In South Africa’s comprehensive win over Australia, the performances of the two batting lineups created a stark contrast. After a strong showing from SA set a score of 311, Australia’s batters imploded, leaving them 50-3 towards the end of the first ten overs.
What this highlighted was a difference in focus between the two teams, specifically it drew attention to the importance lent to ‘batting deep’ within the Australia team.
The idea here, is that Australia have so many players who can offer something with the bat that on any given day enough of them will contribute to set or chase a score. What this often creates is a team filled with a certain type of player, namely the all-rounder who is capable of the memorable big innings now and then.
This can be seen in the team as played today, at the top of the order you have Mitch Marsh, in the middle you see Josh Inglis, Glenn Maxwell, and Marcus Stoinis. Players like this are capable of the occasional wonder knock, but tend to lack consistency. The mistake Australia have made is to pair this with both Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne.
Both are ODI players on the slower side, with a strike rate under 90 in Indian conditions. The idea on paper is to pair stability with volatility. The theory goes that the presence of players like Smith and Marnus creates an ideal platform for the others to launch an attack from.
The problem is that this is not how it has been working in practice. It can go wrong in two main ways. One is that Smith and Labuschagne come in early. If they struggle to score it puts too much pressure on the others to come in swinging.
Similarly, if Smith and Labuschagne get out early, you get a long run of players less suited for rebuilding an innings. What playing South Africa has highlighted is the difference made when you have players capable of adapting to the requirements of an innings.
Where Australia have recognised batters down to 7 with Marcus Stoinis, 7 marks the start of South Africa’s bowlers (who can bat a bit) with Marco Jansen. What this means is that South Africa arguably have a shorter batting order, but do not suffer because of the quality of it.
The South African top six have a variety of profiles which mean that they are ready to make the most of conditions whether they see a fast start or early wobble. I could write about any (and eventually will) but want to give a special focus to the role played by Aiden Markram.
Australia’s 3 and 4 bat very similarly and do so no matter the match situation, whereas Aiden Markam is capable of shifting up or down a gear depending on what he is coming into.
Rassie van der Dussen is the classic anchoring 3, and Markram is capable of coming in and pushing the tempo. Today he got his 56 in 44 balls, scoring 8 boundaries on his way.
Impressive, it should also be mentioned that Markram has the flexibility to play the long game if Rassie gets out early. Instead of having two players in consecutive positions to anchor, South Africa have a number 4 who can adapt to what is necessary.
The notion of ‘batting deep’ is often entirely concerned with having as many players who can bat a bit as possible, but often overlooks the importance of batting styles. When building a batting order you want to make it as diverse as possible to make it as robust as possible.
Australia right now have too many ‘bits and pieces’ batters in their team, whereas South Africa have six players with a clear vision of what their role in the team is. The loss of Travis Head is proving to be a major one for Australia. With two consecutive losses, they will need to find a way to get their batting order into a healthier state.
