An Oddsworth Opinion
Australia's revolving opening pair has met the first series that can expose it
Every few months the same complaint resurfaces: Australia have cycled through partners at the top of the order since David Warner retired from Tests and have still not found a pair that sticks. An unsettled opening pair is the sort of flaw that ought to show first in a hard series away from home, when the new ball does most.
The salient fact sits right beside it. Our ratings have Australia as the best Test side in the world, first of ten, with a 75% chance of beating an average Full Member side on a neutral ground. That is a strange place for a team with a broken top order to be.
What the results say
The results since the churn began say the same. Australia have lost only two of their last ten Tests, and both defeats, to England on Boxing Day and to Bangladesh in August, were answered with a win in the very next match.
So a side doing without a settled opening pair has kept winning, which means whatever the rotation has cost in the first hour of an innings has not shown up on the scoreboard. Any criticism of the selectors needs tempering by that record.
- WWest IndiesWon by 159 runs v West Indies, 2025-06-25
- WWest IndiesWon by 133 runs v West Indies, 2025-07-03
- WWest IndiesWon by 176 runs v West Indies, 2025-07-12
- WEnglandWon by 8 wickets v England, 2025-11-21
- WEnglandWon by 8 wickets v England, 2025-12-04
- WEnglandWon by 82 runs v England, 2025-12-17
- LEnglandLost by 4 wickets v England, 2025-12-26
- WEnglandWon by 5 wickets v England, 2026-01-04
- LBangladeshLost by 9 wickets v Bangladesh, 2026-08-13
- WBangladeshWon by an innings and 51 runs v Bangladesh, 2026-08-22
Where the top order gets tested
Any defence of the rotation needs tempering too, because South Africa are a different proposition. Our forecasts give Australia a 40% chance in each of the three Tests, with the home side favourites every time, 46% at St George's Park. For the top-rated side in the world to start a series as the outsider is a measure of how much the batting will be asked to do away from home.
History is gentler on the visitors. Australia have won fifteen of the thirty Tests between these sides since December 2005, to South Africa's twelve, and that is the record a side with an unsettled top order now has to live up to.
Sunday 18 October 2026, 10:00am SAST
The verdict
Measured by what a side exists to do, which is win Tests, the churn at the top has so far cost Australia nothing that shows in the results. The complaint describes the rotation accurately and overstates its damage.
The rotation has been a cost the side could carry while it kept winning, and on the evidence of those ten Tests the selectors are right to keep picking the pair that suits the match ahead of settling one for its own sake. The second Test at St George's Park on 18 October, with Australia sent out as the outsider against the home side, is the next place for that top order to show the churn still costs nothing, and the harder the conditions, the more that record is worth.