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Australia's bowlers say they will embrace the pressure in this summer's Test matches as question marks remain over the team's batting.
Australia's bowlers are ready to embrace added pressure likely to fall on them in the Test series against India as the batsmen battle to break out of their rut.
While Australia's batting lineup has rarely looked so unsettled and inexperienced heading into next month's first Test in Adelaide, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon are seasoned certainties with the ball.
Australia have passed 300 with the bat just once in their past 10 Test innings, a time frame that includes the last last three matches of their disastrous South African tour.
In turn, no Australian batsman is ranked in the top 15 for Test batting averages this year, with Usman Khawja the best with 565 runs at 47.08 as he fights to overcome a knee injury.
New opener Aaron Finch and captain-wicketkeeper Tim Paine are the only other eligible players to average above 35 in 2018, with Travis Head the next best with 30.50.
It's perhaps the clearest indication of just how much the Test team is missing the suspended Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.
It all points to a heap of added responsibility on the bowlers to deliver as the Australians try to prevent world No.1 ranked India becoming the first Asian team to win a Test series Down Under.
Starc wasn't certain the inexperience in Australia's batting would add more pressure, but if it did he said he'd welcome it.
"I think it's something at times we love is the added pressure to try and win games or step it up another level," Starc said on Wednesday.
"No matter who is picked in those four bowling spots, Gaz (Lyon) is going to be a lock as a spinner and we've got a good fast bowling group.
"We've all been around long enough and played enough cricket now to really run off the back off each other and lift in those pressure situations."
Australia's three pacemen and Lyon will step up their Test preparations together in Canberra on Friday, as part of NSW's Sheffield Shield side that takes on Queensland.
There they'll help determine the selection fate of Test aspirants Joe Burns, Matt Renshaw and Marnus Labuschagne, who all remain in the race to play in Adelaide.
Starc was also confident the quartet would take confidence from last summer's home Ashes triumph, where they became the first bowling group to have four players each take more than 20 wickets in a five-Test series.
"How we bowled last summer at home leaves us in a good frame of mind heading into this summer," he said.
"The challenge is to run off the back of that and have a great summer this summer."
