Victoria coach Greg Shipperd blames Australia's poor batting on bowler-friendly first-class pitches Watch every wicket to fall on day four of the second Ashes Test at Lord's. Chris Rogers' form for Victoria propelled him into the Test side. Picture: George Salpigtidis. VICTORIAN coach Greg Shipperd has pointed to bowler-friendly first-class pitches and proliferating short forms of the game as key reasons behind Australia's Test batting frailty. The Bushrangers and Melbourne Stars mentor said that all parties in Australian cricket had to work together to be "part of the solution." He said the short-game driven "batting generation of the future" faced a challenge to adapt to cricket's longer forms. "There's a player responsibility, supported by coaching and strategic thinking, that's going to require a lot of attention in the next 18 months," Shipperd said. Behind that is the quality of pitches across our country. They have been way too heavily bent towards the bowlers - and we need to draw that back quite significantly. It'll make the bowlers work harder for their wickets and batsmen to understand and accept that batting for long periods of time is really what it takes at Test match level. You need to play good cricket (not have dubious pitches) to provide results - and that is all about good captaincy and strategic declarations if you can't actually bowl sides out. That's how it used to be ... and two-and-a-half day games aren't really what Australian cricket needs.