alex Carey and his understudy Inglis who was playing as a batter. Inglis is the only one of those five who is under the age of 31.
The treatment of the two youngsters in Konstas and Nathan McSweeney rankled many, with the latter felt to be set up for failure as an opener after earning his place through middle-order Shield form, while the former captured the nation’s hearts only to be cast aside based on the conditions in Sri Lanka.
A quick glance, however, at the top 10 Australian Test run-scorers shows a litany of examples of players given a taste of Test cricket at a young age, losing their place and then returning to dominate at the highest level.
Smith himself was dropped after making 77 in his second Test as a 21-year-old, recalled five Tests later, then dropped again for two full years before becoming Australia’s best since Bradman.
The early gamble on Cooper Connolly, which was widely queried, may also bear fruit years down the line whilst costing nothing in the here and now.
Australia will still experience some pain whenever Smith and Khawaja finish, but the future looks brighter than it did 10 weeks ago.
One area that is of greater uncertainty is the fast-bowling depth. Once known as Australia’s endless natural resource, there are some concerns that have emerged from the summer. Hazlewood’s injuries are chief among them. Cummins’ ankle has still not recovered from five brutal Tests against India, while the iron-man Mitchell Starc has just turned 35. Scott Boland continued to prove how valuable a back-up he is and could well force his way into the WTC final even if the big three get through the IPL unscathed. But he too is 35 and has his workloads carefully managed while Michael Neser, 34, was unavailable all summer due to a hamstring injury.
The management of Jhye Richardson, 28, is proof of concerns around the quality of the next rung. Richardson was called into the Test squad for Melbourne after playing one first-class game in 12 months in which he dislocated his shoulder high-fiving a team-mate. He is now rehabbing from a third surgery on that shoulder in a bid to be fit for the Ashes.
That next rung of Sean Abbott, Brendan Doggett and Nathan McAndrew are all performing well at first-class level but all are over the age of 30. Replacing two ageing generational batters out of six in the short to medium term looks far easier than replacing three generational quicks out of three.
For now, Australia march to a second consecutive WTC final with enough depth and confidence that any of whatever 15 they choose in their squad could play a role in the final. Thereafter they play three Tests in the West Indies, where the performance in Sri Lanka might have more bearing on how they set up than how they play at Lord’s, before a date with England for a home Ashes. Perth feels a long time ago.
