Post mortems will start soon about Australian cricket: Allan Border

Former Australian great Allan Border feels that the Australian team need to undergo a post-mortem in order to bring an end to their below par performance in the sub-continent. Australia have now lost 9 consecutive matches at the sub-continent and they have won just one match in the last 10 years in the subcontinent. Australia was whitewashed in the 3-match Test series against Sri Lanka led by Angelo Mathews.

“Obviously, the post-mortems will start soon about Australian cricket and our non-performance in the subcontinent,” Border told Ten Sports on Thursday (August 18). “This has been going on for 35 years. We’ve had the odd bright moment under Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting and under Stephen Waugh. We’ve had some good moments, but they’ve been few and far between.”

“There’ll be a post mortem. There’re not too many positives for the Australians,” he added.

Also Read – SA v NZ, 1st Test Preview: Proteas aiming to get Test cricket on track

Border said that the biggest concern for Aussies is about their batting line-up which failed to the Sri Lankan spin challenge in all the three Test matches. “Mitchell Starc, obviously, is a standout. Twenty-four wickets for him, he held it together well for the Aussie boys,” he said. “But it was the batting that really struggled in the face of some quality spin bowling. What we do about that is the million-dollar question.”

He pointed out some of the collapse of the Australian batting line-up throughout the series. “You can’t do that and it just shows how important first-innings runs are,” Border said. “Australia were 267 for 1 in the first innings, you’re looking at a big 400-score from that and to give yourself breathing space when you go into the fourth innings.”

He also lamented that losing wickets in clusters was the major concern as they had quite often tumbled after a good partnership. “We just need to be better throughout the innings and not lose wickets in clumps like we’ve been doing,” he added. “When one brings two, three, four and beyond, you can’t win games in the subcontinent when you’re doing that.”

Also Read – Twitter Reactions: Sakshi Malik ends India’s wait for a medal at the Rio Olympics

Border praised the Sri Lankan squad saying that the youngsters have stepped up for the team. “The contributions from the young players have been absolutely fantastic,” he said. “Right from the first Test match until now, Sri Lanka has found ways to get themselves out of trouble and into a dominant position,” he concluded.