Australia have been going through a rare rough patch as they failed to win the World Test Championship (WTC) final against South Africa at Lord's. Their batting unit seems to have taken a hit since then, as the batters have regularly failed to step up on important occasions.
Their struggles were evident in the first Test against the West Indies too despite a win at the Kensington Oval, which has added further fuel to fire.
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Meanwhile, former Australian cricketer Ian Healy has decided to tear into the role of the batting coach, which he feels might be the possible reason behind Australia's downfall with the bat.
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Ian Healy tears into Australia's batting coach amid struggles
The former Australian cricketer has questioned the role of the batting coaches around the nation due to the poor performances of late. Australia couldn't manage to hold it together against the Proteas, as they were bowled at a sub-par scores of 212 and 207 respectively.
The Kangaroos' woes with the bat continued in the first Test against the West Indies, as they were bowled out for a mere 180 runs in the first innings. Travis Head, Beau Webster, and Alex Carey came to the rescue with half-centuries each in the second innings, which otherwise could have seen the most brutal collapse in recent times.
Speaking to Sports Entertainment Network (SEN), Healy said, "I love to put it back onto the players more than coaches usually. But, as I said, Australian cricket’s batting head coach – and every state batting coach – should be under pressure because there’s not enough runs being scored around the nation either."
"Michael Di Venuto – a friend of mine who is a good coach and a good man – has held the job since mid-2021. In this time, our national team batting has regressed in performance at the Test level," Healy added.
It's pretty clear that Healy is not quite satisfied with what he has seen so far since the appointment of his friend. For instance, Sam Konstas, who didn't play in the WTC Final, was called back into action for the first Test against the Windies.
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The youngster failed to live up to the expectations, as he bagged single-digit scores in both innings of the match. The top order has failed to deliver once again in the absence of Steve Smith, which has made things more difficult than they were previously.
"All that’s important to me is the performance. ‘I don’t care how you do it or what will make it easier for you – just get it done. They’re not making it easy for themselves at all, players have got to deal better with nerves by the sound of it," Healy said.
Healy feels that the lower order has to deal with too much of the pressure, which should be solved by the players above. Out of all the batters in the top three, only Usman Khawaja managed to get close to a score of 50 in the match, while the others could only get to a top score of 15.
"They need to create sound techniques and bat with balance so you can make really sound decisions ball after ball for long periods. At the moment, we’re failing many of these points, and the lower order is having to deal with it – either recovering the score or losing. It’s just too hard at the moment, we’ve got to clear those minds of our top order," Healy concluded.
Pat Cummins and co. will look to find a solution along with their batting coach to bring back the glory days of the cricketing giants in the longest format.