David Warner’s return won’t completely fix Australia’s batting issues after MCG Test, but they do need him back

Before play on day four of the Melbourne Test, Justin Langer was asked to assess the performance of Australia’s opening batsmen in this series.

“It hasn’t been great,” the Australian coach replied. It was an understatement to rank with Ajinkya Rahane’s comment that India had merely put in a few bad sessions in Adelaide.

The more pertinent questions might have been: why was Joe Burns, as short on form as any Australian Test batsman of recent times, selected in the first place? And what function does Australia’s battalion of coaches actually perform if Burns and Travis Head are being sent into the fray with technical deficiencies so glaringly obvious to even untrained eyes?

There was an acute sense of missed opportunities on day four at the…