Unwanted record looms for Aussie bats

Unless Pat Cummins can defy precedent and logic by completing his maiden Test century at the MCG tomorrow, Australia will head to Sydney in the new year facing some rare and unwanted history.

Throughout more than 140 years of Test cricket, no No.8 batter has reached triple figures at the MCG where the inaugural contest was staged in March, 1877.

Given he needs an additional 39 runs with only fellow bowlers Nathan Lyon (Test average 12.53) and Josh Hazlewood (12.65) to see him to that distant milestone, it would seem an outside chance despite Cummins' remarkable run of all-round form.

Should he fall short, then an equally long-standing benchmark stands a chance of tumbling when the fourth Domain Test begins at the SCG next Thursday, as a direct result of the top-order batting frailties that Cummins' stoic contributions so harshly spotlight.

Australia has yet to produce a century maker in the first three matches of this campaign, and should that streak continue in Sydney then it represents the first time in 136 years that such an unflattering result has been returned from a four-Test series on home soil.

The first break in a run of productivity that stretches back almost as long as Test cricket itself.

So dominant have India's seamers and spinners been against a less-credentialled and often under-equipped foe that the team's youngest specialist batter, Travis Head (who turned 25 today), currently holds the baton for Australia's highest individual score of the summer.

It's a high watermark he shares with the most-capped member of the current XI, Usman Khawaja, and it stands at a less-than-daunting 72 – Head's scored in the first Test at Adelaide, while Khawaja's was posted the following week in Perth.

There have been entire home series in recent memory when a three-figure score has eluded more lauded Australia batting line-ups than the current iteration, robbed of its two leading lights (Steve Smith and Dave Warner) through circumstances wholly unforeseen.

The most notable was the rain-affected campaign against a modest West Indies outfit in 2009-10 when openers Simon Katich and Shane Watson posted 90-plus scores in all three Tests, but were unable to convert them into milestones.

In the Beatlemania summer of 1964-65, no local player notched a Test century for the entire season.

But that stands as a statistical aberration, given there was only one international played that southern summer – a Test against Pakistan at the MCG, that was sandwiched between the lengthy tours Bob Simpson led to India and Pakistan, then the Caribbean.

Way further back, there was the fully professional England party of 1886-87 that played on tracks so conducive to the bowling of Billy Barnes and George Lohmann (as well as Australia's 'Terror' Turner and J.J. Ferris) that neither team produced a player able to reach 50 across two Tests.

The best-performed local for the series being Percy McDonnell, who scratched out 35 in his team's final outing of the campaign.

However, to find a four-Test series on Australian soil throughout which no home-grown batter has celebrated a century, history's pages have to be flipped back to the time when the terracotta urn first appeared as a token trophy for Australia-England Tests.

Even then, the fourth match of that 1882-83 summer was more an exhibition fixture at the SCG, with each day's play being fought out on a different pitch upon the famous ground's wicket block.

So while next month's two-match Domain Test Series against Sri Lanka (currently ranked sixth in the world, compared to Australia's fifth) represents a gilded chance for someone to finally crack the ton, the current drought provides historical context for Australia's batting stocks.

Lyon, who resumes tomorrow morning on six not out as part of an unbeaten 43-run ninth-wicket partnership with Cummins that is already Australia's second-best of the match, dismissed suggestions that the misfiring top-order was letting down the team.

"I don't feel that's a really fair comment, to be honest," Lyon said after day four, which saw Australia 8-258 and still 141 runs short of their notional victory target.

"I see how much hard work the guys are doing in the nets, and at training.

"I know they're working hard, they're not going out there to try to fail, they're working their backsides off and they've got all my support.

"You've got to remember we're coming up against a world-class bowling attack.

"It's one of the best Indian bowling attacks that I've ever seen.

"I know all our batters are disappointed, of course they're disappointed, but I know how hard they're working and that, around the corner, there's a lot of success for them."

Lyon did, however, acknowledge that the inability of Australia batting line-up – so drastically reshaped with Smith, Warner and opener Cameron Bancroft all serving suspensions – to put pressure on opponents was impacting their capacity to exert authority on matches.

In four of the five completed Tests since the ball tampering in Cape Town last March, Australia have conceded a first-innings lead to their opponents with that average margin being 175 runs.

Only once in that time have they pocketed a first-innings advantage – this month's second Domain Test against India in Perth – which is also the sole Test win they have enjoyed over that time.

"It comes down, in every Test match you ever play, if you get first innings runs then you basically put yourself ahead of the game," Lyon said tonight.

"Unfortunately, we missed that (in this Test where they trailed by 292 runs) and now are back are up against the wall.

"So Pat and Josh and I are going to have to come out tomorrow and fight.

"We've got to fight our backsides off and show how much it means to wear the Baggy Green Cap."

Either way, history beckons.

Domain Test Series v India

Dec 6-10: India won by 31 runs

Dec 14-18: Australia won by 146 runs

Dec 26-30: Third Test, MCG

Jan 3-7: Fourth Test, SCG

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c, wk), Josh Hazlewood (vc), Mitch Marsh (vc), Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Archie Schiller

India squad: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar