Michael Vaughan feels Australian batters were complacent in Perth Test against India

Former England captain Michael Vaughan reckons the Australian batters looked complacent in the opening Test match at Perth against India. After India was bowled out for only 150 runs in the first innings, Australia had a great opportunity to put themselves in front.

But the home team was skittled out for only 104 runs in the first innings. Mitchell Starc top-scored for the team with 26 runs but none of the main batters could show any gumption on a spicy pitch as Jasprit Bumrah returned with impressive figures of 5-30. 

Australian batters aren’t in the best of forms and they failed to bring their best against India in the opening Test. Barring Travis Head (89 in second innings) and Alex Carey, none of the other Australian batters could get among the runs.

“If I was an Australian fan, I’d be concerned that there’s just not the level of quality waiting to get into this team. Maybe some in the team are just a little bit too comfortable because they feel that they’re not getting pushed from those outside of it,” Vaughan said on Fox Sports’ coverage (via ABC News).

Vaughan reckons the Australian batting lacks the depth of the previous time as there are not enough quality players in the domestic circuit.

“I just wonder what’s underneath this batting line-up really pushing the standards in the first team. The standards generally get driven in a team because you’ve got many players pushing for places in it, and I just don’t see too many doing that,” Vaughan added (as per the aforementioned source).

“I just look back to Australian cricket when Australia had a batting line-up that had many world-class players in it, I reckon you had seven or eight world-class players not in it. And that’s just in the batting department,” Vaughan concluded.

India registered a massive win of 295 runs after Australia was bundled out for 238 in the second essay.