The Ashes 2013: Return of David Warner and Nathan Lyon can spin positives for Australia Usman Khawaja's calm half-century was oil on Australia's troubled waters and should have secured him a longer run than the normal three or four Tests he has been given before being dropped. However, his limited footwork and penchant for square-of-the-wicket strokes suggest he would be more suited to No 4, behind Rogers. Much time and faith has been invested in Phil Hughes, and he did contribute 81 not out at No 6 in the first Test to Australia's last-wicket stand of 163, but without ever looking as authoritative as Ashton Agar. Graeme Swann in particular is now tormenting Hughes, who has his twin strengths of cut and cover-drive, and so little else besides. Hughes looks lopsided by comparison with Nic Maddinson, another left-hander from New South Wales, but younger at 22 and a strokemaker all round the wicket. Maddinson featured only on Australia's A tour of England but when he scored 181 against Gloucestershire and batted alongside Hughes, one looked a Test batsman in the making and the other did not. Steve Smith may not be a Test-class batsman either, to judge by his wildness yesterday when he lapsed into his old habit of driving with a stiff front leg. But Australia will have to pick either him or Hughes or Ed Cowan for the rest of this series, and Smith's leg-break - when it lands - will be worth having at Old Trafford, which is likely to take even more spin than the other over-dry pitches of this series. Promising as Agar's batting is, he has taken only two wickets in his main role and has to be replaced by Nathan Lyon. While England have Swann and Root to aim into the footmarks created by the pace bowlers of both sides, Australia have been artless in having no off-spinner of their own. Smith is like so many England players of the 1990s: promoted to the Test side on the strength of being a decent bits-and-pieces cricketer in limited-overs formats. Australia's administrators are powerless to do anything about the Indian Premier League and the big money for T20 players, but they are culpable for having destroyed their traditional strengths and saturating their calendar with limited-overs quantity. They reduced the importance of the Sheffield Shield by renaming it the Pura Milk Cup. They introduced a convoluted one-day competition in which a state bats for 45 overs divided into two innings, and which again distracts batsmen from building an innings. Clarke and Lehmann have been left to assemble a ship from this wreckage, and no wonder it sinks.