Lehmann berates top six as 'outplayed'

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Cricket365
November 3, 2014

Australia coach Darren Lehmann has berated his top six batsmen after they failed to perform to expectations in the series against Pakistan, with only David Warner scoring a single century.

While Pakistan's batsmen scored nine tons in the series, the Aussies had made just one as of day four in Abu Dhabi. While Warner had done fairly well, as had Steve Smith, Michael Clarke and Chris Rogers didn't even have a fifty.

Lehmann said ahead of day five, with the Aussies needing to bat out the day: "Our top-order batting, basically the top six, haven't made enough runs. That's as simple as it gets for us.

"It would have been nice to win one of the tosses and see how they would have performed early on in the game and see the shoe on the other foot if you like.

"We certainly haven't produced the goods in this series. They haven't allowed us, either. They've played very well. I don't think we've won a session in this Test match and maybe only dare I say two in the last Test match.

"So we've been totally outplayed. We've got to learn and get better."

One big talking point for the second Test was the selection of all-rounder Glenn Maxwell to bat at three, thus dropping Alex Doolan. While Doolan had been poor in the first game, Maxwell wasn't much better here, but Lehmann defended the selection.

He said: "We discussed the whole selection issue for this Test match and trying to get the right balance.

"Speaking to [chairman of selectors] Rodney Marsh and the captain Michael Clarke and making sure we have enough options to play the brand we needed to try to level the series.

"[Maxwell] played really well in the first innings until he got out to probably not a great shot. So it's more of a point of him understanding what his role was and he didn't achieve the runs we would have liked.

"We've just got to get back to Australia and work out what our best six is. But for this particular game that's the way we went."

Of Doolan, he added: "There's a lot of options for us. We spoke to [Doolan] straight away. It was a tough call and a tight call. You've got to make sure you're being open and honest with all the players.

"Rodney [Marsh] does all that and we speak to him and make sure we've got a clear route for him to go to Brisbane. From our point of view it's a case of him going back and making some runs."