Former Australia wicket-keeper Ian Healy has continued his series of recent outbursts with heavy criticism of the national team’s batting coach, Michael Di Venuto, for the declining Test batting standards during his tenure.
The Australian top-order, minus an injured absentee Steve Smith, continued to be exposed in seam-friendly conditions in their first Test since the World Test Championship final defeat to South Africa during the first game of the tour to the West Indies. Despite their 159-run win over the West Indies, Australia’s struggling batters Sam Konsas, Cameron Green and Josh Inglis struggled against the hosts’ seam attack.
After Marnus Labuschagne’s struggles as an opener in the WTC final loss to South Africa at Lord’s, Australia drafted in Sam Konstas at the former’s expense in Barbados. However, the youngster failed to put up a grind, falling for 3 and 5 respectively. While the vaunted bowling attack helmed by skipper Pat Cummins shored the team out of trouble, Healy lamented about Australia’s falling batting standards in red-ball cricket.
Healy said that though he usually critiqued the batters, it was inevitable not to look at the performance of the team management, which includes his mate, Di Venuto.
“I love to put it back onto the players more than coaches usually,” Healy said on SEN.
“But, as I said, Australian cricket’s batting head coach – and every state batting coach – should be under pressure because there’s not enough runs being scored around the nation either.
“Michael Di Venuto – a friend of mine who is a good coach and a good man – has held the job since mid-2021. In this time, our national team batting has regressed in performance at the Test level.
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“All that’s important to me is the performance. ‘I don’t care how you do it or what will make it easier for you – just get it done,” Healy remarked.
The 61-year-old Healy added that the Australian batters seem jittery, failing to trust their techniques in tough conditions.
“They’re not making it easy for themselves at all, players have got to deal better with nerves by the sound of it,” Healy said.
“They need to create sound techniques and bat with balance so you can make really sound decisions ball after ball for long periods. At the moment, we’re failing many of these points, and the lower order is having to deal with it – either recovering the score or losing,” he added.
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“It’s just too hard at the moment, we’ve got to clear those minds of our top order.”
