Australia asked too much of Nic Maddinson. Matt Renshaw showed why

Durban: Nic Maddinson was told over a week ago that he would be playing in the first Test against South Africa at Kingsmead.

The team was still preparing in Potchefstroom outside Johannesburg, and the news was conveyed by the selectors to 34-year-old Maddinson on Thursday last week, the same day the tourists visited Marnus Labuschagne’s childhood home. Youngster Cooper Connolly, talked up by the team camp as a contender to play here, was never really in it.

Maddinson, then, had as much time as possible to get his head around the idea he would be playing his first Test match in a decade, having not taken the field in a single first-class game since his recovery from testicular cancer.

He has looked at ease around the team, comprised largely of players Maddinson already knew well, and has been staunchly defended in the media by the likes of coach Andrew McDonald and vice-captain Travis Head.

Nevertheless, the shock of collision with Test cricket is always something else, and the reality of events in Durban on Friday was that neither Maddinson not Australia looked adequately equipped to put a substantial Test match total on the board.

A 33-ball duck for Maddinson, the third longest by an opener in Test history, turned into a microcosm of the innings in total, as the tourists continued a troubling trend of first innings wobbles.

Take out last summer’s Ashes pounding of England, in which the Australians were also shot out in the first innings in Perth, and the list of batting fails is growing to alarming proportions.

Durban in October could easily have been Darwin in August, or Lord’s in June last year against the Proteas. The fragility of this team’s batting is not something that Maddinson could ever have rectified on his own.

There was perhaps some misfortune for Travis Head, touching a Wiaan Mulder delivery down the leg side, but otherwise the batsmen fell to a combination of solid bowling and inattention.

Most maddeningly for Australia was the double loss of Labuschagne and Steve Smith either side of lunch, when Mulder and Marco Jansen both coaxed their opponents into error.

Mulder and South Africa sensed Labuschagne getting jumpy in the last over before lunch, even though his innings had been decidedly fluent. A shuffle of fielders and a couple of outswingers, followed by a wobble seamer, won an lbw verdict that could not be overturned.

Smith marched off fuming towards the pavilion, as though impatient for his lunch. Forty minutes later, and he lasted just another three balls, stung on the gloves by Jansen then fencing a wider delivery into the cordon.

Both batsmen will have reason to believe they are better than those dismissals. But certainly in Labuschagne’s case there is now a huge body of evidence that he struggles to keep his mind still enough to bat the sort of time that will win Test matches.

Alex Carey, too, has trailed off a little of late, and he was coaxed into edging a good delivery from Anrich Nortje, playing his first Test in three years but not looking as though he had forgotten much about what to do.

He took just two balls to find a way through Beau Webster, who has started to struggle in Test cricket since bowlers pitched up to him, rather than dropping shorter to try to get balls to rise up to his enormous height.

So poor has Australia’s batting been of late that some might be forgiven for thinking that Pat Cummins should consider the old uncovered wicket tactic of reversing the batting order, the better to let the prime run-makers get a breather while the ball is new.

Demotion certainly did not hurt Matt Renshaw, shifted from opening to number five for Maddinson, who actually looked the best and most organised of the players on display.

Renshaw did not risk a duck, working the ball around nicely, before absorbing Nortje’s short stuff and picking off runs against both pace and spin.

“I look at my one-day game, it’s quite busy, whether that’s against spin or pace,” he said. “When I first go in, I’ve got a lot of energy … I speak about trying to have good intent against both spin and pace, and that gets my body moving the way I want it to.”

Cummins, nicknamed “7-Eleven” for his propensity to bat like one or the other, hung around to ease the total towards 200 before bad light ended play.

There was a lesson in this for the selectors who had punted on Maddinson, after Josh Inglis and Cameron Green were ruled out of contention.

Renshaw’s return to Test cricket has been an orderly one over several years, spliced with plenty of white ball opportunities, and interspersed with strong and consistent domestic performance. Among available players, Australia A tourist Nathan McSweeney or the recent Test opener Jake Weatherald may have been alternatives with a little more lead-in than Maddinson.

That’s quite a contrast with Maddinson, who should not be overly blamed for struggling in his first innings back at Test level after a decade.

“It’s just that’s what opening batters have to deal with,” Renshaw said of Maddinson. “I think we all know how hard it is to do that, and unfortunately for Matto, it wasn’t to be today, but we know that cricket’s a weird old game sometimes. He’ll come out the other side of that.”

Instead, the questions of Australia’s batting need to be wider and deeper, covering coaching, selection and the domestic pathway. These queries will be made still more urgent should South Africa make the most of their day one inroads and consign Australia to a third defeat in the space of five Test matches.