Shaun Marsh's horror run of form is worst for Aussie top-five batsmen since 1888

Marsh played to Ravichandran Ashwin for two just before lunch on the second day of the first Test to register his sixth consecutive single-figure score for his country in the longest format

Shaun Marsh has claimed an unwanted Australian record as his struggles with the bat continued against India at the Adelaide Oval.

Marsh played to Ravichandran Ashwin for two just before lunch on the second day of the first Test to register his sixth consecutive single-figure score for his country in the longest format.

No Australian top-five batsman since 1888 has been on such a dismal run.

Marsh, 35, averaged 3.5 in games against Pakistan in the UAE and 18.4 in South Africa earlier in the year.

Since making a wonderful 156 in the final Ashes Test against England in Sydney in January, he has mustered just 163 runs in 13 innings at an average of 12.5 apiece.

^{Shaun Marsh is in poor form with the bat}

It makes for grim reading, both for Marsh and the Aussie selectors who have been scrambling to find a suitable replacement for the suspended Steve Smith for eight months.

Marsh is unlikely to be dropped for the second Test in Perth but he will want to better deal with Ashwin, who appears to have the Aussie batsman's number.

The dismissal on Friday was Marsh's fifth against India's finger-spinner in Tests.

Ashwin said: "Shaun Marsh is a fantastic player. There is a certain pattern we saw through the videos before we got into the game.

"There was an initial set-up that we wanted to do. Today the plan really worked. Not exactly in the fashion that we had worked on but Shaun Marsh is one of the players that has played spin well and we thought we would set a different plan going into this particular Test match and it worked."

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER