Hayden: The Australian Test team has grown complacent

Former opener Matthew Hayden feels the Australian Test team has grown complacent.

Highly successful for a number of years, the Test side has now come under serious fire, having lost their world number one Test ranking following a collapse in Cape Town.

Weighing in on the disappointing series loss to South Africa, Hayden believes that the current Test set-up is entering one of its most telling times.

“The success, I feel, of this current group has probably made us a little complacent at all levels,” Hayden told SENQ.

“It doesn't matter where you look at it. Administration, the so-called architects of the team - the coaches and the significant staff.

“The architects, I feel at the moment, are point thereover the discussion. They're not the only discussion because the architect can never build a house - the builders do, so you've got to look at the builders as well.

“Since the World Test Championship began back in 2019, Australia has won one title, they've reached three completed finals, and finished in the top three in every completed qualifying cycle.

“Now, you could say that that's because the competition isn't that strong, and you could maybe mount that argument. Of the eight full member cycle Test nations, generally speaking, there are four that are elite.

“Australia now are 69.23 per cent in this cycle and they're currently third. They're back to the field. Before they went to South Africa, they were way out in front. They're 80 odd and more per cent.

“But now they're coming back into the field where they've got some bloody good teams, including New Zealand, who won the first match cycle.

“Then we've got the Border-Gavaskar Trophy that's coming up, and we all know how hard it is as cricketers to compete over in that country, and then we've got the Ashes at the back of it.

“This is really a telling point for the Australian cricket team and the overall administration to understand how we're going to future proof cricket in this great country.”

Hayden believes that Cummins’ decision to field first was a poor one and has come into bat for off-spinner Nathan Lyon – who has consequently come under the microscope after a difficult series.

“I don't believe that that was the correct decision, especially when you've got a world-class spinner who's been bounced around the place,” he said.

“Everyone should be put on notice when it comes to the Australian cricket team. We should be that damn good that everyone has got a notice certificate in the mail to say, ‘perform or banish’.

“In Lyon's case the one thing that I've been really disappointed about from the architect's point of view is that they just keep bouncing him around.

“The bloke's got 550 wickets for God’s sake! He is the best (Aussie) off-spinner of all time, and he is sitting out in conditions which I still believe have a place for an off-spin bowler.

“Especially on a fifth-day wicket, which he didn't bowl on in Cape Town. So, it was a crazy decision in my opinion.

“I think it was a decision that was based on a number of other extenuating circumstances, which he won't say, but it can only be that, because there's no way that there was enough moisture in that wicket to be able to bat last on it.”

Australia will back up their series loss with a four-match Test series against New Zealand commencing in early December.