Cricket 2014
Australia’s “One Size Fits All” Failure
March 23rd 2014
With other sides in the tournament
playing 3, 4 or even 5 spinners in their XI, Australia have just a single
43-year old spinner and a collection of very useful medium-pacers. Without the
high pace of Mitch Johnson there is a lack of variety in the attack and it
looks quite unsuited to this tournament. There is also a suggestion that Plan A
is to bash the ball as hard as possible, starting with Warner and Finch but,
when the situation calls for subtlety and for working the ball around, they are
short of batsmen who can do it. Why Australia were made favourites for the
tournament is a bit of a mystery, but there is rather a lot of hype around this
Australian side that sees itself as a bit special, but seems to have been
picked with the Ashes in mind and not Bangladesh’s slow strips.
This suspicion that the squad is not
the one to win in Bangladesh has been confirmed today against Pakistan who had
looked so awful against India. Australia have a very poor T20 record in Asia,
something that people have tended to ignore. In fact, of the ten teams in the
competition proper, only Bangladesh have a worse record in T20 games played in
Asia. Against New Zealand in the warm-ups Australia had struggled to defend 200
and, at one point, looked set to lose that game with something to spare before
wickets started to fall. Today, despite a good start with the ball, the lack of
anyone to exercise control in the middle overs allowed Pakistan to reach 191.
Australia had only once chased over 165 successfully in a T20 and needed a good
start: 8-2 at the end of the first over was not what they had in mind.
A brutal counterattack from Glenn
Maxwell, including 30 off one over, left Australia needing just 70 off 54 balls
and Pakistan in apparent disarray. All they had to do was push the singles and
hit the odd bad ball for four. Subtlety though is not part of the Australian
plan and wickets started to fall as batsmen committed suicide, when working the
ball around was all that was needed. Even a rash of dropped catches could not
save Australia.
England fans tend to be
hyper-critical of their own side and, in particular, their batting at the
death, but Australia lost 7 wickets for 29 in the last 5 overs to lose by 16,
in a barely credible defeat. When a bit of calm would have won the game with
plenty to spare, they were dreadful. If it had been England the criticism would
have been brutal… and thoroughly merited.
On the evidence of this game the Australian
attack is in no way suited to the conditions, relying on the Ashes formula of
pace, without an enforcer to make it effective (or someone like Ravi Bopara to
add subtlety – England fans tend to ridicule him, but just look how effective
he has been in the last year or so, rarely failing to make a mark with either
bat or ball) and the batting lacks the nous to milk accurate bowling without
taking outrageous risks.
The second game was an extraordinary
affair. The West Indies were, at one point, without even having lost many
wickets, looking to be struggling to get past 100 in their 20 overs and this on
the same pitch that had produced so many runs earlier. A late surge took them
to 130 at which point India, in turn, made run-scoring look hard, suggesting
that it was genuinely becoming difficult to time the ball. Despite winning by 7
wickets, India had just two balls to spare when they finally knocked off the
winning run. India’s win was reckoned to be a lot easier than it had looked
and, in truth, that was right. However, they did do what Australia had not and,
when the target was close enough, rather than risk a collapse with a series of
almighty slogs, pushed the ones and twos. With two wins in the bag and a game
against Bangladesh to come, India will not be worried about run rate and, even
if their pragmatic approach added some emotion at the end, as runs slowed to a
crawl, they avoided following Australia’s path to self-inflicted oblivion.
Tomorrow, New Zealand and South
Africa square up. A South African defeat will leave them on the verge of
elimination. Then, Sri Lanka will come up against the Dutch, who did not even
know which group they would be in and which opponents they would face, such was
their confidence that they would make the main draw. You would expect Sri Lanka
to be less accommodating to them than Zimbabwe or Ireland, but the neutrals
will hope that the Dutch can give them a run for their money.
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