Published: Sep 13, 2015, 06:11 AM (IST)
Edited: Sep 13, 2015, 06:11 AM (IST)
Australia suffered batting collapses in Ashes2015 and were also embarrassed when they got bowled out for a score of 60 at Trent Bridge. Australia’s batting coach speaking to cricket.com.au on Sunday blamed Australia’s poor decision making for the debacle. When asked about what led to the downfall of the visitors, batting coach Michael Di Venuto blamed the decision-making “in the heat of the moment”. He also termed watching Australian batsmen being beaten black and blue by Stuart Broad at Trent Bridge as “surreal”. The Batting coach explained how the visitors were just not good enough and were out-played by England as they lost the Ashes 3-2. Read: Ashes 2015 exodus was expected, Australia will have to regenerate, feels Darren Lehmann
Talking about the performance of the Australian batsmen, Di Venuto said, “There’s no point hiding from it, we weren’t good enough,” Di Venuto said. “We were completely out-skilled, simple as that. The swinging and seaming ball we were completely unstuck as a batting unit, we certainly didn’t practice that way or train that way, we were well prepared but just in the heat of the moment and the heat of the battle we weren’t good enough. There was a lot of decisions that batters wouldn’t have liked to make that they made at the time and I’m sure the batting crew would like to do a few things differently. I can’t control what goes on out on the field, so as long as in their preparation they’ve done everything to get themselves ready so they’re ready for success then I’m happy with that. It was tough to watch and it was almost surreal.”
Australia did not even last a session in Trent Bridge and were bowled out inside 20 overs, 18.2 to be precise. “It was unique conditions, I think in that first hour in particular at Trent Bridge,” said Di Venuto. “But in saying that we’ve got to be better than what we were. There wasn’t enough time to talk to the next batsman, they were too busy getting their pads on trying to get out there. All I can do is get the guys ready to play and basically drop them off at the gate when they go out to bat,” he added. Read: Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle a blessing for Australia: Aaron Finch
Di Venuto is currently back in Australia, training Tasmania’s Under-17 team ahead of the National U17 Championships in Brisbane later this month. Australia though will be playing a lot of Tests cricket in the next few months. They will tour Bangladesh for a couple of Tests followed by three Tests at home against New Zealand in November.
The Ashes saw many Australian cricketers hanging their boots, in form of Chris Rogers, Michael Clarke, Shane Watson. David Warner was ruled out of the tour due to a thumb injury which will cause the Australian selectors few headaches. Di Venuto though was confident of finding able replacements, “It’ll be interesting to see how the new faces go. There was some very good performances that came out of the recent Australia A series in India so I dare say a lot of those guys might get an opportunity in the upcoming Bangladesh series. It’s an exciting time for Australian cricket where there is going to be a lot of change and a lot of new faces and there’s only very much an upside to where we’re going to go.” Read: David Warner to miss Australia’s tour of Bangladesh tour 2015
