It is not often in cricket where a tour match gains notoriety, but more than 21 years ago at the Adelaide Oval, that is exactly what happened.
Sri Lanka, in the middle of its Australian tour featuring a tri-series against Australia and England, had a one day clash against Australia A after the Christmas break.
Despite fielding a line-up featuring three World Cup winners and two players who would go on to captain the country, the Sri Lankans were rolled for just 65 by Australia’s second stringers.
After Australia A chased down the meagre total inside 12 overs, the two teams returned to play a 25-over clash, which the Sri Lankans lost again, this time by 25 runs.
Including the double-header in Adelaide, Australia A and Sri Lanka faced off four times in the summer of 2002-03 — the 1996 World Cup winners won just one of them.
The Australia A team in the early 2000s had enough starpower to go toe to toe with most full-strength international sides. (Getty Images: Nick Laham)
Australia A’s line-up that afternoon featured Darren Lehmann, Andrew Symonds, Ian Harvey, Michael Clarke, Brad Hodge, Michael Hussey, Ryan Campbell, Greg Blewett, Nathan Hauritz, Nathan Bracken and Brad Williams.
You could argue that at the time, maybe more than half that side would have walked into any other country’s first-choice side despite being unable to break into the Aussie side, such was the depth in Australia’s men’s team at that stage.
It would not have been a far fetched statement around the turn of the century to call Australia A the second best team in men’s cricket behind Australia.
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Two decades later, a lot has changed.
On the surface, Australia’s men’s team still appears to be in an extremely healthy position.
They are the reigning World Test Championship holders having convincingly beaten India in last year’s final. They are the reigning 50-over champions after upsetting India in front of 130,000 spectators in India, with that World Cup triumph coming after a T20 World Cup win in 2021.
However, heading into a crucial summer featuring a five-Test series against their greatest challenger, India, Australia’s standing at the top of the men’s game appears to be on somewhat shaky ground.
The struggle to find a Test opener a sign of an incoming void
The main headache facing Australia ahead of the Border-Gavaskar series against India is figuring out just who partners Usman Khawaja at the top of the order.
It is the first summer since 2010 where Australia will walk out to bat and David Warner will not be there, save for the one year he was suspended for ball tampering.
Australia is blessed that Khawaja has found a second wind in his career. Since being reintroduced to the Test side in 2022, Khawaja has averaged 53.41, scoring seven centuries in 29 Tests.
Unfortunately for Australia, Khawaja is also 37 years of age and simply cannot go on forever.
With Warner out of the fold, the race to partner Khawaja is wide open yet no contender has been able to grab a firm hand on the vacant position in this week’s Sheffield Shield matches.
Cameron Bancroft, who previously partnered Warner while Khawaja was out of the side, managed just 10 runs in two innings for Western Australia.
Marcus Harris, who also has Test experience, scored 26 and 16 in Victoria’s win over New South Wales.
Matt Renshaw would be a logical option, given he already partners Khawaja at the top of Queensland’s Shield line-up, but he scored just two and 21 against South Australia.
New South Wales’s Sam Konstas has enjoyed an impressive start to his first class career, and put his name up in lights with a pair of centuries against South Australia earlier this month, but at 18, is it fair to expect him to front up against the likes of Jasprit Bumrah this summer?
It must be mentioned that Australian cricket has been dealt some major misfortune in the search for the next great Test opener.
Will Pucovski will likely retire from cricket having made just one Test appearance for Australia. (Getty Images: Morgan Hancock)
Will Pucovski was rightly anointed as the man who would take the reins from the likes of Khawaja and Warner, but repeated concussions have him on the brink of retirement at 26 years of age having played just one Test, leaving a massive void in talent behind him.
Australia’s struggle to find a successor isn’t lost on Warner himself, with the retired opener half-jokingly putting his hand up to come back into the fold to take on India this summer.
It is a far cry from previous generations where prolific run-getters such as Martin Love, Brad Hodge or Michael Hussey were forced to stack thousands upon thousands of runs together just to get a look-in.
Right now, Australia is looking for someone who can perhaps string a couple of half-centuries together.
Age a problem all around the Test side
Andrew McDonald and George Bailey may have their hands full in their attempt to find Australia’s next great Test opener, and the current problem the selectors have is a bit of a look into what could be coming over the next five years.
If we take a glance at the last Test XI Australia put out in March against New Zealand, only Cameron Green is under the age of 30.
Khawaja, Steve Smith and Nathan Lyon are all 35 or older and will likely be the next trio to retire.
Australia is lucky in that Todd Murphy already appears to be a ready-made replacement for Lyon whenever he decides to call it a day, but finding replacements for Khawaja and Smith will prove extremely difficult.
Steve Smith’s eventual retirement will leave a massive hole in Australia’s Test side. (Getty Images: NurPhoto/Izhar Khan)
Alex Carey has struck a rich vein of form ahead of this summer, and knows he has Josh Inglis breathing down his neck for the wicketkeeper spot in Australia’s Test side, having already overtaken him in the white ball formats.
Inglis was interestingly rated by New South Wales coach Greg Shipperd a “smoky” to claim a Test opening spot this summer after some strong Shield form, but it is one thing plundering runs at No.6 for WA and another thing trying to do the same at the top of the order against India’s attack.
McDonald and Bailey would be wise to encourage Khawaja and Smith in particular to stagger their retirements. Both leaving at the same time would leave Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head having to carry far too much of the load.
Australia will face a similar problem with its famed fast bowling trio of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.
At 34, Starc is the oldest of the trio and the most likely to retire soonest. While he remains a more than serviceable option, Starc’s Test returns over the past four calendar years have quietly been in a decline and below his career averages.
Hazlewood will turn 34 this summer, but remains a prolific Test bowler and shows no signs of slowing down. Cummins, 31, appears to have plenty of cricket in him and has far less miles on the odometer given he had a six-year gap between Tests due to injuries at the start of his career.
Australia’s first-choice Test bowling quartet of Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon are all on the wrong side of 30. (Getty Images: Mark Metcalfe)
Scott Boland and Michael Neser are the two options who are often spoken about as the replacements for the incumbent trio. The one problem? They are both the same age as the players they would hypothetically replace in the Test side.
That’s not to say Australia’s bowling cupboard is entirely bare.
Jhye Richardson has become somewhat of a forgotten commodity in Australian fast bowling land after seeing injury setbacks halting his progress, but made a bright start to his Test career when he was handed a debut in 2019.
Richardson has 11 wickets at an average of 22.09 in three Tests so far, the last of which came in 2021. His first class record of 106 wickets in 25 appearances at an average of 20.94 show that he is a natural successor to either Starc, Cummins or Hazlewood if he is able to get his body right.
Victoria’s Fergus O’Neill, 23, was impressive this week against New South Wales, and has 74 wickets in 20 first class appearances at an average of 20.27. He is likely to get a look-in at some stage in the near future.
Transitioning away from star players who have formed dominant eras isn’t a struggle that is exclusive to Australia.
India has the same headache to ponder in the coming years with Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin all over the age of 35. The departure of that quartet all at once would be nigh on impossible to fill, even with the tremendous amount of talent India has waiting in the wings.
South Africa is still in the midst of its own transition away from the era of AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and even Graeme Smith before them.
Sri Lanka has spent a decade in the wilderness trying to replace Mahela Jaywardena, Kumar Sangakkara and Muttiah Muralitharan, all of whom retired in the span of four years.
Staggering the exits of legends isn’t easy, but Australia has managed it gracefully before.
The end of the 2000s saw all of Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist’s Test careers come to an end.
During that time, Australia had the likes of Smith, Warner, Starc and Hazlewood ready to grab the opportunities made available to them by the retirements of the behemoths that came before.
Australian cricket is now waiting on its next generation of superstars to take the wheel.
