'Worst in 20 years': Brutal Ashes reality for 'horrible' Aussies
Former Australian quick Brendon Julian has savaged the Australian team despite their efforts in retaining the Ashes, claiming the excitement is acting as a smoke screen to our batting woes.
Julian, speaking on Fox Sports, said he didn’t think Australia was any closer to figuring out our top six batting order than we were two years ago.
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Other than Steve Smith, who produced an all-time great performance throughout the series scoring 774 runs at 110.57, Matthew Wade was the only other Australian to reach triple figures in an innings.
Despite his two centuries, Wade struggled with an average of just 33.70.
The introduction of Marnus Labuschagne was also an inspired call as the Queenslander averaged 50.42 across his seven innings.
But David Warner, Cameron Bancroft, Marcus Harris, Usman Khawaja and Travis Head all struggled.
This prompted Julian to claim the retention of the Ashes, before the series was over, acted as a “smoke screen” to the team’s batting performances.
“I don’t reckon we are closer to our top six than we were two years ago,” he started.
“I think the disappointing thing out of this series was Usman Khawaja, Travis Head and any of the opening batsmen.”
Julian than doubled down claiming if you took out the two best batsmen from each team throughout the series, Ben Stokes and Smith, neither team performed.
“Both these sides, I reckon they were horrible. I have not seen worse batting line-ups in the last 20 years from both sides,” he said.
“If you take out Smith and an all-rounder Ben Stokes and it’s a horrible series.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Julian said Australia celebrated as if they had won the series, which wasn’t the case after England’s dominant victory at The Oval squaring it up at 2-2.