Bigger bats, flatter pitches, no excuses: Australian cricket tumbles to worrying 53-year low

A microscope is being aimed squarely at Australia's Sheffield Shield just as the domestic red-ball cricket tournament reaches its season finale.

Victoria hosts South Australia in Melbourne from Thursday in a match that will decide the title.

But the chatter on social media channels in the week leading up to the final hasn't exactly been glowing of the competition.

READ MORE: DCE's complicated Manly legacy and why some will boo him

READ MORE: Gould backs 'healthy' Madge stance after ugly coach exit

READ MORE: Salary rule to stop Kerr cashing in with monster deal in USA

Pundits have been bemoaning the state of batting around the country, based on statistics from the Shield season.

Victorian veteran Peter Handscomb topped the run scoring list with 688 at 36.2 from 19 innings.

According to respected cricket statistician Ric Finlay, Handscomb's 688 is the lowest winning tally of runs in a Shield season since 1972-73, when Doug Walters amassed 654 to be the tournament's leading batter.

Veteran cricket commentator Glenn Mitchell labelled the state of Shield batting "woeful" when pointing out none of the top eight runscorers this season have averaged above 40.

In response to Mitchell's post, the official Victorian Cricket Team's X account replied "lol" (laugh out loud). But cricket fans are not laughing.

Finlay says the Shield batting season averages have been "trending down" since 1980 and posted a graph to prove it.

While it would be easy to blame the rise of Twenty20 cricket, it seems the issue is not so simple. Finlay says Shield strike rates have actually dropped since the introduction of Australia's Big Bash League - so players trying to score quicker might not necessarily be leading to lower averages.

But there's no doubt a shift in focus has been forced by the money on offer in T20 cricket leagues around the world, compared to the red-ball formats.

Players know the path to a quick payday is through hitting dingers inside a stadium where fans wear buckets on their heads and the bails light up when dislodged.

Proper cricket is able to hold people's attention less and less, and so broadcast and advertising dollars are flooding towards the hit-and-giggle version of the game.

Another potential problem for Shield batting is the state of pitches around the country.

"I think the pitches have a big role to play in this as well," respected Adelaide-based cricket journalist Bharat Sundaresan said on SEN radio this week.

"We've had some really grassy and sporting pitches in places like Tassie and definitely in Sydney and Melbourne as well.

"I've heard some ex-cricketers talk about this collectively, that the techniques around Australian cricket in terms of batting having been impacted and you can always point a finger at white ball cricket.

"For me, I think the inconsistency in pitches have played a big role in that and we'll have to wait and watch, because now it's been the third straight summer that we're looking at where nobody's really put their hand up (with lots of runs) in crazy fashion."

The problem for Australia's Test team is the fact batters aren't bashing down the door to earn a baggy green like they did in the old days.

The likes of Michael Hussey and Chris Rogers earned their Test careers by plundering runs at first-class level for years, consistently.

In recent years, Cameron Green was a Shield standout but is now struggling in the Test arena; Sam Konstas has been poorly managed since his whirlwind debut against India last summer and may now find himself without a Cricket Australia contract; Marcus Harris was a Shield gun but a flop at Test level; and Cameron Bancroft was effectively banished from the Aussie squad after his role in the infamous Sandpapergate of 2018.

The dearth of quality batting at first-class level seems to be hampering Test scoring as well.

If you look at the top Test batting averages of all time, only four of the top 60 belong to batters still currently playing the game.

They are Steve Smith (56.05), Harry Brook (54.79), Kane Williamson (54.68) and Joe Root (51.07).

There are 15 names above Smith on the list - topped by the iconic Sir Donald Bradman who famously boasted a 99.94 average from 52 matches.

Of those 15 batters with better averages than Smith, only three were active in the 2000s - Kamindu Mendis (62.66 from 14 matches), Adam Voges (61.87 from 20), and Kumar Sangakkara (57.40 from 134).

The other 12 batters with averages higher than Smith were active between 1908 and 1968.

Was bowling poorer back then? No. Were pitches easier to bat on? Definitely not.

Bats are bigger. Pitches are flatter. The game is safer.

Batting should be easier than it was 50 years ago but for some reason it seems to be on a downward spiral.