Former Australia opener Matthew Hayden has criticized the current Australia batting coach, Michael Di Venuto, after the hosts’ batting shortcomings were exposed in the recent Ashes 2025-26 Test against England in Melbourne.

The Test match ended in two days, with England winning the match, registering their first victory in Tests in Australia since 2010-11. The ICC has previously assessed the surface as "unsatisfactory" due to the presence of 10 mm grass, making it difficult for batsmen from both teams to get started and spend substantial time in the middle.

In the Melbourne Test, Australia returned with scores of 152 and 132, and England did not have any trouble in chasing down the target of 175.

Matthew Hayden stated that he is not a fan of the current batting coach because the team's batting has been lacking for several months, with Alex Carey, Marnus Labuschagne, and others struggling in both pacey and spin-friendly conditions.

Di Venuto, the current batting coach, has vast experience, scoring 25,200 runs in first-class cricket. He played ODIs for Australia but was unable to play Test cricket.

“That’s an unacceptable scorecard. I don’t care if it was 50 millimeters of grass. You need to be better than that. Head, Weatherald, Labuschagne, Khawaja, Carey, and Green are all at sea with their basic techniques. The only technical thing I see is coming from our bowlers, who look more technically sound than our batters. Why is that?” Hayden said on the All Over Bar The Cricket podcast.

“I’m not a fan of him. It’s not a personal thing. I just think that for too long there has been an influence in this group around batting, and I don’t feel it’s served the development of the team or the technical element of Test cricket. Not just on green wickets but in the subcontinent, where we’ve been competitive but haven’t had the skill sets required to cope in those conditions,” he added.

Hayden, considered one of the most dominating openers in modern-day cricket, claimed that since one cannot continue to get away with it, it is time for some accountability to be demonstrated.

“At some point, you have to take accountability. That’s the piece I really struggle with the most. It’s like, ‘Yep, it’s green; therefore, we’re going to play a certain way.’ Or, ‘It’s spinning,’ like in Delhi a couple of series ago. Every player was sweeping on a wicket that wasn’t turning an inch.

You didn’t see Ricky Ponting batting at three, like Marnus Labuschagne is, throwing his wicket away. There is no freaking chance because … You would have your teammates and your former generation of players saying, ‘Bud, this is not the way we play cricket," he added.

Australia leads the Ashes 2025-26 series 3-1, and the final Test of the series will be played in Sydney starting January 4.