RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Weakest Australia batting lineup in a generation: Tough questions for Aussies after Bangladesh dominates Darwin Test originally appeared on Cricket News .
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Australia's top order continued to struggle against Bangladesh in Darwin.
Cameron Green survived a near-dismissal off Taskin Ahmed, while others like Jake Weatherald and Marnus Labuschagne flopped again.
Ricky Ponting questioned whether Australia's selectors are avoiding necessary changes despite a prolonged run of poor batting form.
Bangladesh expose Australia's brittle top order: Should the selectors look beyond the current crop?
There's a strange kind of theatre to watching a champion cricket side slowly come apart, and that's exactly what's unfolding in Darwin right now.
Australia's batting line-up, so often the backbone of this team's success over the past decade, is looking shakier than it has in years, and Bangladesh, of all sides, are the ones exposing it.
Fortune played a starring role on day three, and nowhere more than in Cameron Green's brush with disaster. Facing Taskin Ahmed in the 31st over, Green pushed hard at a length ball nipping back in, got a thick inside edge, and watched it clip the outer edge of leg stump without dislodging the bails, despite Hawk-Eye confirming a spike as the ball brushed past.
The delivery then raced away to the boundary, leaving Taskin and the wicketkeeper stunned. Green went on to finish unbeaten on 43 off 86 balls, and paired with Alex Carey's gritty 19, helped trim the deficit to 67 as Australia limped to 4-161 at stumps. But this was a reprieve, not a recovery, and the Baggy Green dressing room should know it better than anyone.
Hit the stumps... boundary! Is this the luckiest four ever from Cam Green? #PlayoftheDay | @NRMAInsurance | #AUSvBAN pic.twitter.com/OprD4iBcCL
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) August 15, 2026 Whereas Jake Weatherald's struggles were painfully visible again, as he chopped on for a third-ball duck in Hasan Mahmud's opening over. For a player still finding his feet after debuting during the Ashes, these repeated failures against fiery pace bowling raise questions about whether he's ready for this level just yet.
Across his last 11 innings, he's only avoided single figures on three occasions, numbers that would worry any batting coach, let alone one dealing with conditions Steve Smith himself has called the toughest he's seen in his career.
Marnus Labuschagne's struggles are, if anything, more concerning simply because they've dragged on far longer. He showed some fight early on, absorbing a couple of blows to the pads, before inexplicably missing a full delivery from Taijul Islam that drifted past his defences entirely unchallenged.
Before this outing, he has been dismissed for single digits in half of his last 32 Test innings. It is a stat that should set off alarm bells in any selection meeting, regardless of reputation or past achievements.
MORE: 'Frailties in technique': Ponting slams Australia's top order following collapse in 1st Test vs Bangladesh
Beau Webster, Cameron Green and the middle-order question marks that Australia must solve
While the headlines have understandably gone to Weatherald and Labuschagne, Green cannot escape criticism despite showing grit in the second innings with a well-made, patient 43*.
Since that breakthrough unbeaten 174 in Wellington back in March 2024, he's averaging just under 23, numbers that don't match the promise he showed in that innings, or the responsibility he's since been handed in the middle order.
Add Beau Webster into that same conversation, and Australia suddenly have three or four players in the top six whose places would ordinarily be under threat, rather than protected by reputation alone.
Both batsmen have looked desperately for control. Their lack of footwork, the tendency to nick on balls at the line of uncertainty, and the propensity to throw away wickets through reckless shot selection are major causes of worry.
Although Smith has come out swinging in defence of his colleagues and blamed the conditions, the technical faults have been too glaring.
"I've said for a while that batting at the top of the order in Australia at the moment is as tough as I've seen in my career - by a mile," he said.
"The ball's seaming significantly. It's extremely tricky and you need some luck definitely as a top-order batter. The guys got off to a decent start today … and then we obviously lost a few in clumps there."
MORE: Cricket World reacts as Bangladesh dominate Australia on Day 2 in Darwin Test
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Ricky Ponting's blunt assessment nails the real issue with Australian batting
Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting cut through the excuses when he was dissecting the batting collapse.
"You know, we're not asking guys to go out and get 100 or 200 out there, but we need our top order to find a way," he said, before turning his attention to the technical side of things. "Once again, I think we saw the frailties in technique with this top order."
He went further, noting that the batting group has had a full year to sort itself out and yet things have not improved. Ponting feels that the Australian selectors should look at fresh faces instead of sticking with the dead wood who have failed to produce the goods over an extended period of time.
"It has been at least 12 months where they have had the opportunity to make changes, especially with the batting group," he said on SEN's Fireball.
"Go with a bit of gut feel and pick on talent because what we've got in the current side now, and it has been for a couple of years, has not looked up to the mark of Test cricket. It (change) is g...
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