'Australia must identify guys who can adapt all over the world'
England have hammered Australia 3-1 with a Test in hand to regain the Ashes. Michael Clarke has retired. Reactions following a hugely one-sided Trent Bridge Test
ESPNcricinfo staff
09-Aug-2015
In his column for the Telegraph, Glenn McGrath says Australia play well at home but need to pick players who can adapt to conditions all over the world. He says that is the difference between being good and great.
Australia has plenty of fast bowlers coming through. Pat Cummins is in the wings here, James Pattinson is coming back and Nathan Coulter-Nile has potential - so there are a lot of young guys performing with the ball. The batting is the concern. Nobody is putting up their hand - the reason Voges got his opportunity at the latter part of his career was that he scored more runs back home than younger guys and deserved his chance. Australia play well in their own conditions but it is identifying the guys who can adapt all over the world. That is the difference between being good and being great. There is a chance now for young Australian players to make a mark and grab an opportunity.
In the Sydney Morning Herald, Greg Baum writes on Michael Clarke's decision to retire after the Oval Test: "And so, on a blindingly bright Trent Bridge morning, it all ended in tears. The Michael Clarke story, the Ashes series, the golden age, of which Clarke was the last survivor; all were of a piece, all broken beyond fixing."
As a captain, he was intuitive and adventurous. As a figurehead, he was sometimes surprising. His manful handling of public duties while grieving for his friend Phillip Hughes last November left an indelible mark. In private, he was a tower of strength, too. His final tribute was a Test century made under duress in Adelaide, likely to remain his last for Australia.
As a leader of men, Clarke was less adept than his forerunners. He never quite managed to shed the role and image of little brother to them. He was not at all a statesman. Divisions appeared within his team, even when it was winning, which was more often than not. They remain to this day. Clarke's exit will heal some of them, but not all.
"In the most dramatic but not unrealistic scenario, four of Australia's top six batting positions will open up in the next 12 months with only David Warner and Steve Smith likely to carry the team on beyond the next Australian summer," writes Russell Jackson in the Guardian. "The candidates for those positions aren't exactly irresistible, but then neither were a host of Australia's golden era gems when they first won caps."
That generational change will most likely include Usman Khawaja, placed on notice when he was handed the captaincy of the A team for their current Indian tour and a player of undoubted class. That leadership role is quite a turnaround for a player who once had a reputation for wandering around with his hands in his pockets and his mind in neutral. At the very least his one-day form will appeal.
The imminent departure of Chris Rogers is honestly now more worrying than that of Clarke because it will rob Australia of its steeliest and most reliable top-order contributor. No player of his ilk exists in the domestic game or is likely to appear out of the blue, but the determined progress of 22-year-old Western Australian opener Cameron Bancroft is reason for a quiet optimism.
Geoffrey Boycott is appalled by how poor Australia have been against the swinging ball. Writing in the Telegraph, he says: "I cannot believe that before this series started I picked Australia to win 2-1. If I had seen how badly Australia bat against the moving ball I would have been running to the bookies to put money on England."
Australia's most prolific batsman over the last 12 months, Steve Smith, has played like a novice. He is a flat-track bully on easy batting pitches but in six innings on the three Test-match pitches where the ball has moved laterally he has had a bad technique and he has shown poor shot selection and an inability to graft or work for runs. In those six innings he has scored 92 runs. Pathetic. His second-innings dismissal here was unbelievably stupid. He was caught at cover-point trying to smash a good-length ball on the up having just come to the crease following a failure in the first innings and with his team trying to battle for credibility. As the vice-captain and the next leader of the team what sort of message does that send to your team-mates?