Has 2024 been annus horribilis for Australia's batters?

In Perth, Australia's top four made 29 runs between them in eight innings. One of those innings was nightwatcher Pat Cummins', but it continued a theme of the last year where there have been diminishing returns from the top order. Often someone in the middle or lower order - particularly Mitchell Marsh last season and Alex Carey in Christchurch - has helped them out of difficult situations, but in the opening Test against India, there was no escape.

"Batters, we want to hold our own - we know how good our bowlers have been for us in the past and they've got us out of trouble a lot," Travis Head said on Monday. "As a batting group, we know that if we get enough runs on the board, we put ourselves in a great position."

In the incumbent XI, only Carey is averaging over 30 in Tests this year. The injured Cameron Green tops the list with 302 runs at 50.33 courtesy of his career-best 174 not out in Wellington. It has been widely spoken about that batting has become tougher in Australia, something that Usman Khawaja went into detail on in an interview with the Grade Cricketer before the India series.

"When I first started playing first-class cricket, and I'm up to my 16th year now, the wickets were better, 100% the wickets were flatter. Easier to bat on," he said. "The balls were probably the biggest difference. Those Kookaburra balls had a single layer of lacquer on them, now they have a double lacquer, and the writing just doesn't go off them at all. And they have these new, raised seams, which I think is the biggest change in Australian cricket for a long time.

"That's why wobble seam is so prevalent now. Everyone wants to bowl wobble seam, not swinging them, because if there's massive seams on them you just put them down and they go boing, boing, boing, boing. That wasn't around back in the day, the old Kookaburra Turf seams were so small, you didn't get as much nip, you had to try and swing it and then when it didn't you had to try to reverse it.

"And I'm genuine, I 100% believe I'm a better player now than I was when I first started playing first-class cricket. But I found first-class cricket when I started playing easier than what I do now. The wickets are greener, these balls are tougher, the game has 100% changed. And I say to the boys, 'don't worry about the old boys, don't compare yourself to the old boys, compare yourself to now' because 1000 runs was the elite level of Shield cricket when I started, it's more like 800 runs now."

But how slim are the pickings compared to how other teams are going and more historically?

Australia's batters treading water in 2024

Put alongside other teams, it is clear Australia have struggled with the bat this year. For teams to have played at least six Tests, only Bangladesh and West Indies are below them for the returns of Nos. 1 to 7.

One of the notable aspects for Australia this year is the lack of hundreds with just two so far: Green's against New Zealand and Head's against West Indies in Adelaide. Comparing just the number of centuries between teams doesn't give a fair picture due to the different number of Tests, but an innings-per-hundred ratio (for Nos. 1-7) paints a picture: again, only West Indies and Bangladesh are below Australia in 2024.

They are also yet to reach 400, with the 383 against New Zealand in Wellington the top score, although they still have three Tests to pass that mark. The last time they did not make a 400-run total in a calendar year was 1990.

But it's a tough year

Australia, though, aren't alone. We've seen two teams bowled out for under 50 this year and another for 55. The six lowest all-out totals have come in the first innings of a Test, rather than later in the game when a pitch may have deteriorated naturally. The game is certainly result-orientated with just one draw (a rain-effect game in Trinidad) to date this year.

The collective global average for Nos. 1-7 this year is 31.84 - only four years of 20-plus Tests have produced a lower figure - so Australia are not trending massively below that.

In the Times, after India's 46 against New Zealand, Mike Atherton wrote: "Although there are occasional exceptions, attack is now seen as the best - indeed, the only - form of defence. When was the last time you heard a captain or a coach deviate from the line: "Go harder"? Could there ever be a scenario where modern captains and coaches would think otherwise?

"... Added to that is the psychological shift, post the prevalence of short-form cricket, of a wicket losing its value. The shorter the game, the fewer the consequences for getting out, and batsmen play more freely in all formats as a result than before. I'm not arguing for a return to the blockathons of the past, by the way - although I'd certainly argue that a more nuanced, less one-size-fits-all approach can work - merely trying to explain how the present player thinks differently, and the occasional consequences of that."

Among the 24 years to have included at least 40 Tests, the collective 2024 batting average of 28.60 is the second lowest behind 2018. Widening that out to years with at least 20 Tests, and only 1959 slots in above. But Test runs have never been scored quicker than 2024. A lot of that is down to the way England play, and India's top order showed in the second innings in Perth how to build a Test innings by wearing an attack down, but more broadly is it a case of getting them before the ball gets you?

Where does this year rank for Australia?

It is certainly a lean one. Of contemporary times, it's again only 2018 that saw lower overall returns when David Warner and Steven Smith were absent for a significant part of the year. Beyond that, it's going back to 1984 (with a minimum of six Tests) to find a comparative year.

Drilling a little deeper into the top order and as things stand (with three Tests to play this year so there's time for the numbers to improve), this is only the second year where five batters in positions one to seven in a Test team who have played ten or more innings are averaging under 30 - noting that positions can be altered by the use of a nightwatcher.

Also, since January 2023, of the current top seven excluding Nathan McSweeney with just a single Test to his name, Marsh, who returned to the side midway through that year, is the only batter to have improved his Test average in that period. Khawaja's reduction, though, is very small while Smith's is down from a very high base. Marnus Labuschagne's is the most stark.