Australians hope collective effort can fill massive gap left by Smith
Without the man who has scored a third of their runs, Paine wants the whole side to step up
Take out one-third of a team’s runs and what, exactly, is left? This is the question facing Australia at Headingley, where they must find a way to score sufficient runs without Steve Smith.
When Smith suffered his concussion at Lord’s, the joke was that the only “like-for-like replacement” had been born in Cootamundra more than a century earlier and passed away in 2001. Yet arguably even this understated Smith’s importance to Australia this series.
Throughout his indomitable career, Sir Don Bradman scored 25.3 per cent of Australia’s runs. So far in the 2019 Ashes, Smith accounts for 32.2 per cent of Australia’s runs – even though he could not bat in the second innings at Lord’s. His tally of 378 runs this
series is, absurdly, a full 253 clear of Australia’s next highest scorer, Travis Head.
Replacing Smith is like trying to do without oxygen: it cannot be done, even though Marnus Labuschagne did an admirable impression in the second innings at Lord’s.
“We do it as a team,” captain Tim Paine said of trying to make up for Smith’s runs. “There aren’t too many guys – there’s only one other – that have averaged higher than Steve in Test cricket. Clearly, they are huge shoes to fill and we don’t put all that pressure on Marnus. Marnus comes in to play a role in our team and it’s up to everyone else, particularly our senior players, to just make sure we give that little bit more output and cover Steve as best we can.”
If Australia are to thrive – or, at least, survive – in Smith’s absence, that process must begin with extracting more runs from their openers.
For while Smith has returned astonishingly from his 16-month absence from Test cricket, so far David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, Australia’s opening pair, have mustered a combined 60 runs across their eight innings.
After a terrific World Cup, when he made 647 runs – just one shy of the tournament record – and showed an ability to adapt to the moving ball that many openers in the tournament lacked, Warner’s struggles have been surprising. Across the 2015 and 2017-18 Ashes, Stuart Broad bowled 309 balls to Warner and failed to dismiss him at all. So far this series, Broad has extracted late movement from around the wicket to snare Warner three times in just 29 balls.
Bancroft has fared a little better, showing the contours of a method to withstand seam at Lord’s, but being dismissed by a different bowler each innings this series, including twice by spin.
“It’s international cricket, it’s tough,” Paine said. “Opening the batting in Test cricket in England is difficult. I know our guys are struggling a little bit as well to get the runs they would like.”
Should Bancroft fail again at Headingley, he may well be replaced by Marcus Harris, who made two 70s against India in Australia’s home summer and is averaging 32.7 from his six Tests, considerably superior to Bancroft’s 26.2.
Given his 21 Test centuries, there are no such doubts about Warner’s place, but there is a case that he should be moved down from opening – he averages just 30.2 in England – to bat in the middle
order, and so be better protected from the new ball.
After their previous failed campaigns in England, Australia were braced for swing and seam, even if they knew how this would test them. Facing an Englishman of Jofra Archer’s speed, and penchant for clattering limbs and worse, is a novel challenge. And while Australia’s batsmen have ample experience against 90mph bowling in the nets, doing so in the cauldron of an Ashes Test is a challenge of an altogether different order, especially given the lack of cues in Archer’s action about when a bouncer will follow.
“Obviously we copped some short-pitched bowling, I think guys prepared for it last week but it’s another thing facing it,” Paine said. “Guys have got plans in place and we’ve prepared really well for it. It’s about going out and executing it. We think the Lord’s wicket was quite a difficult one to face short-pitched bowling on, so we’re interested to see how this wicket plays. But it’s about adapting to the situation, the wicket and what any of their bowlers are trying to do. We’ve got to have a plan to counter that and I know our boys will.”
“Character over cover drives” is the mantra of Australia’s head coach, Justin Langer, and one that he leaned on once more when assembling Australia’s Ashes squad. That explained why Bancroft was recalled to open at the top of the order, why Matthew Wade was picked as a specialist batsman at No 6 and why Labuschagne was selected to tour after a middling start to his Test career. Now, as they try to navigate facing Archer and friends without their finest player, Australia’s batsmen will need to draw on all those reserves of character in the days ahead.