Australia has been handed its first Test defeat of the Steve Smith era.
If it is going to avoid a second over the next week, the team as whole will need to improve significantly.
Ahead of the second Test between Australia and Sri Lanka in Galle, we take a look at five burning questions the team and selectors need to address to turn things around.
WILL AUSTRALIA REMEDY ITS SPIN WOES IN TIME?
Australia lost 18 wickets to spin in the first Test and failed to bat for longer than a day in either of its innings. The locals are tipping things to be even tougher in Galle for the second Test, which starts on Thursday, just five days after the first Test defeat. That leaves the Australians with plenty to do in very little time.
The good news for Darren Lehmann’s side is that aside from David Warner, all of its batsmen made starts in Kandy and will be better for the experience. Steve Smith in particular looked to have learned plenty over the course of the match. After being stumped charging a wider ball from Rangana Herath in the first innings, the Australian captain continued to use his feet in the second but with more restraint, looking to hit through the field rather than over it.
IS JON HOLLAND READY FOR HIS DEBUT?
Barring injury, odds are Jon Holland will make his Test debut in Galle. It’s a debut that has truly come out of the blue. The left-arm spinner, called into the squad to replace Steve O’Keefe, has only played three first-class matches across the last two Sheffield Shield seasons and has a first-class bowling average of 37.90. So is he ready?
The good news for Australia is that Holland has a history of stepping up in high-pressure situations. The 29-year-old only played one match in Victoria’s triumphant 2014-15 Sheffield Shield campaign but what a match it was. In the final game of the regular season, Holland secured Victoria its spot at the top of the table in a man-of-the-match performance, taking eight wickets for the game (6-41 and 2-27) to set up a 400-run win over Tasmania.
This season he played an even more important role for Victoria as the Bushrangers won their second straight Sheffield Shield title, playing in the team’s two most important fixtures. The spinner was called up to play the final match of the regular season against New South Wales – a match the Vics could not afford to lose – and the decider against South Australia. It was an opportunity he made the most of, taking 14 wickets at 20.92 across the two matches, including eight in the final (3-86 and 5-76). Admittedly it’s a small sample size but it looks like Holland has it in him to step up for the big occasions.
SHOULD AUSTRALIA HAVE PICKED THREE SPINNERS?
Australia was always likely to play two spinners in Sri Lanka, so why didn’t the squad feature a back-up tweaker in the first place? After all, they’ve done the same for every other speciality aside from keeping. That includes picking four quicks in the squad – Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Jackson Bird and Nathan Coulter-Nile – despite the fact that only two were ever likely to play together.
Further, doing so would have also allowed Australia to play all three spinners together, something the Sri Lankans enjoyed plenty of success with in the first Test and they even had the extra option of off-spinning all-rounder Dhanajaya De Silva.
Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc were both impressive in the first Test and the defeat had much more to do with the batsmen than the bowlers. Nevertheless, it’s spin to win in the subcontinent and what better place to debut a wrist-spinner like Adam Zampa or Fawad Ahmed than Galle, which is expected to offer even more grip than the Pallekele surface.
CAN AUSTRALIA FIND ITS KILLER INSTINCT?
The Test may have lasted five days but Australia’s hopes of victory had faded fast by day four, when Sri Lanka took its lead past 200. In the last five years, Australia has only successfully chased a target of 200 or more twice in nine attempts away from home.
Neither occasion was in Asia, where it has only chased a target of more than 200 once in its history. That was in 2006 when it chased 307 against Bangladesh and it’s a long drop to its next highest successful chase in Asia (194 at India in 1998.)
Things shouldn’t have gotten so difficult in Kandy after rolling the hosts for 117 in their first innings. The Australians will know they can’t waste such a strong position again.
AN EXTRA SPECIALIST BATSMAN?
Shaun Marsh scored a ton in Australia’s intra-squad warm-up match a fortnight ago and then managed a fluid 47 in the team’s only tour-match against first-class opposition. He also has a Test average of 80 in Sri Lanka. Admittedly, has played only three Test innings on the island, but surely his selection would add more depth to Australia’s batting order; depth that is badly needed on the basis of the first Test.
However, the only way to squeeze Shaun Marsh into the XI would be to drop brother Mitchell, with the rest of Australia’s top six virtually untouchable right now. It’s hard to imagine that will happen considering the all-rounder was one of Australia’s better players in the first Test and its third-highest run-scorer (31 and 25).
