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Time ticking for Australia who seemingly lack batting cattle

03:06PM Fri 22 Sep, 2017

Steve Smith, the Australian captain, isn't one to hide his emotions. The 28-year-old, who just played his 100th One-Day International (ODI), isn't stoic in the mould of legendary modern captains Steve Waugh and Mark Taylor. In many ways, he's closer in spirit to Allan Border, who had the dubious moniker "Captain Grumpy" during his long reign as Australian captain.
Smith has made a conscious effort to display more positivity in the field but his innate firebrand ways rears when he's simply had enough. After Australia's disappointing loss to India in Kolkata in the second One-Day International of the five-match series, Smith publicly called out his team's misfiring batsmen after losing their 10th consecutive match overseas in the format after another batting implosion.
"Well, it's happening bit too often for my liking to be honest with you, in all forms of cricket," Smith said after his team lost 6 for 63 to lose by 50 runs and trail the series 0-2. "We've had a lot of collapses we need to stop. It's just easy to just sit here and say it needs to stay but when you get out in the middle, you've to change what you're doing because it's not working."
Australia's mishmash of a batting effort is becoming all too predictable and is sabotaging the team across the formats. In the Test arena, Australia have long been unstable and too reliant on Smith and David Warner with other batsmen just too inconsistent away from home.
Worryingly, in ODI cricket - which has long been Australia's best format - the batting order has been notably temperamental over the past 12 months and eerily reminiscent of their Test counterparts. The days when Australia had a deep and vaunted batting line-up feels like a distant memory. Granted it was on home terrain, but at the 2015 World Cup it felt like Australia could score at will and no total was beyond them. That was the case for years.
Quite clearly, Australia have missed several key veteran figures from that glorious period. Aaron Finch, the destructive opener, enjoyed a key partnership at the top with Warner but has been on the outside in recent times after struggling to recapture his brutal best form. He's currently missing the series due to injury but question marks still hover over Finch's consistency. With instability at the top, more pressure has been placed on Warner just like in Test cricket.
Forever a punching bag, Shane Watson may have been slightly underwhelming in Test cricket but he was undoubtedly a star in limited-overs cricket with his flexibility to bat anywhere in the order an absolute luxury - and totally undervalued - for so many years. He's been greatly missed.
So too has Michael Clarke, the former captain, who was one of the great batsmen of the era and the stabilising link sandwiched amid aggressive batsmen. If they faltered, Clarke's composure and reliability often dug Australia out of a hole. A key for Australia in ODI cricket over the years has been their ability to conjure that type of middle-order fulcrum in the Clarke mould such as Michael Bevan, Mike Hussey and George Bailey.
Right now, Australia's batting has so many holes to fill and the inadequate results overseas shows the team's rebuilding efforts are stuttering. Australia's astounding World Cup record over the years has been testament to astute planning and honing in on issues a long time in advance. Cricket chiefs have not been afraid of changing captains - Taylor and Waugh were once controversial casualties - and ending hallowed careers in order to ensure Australia has the best possible line-up by the World Cup.
There is unlikely to be the same drastic measures for this current Australian team but, unlike those golden periods, the cupboard is worryingly bare. It is now under two years until the 2019 World Cup and, historically, Australia tend to start preparations 18 months out. It all means that time is ticking to get the team into shape.
Finch's long-term status remains a question mark creating uncertainty at the top - the opening combination has long been one of Australia's great strengths in ODI cricket. Travis Head had success as an opener during the Australian summer but the prevailing belief is that the talented 23-year-old can develop into a Clarke-esque middle-order accumulator but, right now, he is still a work in progress.
Australia's ghastly ODI record in the past 12 months is concerning and undoubtedly jarring for Australian fans to see the team knocked off their lofty perch. However, it isn't quite time to panic. The next six months or so Australia will keep juggling their team in a bid to find some combinations that work to iron out a frustratingly inconsistent batting order. No one expects Hilton Cartwright, the young all-rounder, to be a regular opener when it really matters but selectors will continue to experiment.
Australia's incredible dominance of the World Cup over the past two decades gives selectors a greenlight to experiment. They deserve the trust to get things back on track but you feel finding a functional batting order might be their biggest challenge in a long time.
Truth be told, and reading between the lines of Smith's honest assessment, Australia might just not have the batting cattle at the moment.
© Cricbuzz