Daily Times

BIRMINGHAM: Australia’s top order must be that “little bit tougher” if the team are to win the fourth Test against England according to batting coach Michael di Venuto. The tourists suffered two significant collapses as England won the third Test at Edgbaston by eight wickets inside three days on Friday to go 2-1 up in the five-match Ashes series. In their first innings in Birmingham, Australia lost five wickets for 60 runs and the second saw four fall for 30. Australia have not won an Ashes series in Britain since 2001 and the suspicion remains that, for all their recent success, they are ‘flat-track bullies’ whose batsmen struggle on pitches offering sideways movement – as was the case at Edgbaston. Michael Clarke, the Australia captain, has scored 28 Test hundreds and has a career average touching fifty. But the star batsman has yet to get going this Ashes after scores of 10 and three at Edgbaston left him with a series aggregate of 94 runs in six innings at an average of under 19. But while Clarke is set to keep his place, fellow batsman Adam Voges could be replaced by Shaun Marsh for the fourth Test, which starts at Nottingham’s Trent Bridge on Thursday, given his series average of 14.60.