Australia vs India, 4th Test Day 3: Talking Points

#2. The sub-standard condition of Australian batting

Australia needs someone to step up in the batting department

In a game of cricket, as in every other field of life and living, credits must be given where they are due. And for the first part, we did credit the Indian bowlers for bowling so beautifully earlier today, like they have done this whole series. But so have the Aussies too. It is their own home conditions, and they definitely did well to restrict India to scores less than or equal to 250 on more than two occasions. They even helped win the game at Perth. So where did Australia get it wrong?

Most of the fingers could point to the batsmen. In the past week and a bit more, the Aussie willow-wielders have shown a serious lack of temperament, and a whole lot of carelessness in their shots selections, that would put even out-of-favor Indian batsmen to shame.

Khawaja, Harris, Marsh, Head, and Paine - 5 out of the 6 wickets that fell today, came from shots that could have been avoided. Khawaja's and Harris' dismissals were explained earlier, and Marsh's was something similar to Harris - only the ball caught his outside edge instead and flew straight to Rahane at slips, while Head simply pushed a loopy full toss back at the bowler.

Finally, Tim Paine, the Aussie skipper was tempted to drive away from his body but was done in the flight and played the wrong line as the ball crept in between bat and pad and crashed into the stumps.

The side is seriously reeling in the absence of their two best batsmen at the moment in Steven Smith and David Warner, and it has been showing in almost every game that Australia has played in the past eight months or so. Such bad shots are highly uncharacteristic of a team like theirs, and Justin Langer will have to ponder deep on how to influence his batsmen's thinking and prevent it in the future.