After the first day at the SCG

The problem with wide-ranging discussions lies in the definition, along with their tendency to leap from topic to topic without necessarily reaching a conclusion.

We were half way down the Jonah bottle when Angry raised the question of Australia's batting coach, and at 3-37 it was definitely a subject that needed to be raised. As almost invariably happens in these circumstances my dunno was followed by a brief discussion during which I meant to mention the Invers batting drills and Rod Marsh's redefined role as Selector responsible for State Coach liaison, but we'd shifted to something else before I managed to get those mentions in.

I was forcibly reminded of the issue when I sighted this headline (McDermott's vigilance needs emulating) at Cricinfo this morning.

Both Angry and I had noted Craig McDermott's presence on the boundary in the second half of the morning session, and on the strength of the first hour the presence was justified.

We had, admittedly, got India to 2-30 reasonably quickly but the bowling had been, for my money, possibly a little too short and definitely a lot too wide.

India had gone into the game, from all accounts, intent on avoiding offering the bat whenever possible and in that first hour we were definitely giving them plenty to leave.

Things tightened up shortly thereafter, and you might have been looking at 191 all out as a reasonably solid day's work, with the uncharacteristic drop by Ponting and some wayward early bowling going relatively unpunished.

At 3-37 in reply, on the other hand, you'd have been feeling decidedly uneasy.

Yes, the Australian bowlers are doing a good job, but it's not perfect yet, probably never will be and definitely needs to get as close as possibleto that unattainable goal if we're going to avoid the possible consequences of the ongoing batting heebie jeebies.

Asked to define perfect, Hughesy would suggest a ten over opening spell where every delivery demanded either the use of the bat or last minute evasive action.

With the chance of afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms you'd have to be hoping we still have two of Ponting, Clarke, Hussey and Haddin at the crease at stumps today, and batting on into tomorrow, rain interruptions of not, should deliver a lead somewhere over the two hundred and fifty mark, which would give the attack something to bowl at in the second dig.

From there, all other things being equal, you should be able to rule out an Indian win and given Perth as the next Test venue you'd probably be looking at a drawn series as the worst result that could come out of the four Tests.

If anything is going to go wrong, however, you'd expect it to go wrong with the batting, and that's where we keep coming back to the old Ponting/Hussey quandary and Justin Langer's presence as the batting coach.

Langer's continued presence is, as far as I can see, a continuation of the old specialist coach/advisor paradigm.

McDermott has been able to redefine things, where Langer (and, dare I say it, the much vaunted batting camp) represents a continuation of a this is the way we play attitude rather than a this is where we need to be headed policy.

Someone, somewhere along the line needs to reassess what is seen as desirable batting technique, and it'll need to be somebody with sufficiently strong credentials to have batsmen and coaches around the country sit up and take notice.

Had anyone other than McDermott suggested the bowling approach needed a serious rethink he would more than likely have been ignored. Until whatever recommendations Rod Marsh may be making to state coaches and players have had time to take effect I'm hoping the selectors will grit their teeth, rule Messrs Ponting and Hussey out of the forthcoming tour to the West Indies and state quite categorically they are looking for players with much tighter and considerably more orthodox techniques at Test level.

Without actually having seen the Invers batting drills video, I can't really comment on the content, but I was going to mention the existence, and suggest that Inverarity has some background in the area.

As far as getting people to listen, of course, you'd expect something along the lines of Remember we're the blokes who decide how long you're going to be in the side would tend to command attention.

We have Watson to come back, and we're still looking for batsmen who are consistently good enough. Warner, Cowan and Marsh are still under assessment, and must be persevered with through the rest of this series. Once it is over we need to start looking further afield in the quest for a successful long term batting order.