Australia's batting unit is drifting without a plan

Australia have won these Ashes by being better for longer. But on the most difficult batting pitch they have seen at home, they were unable to extend the game long enough to be better than England.

Their quest for 5-0 came to an abrupt halt, much like the MCG mower it seems.

Teams are allowed to lose games at home. Particularly ones that become a lottery like this one did over two manic days.

For all the negativity around Australia's performance and the quality of the team at large, they now slump to 17 wins, four losses and one rain-affected draw from their last 22 Tests since the 2023 Ashes, having won this one in 11 days. For supposedly the worst team since 2010-11, it's a hell of a record.

It is hard to be critical. However, it's entirely possible that Australia will leave this series with the urn, and take an eight-month hiatus from Test cricket, with more questions than answers about a batting unit that already had huge question marks prior to the series.

Nowhere in Australia's long planning for this series did they have Travis Head opening the batting, Usman Khawaja at No. 5 and Cameron Green at No. 7 by the time the coin was tossed in Melbourne.

If that were a scenario presented to Australia's selectors by a fortune teller in October, that would have thought they would be 1-2 down at least rather than 3-0 to the good.

There is a sense brewing amongst an Australian fan base expectant of perfection that someone should pay the price at the selection table in Sydney. That would be harsh from a game where no player on either team reached 50 for the first time in a Test since 1932.

But what the difficulty of this week highlights is how several of Australia's batters have squandered excellent batting conditions in Brisbane and Adelaide. Nicking off cheaply in brutal seaming conditions is often a far more minor crime as a professional than butchering a start when conditions are in your favour. In Australia, conditions have rarely been in the favour of Australia's batters in recent years as much as they were in Brisbane and Adelaide and apart from Head and Alex Carey, no one cashed in.

The central focus of the fans' ire are Marnus Labuschagne and Green. It is here where the selectors are in the tightest bind.

Australia is on the cusp of a transition. The injuries to the bowling unit mean that it will happen naturally, if it isn't already in this series. How the batting unit is regenerated is a different story.

At 31 and 26 respectively, Labuschagne and Green were to be the key pillars of the next iteration of Australia's side. From August next year Australia are set to play 20 Tests over a 12-month period. It would be a major surprise if the 39-year-old Khawaja played any. If he's needed to it would speak volumes about where the future of Australian batting is at. How many Steven Smith plays remains to be seen given he turns 37 before the 20-Test run starts.

Carey, 34, and Head, 32 on Monday, are in their prime and should be major run-scorers over the next two years.

Labuschagne and Green are seen as two that could carry the batting beyond those two, potentially as an axis in Nos. 3 and 4 to build around when the next crop of Australian batters start to emerge.

But right now, that seems like a pipe dream. Labuschagne has completed the second-worst calendar year by an Australian No.3, averaging 23.88 in the position with just two half-centuries in 11 innings coming in Perth and Brisbane.

Throw in his brief roles as an opener, and at No. 4 thanks to the nightwatcher in Melbourne, and he's averaged 20.84 for the year. Only two of Australian top-four batters have ever endured an annus horribilis worse than that.

It's arguably made worse by the fact he was dropped for three of the toughest batting pitches of the year in the Caribbean.

That axing had seemed to spur out the response the selectors were looking for. He dominated domestic cricket to demand his Test spot back and made two polished half-centuries in Perth and Brisbane, and more pleasingly from the coaches' perspective, he struck at a brisk 73.56 as he appeared to get back the positive intent of his best days in Test cricket.

But the 65 in Brisbane looks like a missed opportunity now. A loose flap when in complete control now hangs heavy around his neck. He's scored 46 runs from 122 balls in the next two Tests on contrasting pitches, and nicked off three times out of four in copy cat fashion.

The early summer form appears to be a mirage in a Test century drought that has lasted two years, 20 Tests and 38 innings.

Green's century drought is less than half as long at 17 innings, but in time it feels every bit the equal given how much cricket he has missed. Green feels like he is starting his career over for the third time, having initially been squeezed out by Mitchell Marsh for four Tests over six months in the second half of 2023. His century in March 2024, in just his third Test back, felt like an arrival. His next Test after that New Zealand tour was 15 months later due to back surgery.

The sense he is continuing to start his career over and over again is compounded by the fact he has batted in every spot from No.3 to No.8 in the last 18 months, including in five different spots in his last seven Test innings.

He went from being "Australia's long-term No. 3" midyear to being resettled at No. 6 for one innings before moving up to No. 5 for two Tests and then back to Nos. 7 and 8 in Melbourne. The promise of his 23 and 45 in Perth and Brisbane now looks like a wasted opportunity. He was one of the few batters on the brutal pitch in Melbourne to get started in both innings, only to run himself out and then nick off in bizarre fashion in the second.

After 57 Test innings he averages 32.25 with just nine scores above fifty and two centuries. His average at home is now bizarrely under 28. Questions are rightly being asked why he is being preferred to Beau Webster. The cavernous gulf between their domestic batting records, in Green's favour, has not been evident at Test level this year.

Throw in Jake Weatherald's series of starts, having been the third opener to debut since David Warner's retirement, Josh Inglis' unsettled three innings as a specialist No. 7 in Brisbane and Adelaide, and Australia's batting looks worse than the sum of it's parts.

Melbourne was not a collective failure, given the conditions, but it highlighted an ongoing problem that is not getting better the longer it goes.