Sad state of Australian cricket team laid bare as Justin Langer detail called out

OPINION

The narrative around the state of the Australian cricket team has changed drastically following the first Test horror show against India but the reality is the writing has been on the wall since Justin Langer stepped down.

While the condemnation of the team following the three-day demolition job at the hands of India, Australia's fall from grace has been anything but. After Australia offered barely a whimper against an Indian side destroyed 3-0 to New Zealand at home last month, the loss shined a light on the ugly reality that Aussie cricket fans are likely in for a rough few years.

So far much of the discussion following the Perth Test has centred around the top five and for good reason. Their aggregate total across both innings (which includes Pat Cummins' night watchman stint in the second innings) was just 57. The last time it was lower was in 1888, some 136 years ago.

But the slide hasn't happened overnight, it has been there to see but no one has wanted to look under the bonnet. If you take out Nathan McSweeney, given the fact Perth was his debut Test, every single player in Australia's top five has seen their batting average fall in the last year or so.

Marnus Labuschagne's slide is the most notable and has led to calls for him to be axed. The 30-year-old is averaging just 30.28 in Test cricket since February last year. And a look at his last 10 innings shows just how badly out of form he is. Labushcagne has scored 10, 1 not out, 3, 5, 1, 2, 90, 6, 2 and 3 for an average of just 13.66 across that period. While Steve Smith has managed just three centuries in his 36 innings since the start of 2023, a far cry from the years under Langer when he was widely regarded as the best batsman in the world.

Travis Head has also seen his Test average slide of late and Usman Khawaja is starting to show signs that his late-career resurgence may have ended and even if it hasn't he is likely to hang up the gloves either at the end of this summer or next.

Australia's bowling regression hidden by batsmen's failures

And while most of the attention is on the batting unit, things are also trending down on the bowling side as well. Apart from the fact Australia's top bowlers are all in their 30s, most of their averages are also getting progressively worse.

Since taking over the captaincy, Cummins' bowling average has suffered, going from 19.43 before he was skipper to 24.75. Starc is also trending in the wrong direction and while 37-year-old Nathan Lyon continues to perform, the reality is this will either be his last or second last summer of cricket.

The overall age of the squad is a serious issue especially given the lack of top emerging talent coming through at Sheffield Shield level. The average age of Australia's team in Perth was 33.11 years old while the Indian side was just 27.10.

While the two waiting in line for their shot in the Test side after impressing at Shield level, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are 35 and 34 respectively. It is a similar story for the batters, with Marcus Harris and Cameron Bancroft the batsmen in line for a call-up if Labushagne is dropped. But both of them are in their 30s, further showcasing the dire state of Australia's future cricket stocks.

Pat Cummins' push to remove Justin Langer coming back to bite?

The lack of pressure and talent coming through has also led to a certain degree of complacency in the Australian side. And with that comes the sense that regardless of how they perform their spot in the side is safe. This was perfectly illustrated by skipper Cummins saying he'd be shocked if the Test side was changed ahead of the Adelaide Test despite it being clear changes need to be made after the Perth Test.

And a lot of that complacency can be dated back to when Langer was pushed out by the Australian team. Langer stepped down from his role as coach in 2022 when Cricket Australia only offered him a six-month contract extension, despite the coach leading his side to Ashes and T20 World Cup glory just months earlier.

Langer saw it as a slap in the face considering the success he brought to the side. But the writing was on the wall that he'd lost the dressing room, with Cummins in particular leading the push for a change of coach. The players spoke out about Langer's intensity and passion for the sport going overboard at times, and several players said they were keen to bring in a calming presence.

However, has this change led to the Australian side lacking bite and the fighting spirit that has made the team so feared being lost? While following Langer's exit the Aussies won the Ashes on English soil, the World Test Championship and a World Cup, the lack of fight in the side was laid bare in last year's series against the West Indies and again against Pakistan this year.

In the ODI decider against Pakistan many found it troubling to see Cummins taking happy snaps at a Coldplay concert as Australia suffered a series defeat. And following the shock ODI loss the Australian side looked out of sorts in the first Test against India.

It is something Langer simply wouldn't have allowed and it could spell bad news in the years to come as culture isn't something that can be fixed overnight and the Australian side has seemingly lost the burning desire to win. The lack of determination and aggression is clear for all to see and it is something that commentator Mark Levy is deeply troubled by.

"They are not aggressive enough," Levy told 2GB on Tuesday. "They are not in your face, the Aussie teams I grew up with under Alan Border, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and even Michael Clarke, they were just combative to the point where they were called a pack of wild dogs at one stage.

"We don’t want to go that way again. But they are just a bit too nice in Perth so hopefully they address that."

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Cracks starting to appear in the Australian team

The sad state of the current side was something called out by several pundits during and following the first Test defeat to India. And Josh Hazlewood putting the blame on the batsmen only added to it.

When asked about where the Aussies need to go after the dismal performance on Sunday, Hazlewood replied: “You probably have to ask one of the batters that question probably, I’m sort of relaxing and trying to get a bit of treatment and I’m looking mostly to next Test." It was an answer that underlined the frustrations of the bowling unit and pointed to a disconnect between the batters and bowlers.

Australian cricket great Adam Gilchrist even started to question whether cracks had begun to appear and suggested there may be a "divide" in the playing group. Former Indian coach Ravi Shastri also said Hazlewood's comments showed there were "mental cracks" in the Aussie team and went on to say the current side is the first Aussie team an Indian side wouldn't fear in a long time.

"Having come to Australia for 30 or 40 years, this is the first time an Indian team is feeling, ‘you know what, we are better than the opposition in their own backyard’," Shastri said. “Quietly they will be thinking ‘we will have to lose it here’."