Inside the chaos of Australia's Ashes preparation: Why the runs have dried up, the David Warner problem and what it all means for England

Australia got themselves out of trouble in the first Test in Barbados, because of course they did.

They possess the best bowling attack in the world, and are well clear at the top of the ICC rankings, despite a careless defeat in the recent World Test Championship final by South Africa.

The chances of West Indies keeping pace with them for an entire Test were always slim, even after Australia were bundled out for 180 on the opening day.

And yet, as Sam Konstas scratched his way to a second-innings five in 53 minutes, dropped twice off Shamar Joseph before Joseph finally bowled him via a weirdly limp forward defensive; as Cameron Green took his tally in four innings at No 3 to 22; as Josh Inglis, playing his third Test, fell for five and 12… it was tempting to wonder when the Australians had last fielded such a vulnerable top four.

And it was curious to think that they were doing so with less than five months to go before the first Ashes Test in Perth.

This is without even mentioning Usman Khawaja, a superb servant to Australian cricket whose best days against serious pace bowling may be behind him. Khawaja turns 39 in December, and looked every bit his age while totalling six off 43 balls during the WTC final at Lord’s last month.

Now, I promise this is not one of those excitable columns by a Pommie hack wondering idly whether 2025-26 may provide only the second instance since 1986-87 of England winning the Ashes in Australia.

Let’s not forget, either, that the return of Steve Smith from the finger he dislocated against South Africa will instantly strengthen their top order. An all-time great, he averages 56 in the Ashes, with 12 hundreds. He may yet block England’s path, again.

But it’s been a game in itself trying to follow the logic of Australia’s selectors as they look to rebuild their batting in the wake of David Warner’s retirement – a loss that looms larger with each passing match.

Briefly, they seemed to have uncovered the answer. When Konstas replaced Nathan McSweeney after three Tests of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy over the winter, and began with ramps and scoops off Jasprit Bumrah, a 65-ball 60, and a shoulder barge from Virat Kohli that doubled as a compliment, he was hailed as a groundbreaker. 

This was unfair both on Warner and on England, who had been doing that kind of thing for two and a half years while being mocked by Australians and Indians who have refused to engage properly with it.

So what did Australia do? They left Konstas out of the two-Test series in Sri Lanka earlier this year, despite already having qualified for the WTC final. And they kicked the can down the road by making Travis Head open instead.

By way of another red herring, Khawaja began that series with a score of 232 on a slow, spinning pitch in Galle – impressive in its own way, but irrelevant to the seam-dominated challenges ahead.

Come the WTC final, they rejigged things once more, moving the out-of-form Marnus Labuschagne up to open. He made 17 in 87 minutes in the first innings, and 22 in 88 in the second, and was dropped for the first Test in the Caribbean – as if failure in a role he had never previously filled had been some kind of final straw. Labuschagne probably deserved to be given a breather, but this was a strange way of doing it.

All the while, poor Green was being squeezed into a role for which, as things stands, he looks ill-suited. Were the selectors seduced by runs for Gloucestershire in division two of the County Championship?

If so, they proved of little value when he was outclassed twice by Kagiso Rabada at Lord’s, then outmanoeuvred by Shamar Joseph and Justin Greaves at Bridgetown. As long as he continues to lunge with hard hands at good-length balls, the slip cordon will be on red alert.

Australian cricket, despite its status as the game’s historic on-field powerhouse and its string of world-class players, has stumbled across a problem partly of its own making. Perhaps because it never fully warmed to Warner, and fell out with him altogether during the overreaction to Sandpapergate, it didn’t appreciate the selfless role he played at the top of the order, allowing Khawaja and Labuschagne to proceed at their own pace.

And when Konstas came along – a rare gamble in an essentially conservative cricketing culture – it found itself unable to wholly embrace him. At Bridgetown, where he managed a total of eight off 52 balls, it was like watching a schoolboy who had been told to stop messing around and knuckle down if he wanted to make anything of his life.

Elements of the Australian game are already wrapping their arm round Konstas’s shoulder, and rightly so: you don’t score twin hundreds in a first-class game aged barely 19, as Konstas did for New South Wales against South Australia at Sydney last October, unless your potential is frightening.

But England will have noted, without disappointment, that their old rivals are trying to make the pieces fit together with only months to go before they defend the Ashes they have held since 2017.

Australia may well win this winter, just as they will probably beat West Indies 3–0. Their bowling quartet of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon, with Scott Boland waiting in the wings, is awe-inspiring, if ageing. Head can win a game off his own bat in a session, and Alex Carey is a formidable counter-attacker at No 7.

But the chaos is uncharacteristic. And it is giving England a glimmer.

Why, indeed 

‘Why did he do that?’, as commentator Fazeer Mohammed once asked after West Indies No 11 Shannon Gabriel aimed a series-losing hack at Pakistan leg-spinner Yasir Shah. Readers, we have a follow-up.

In Birmingham last week, Warwickshire’s 2nd XI needed 514 to beat Glamorgan, and reached 512 for nine with four overs and one ball to go. At the non-striker’s end was 16-year-old Arjun Nahal, unbeaten on 125 and about to make a name for himself. 

Facing the leg-spin of Mohammed Rizvi was No 11 Arafat Bhuiyan, whose task was simple: block the last ball of the over, and allow Nahal to do the rest.

Instead, as you can see here, Bhuiyan had an almighty swing, missed and was bowled, leaving Glamorgan jubilant winners by one run, and an incredulous Nahal on his haunches.

All roads lead to runs 

ECB managing director of men’s cricket Rob Key is adamant that the County Championship’s ongoing experiment with the Kookaburra ball is medicine English attacks will have to swallow if they’re serious about producing bowlers capable on thriving on flat pitches overseas.

But a combination of the ball’s small seam and climate-change temperatures did no one any favours.

First-innings totals around the country on Sunday and Monday included Surrey’s club-record 820 for nine against Durham at the Oval, Worcestershire’s 679 for seven against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl, Kent’s 566 for eight against Northamptonshire at Canterbury, and Middlesex 534 against Leicestershire at Grace Road.

It set a new record, unsurprisingly. The County Championship is 130 years old and never before had it seen as many as this week's 4,508 first-innings runs across the board. 

Before Bazball, you got 'Nedded'

Stats be damned. Wayne Larkins, who died at the weekend at the age of 71, averaged a modest 34 during a first-class career spanning the best part of two and a half decades, yet lent his name to a style of batting long before Bazball became fashionable.

On account of his nickname, Ned, county bowlers who received the Larkins treatment were said to have been ‘Nedded’.

He’d have become a millionaire in the T20 era.