‘Disjointed’: Steve Waugh pinpoints Australian team’s biggest problem

Following Sunday’s humiliating loss to England, Australia needs to defeat Bangladesh and the West Indies to stand any chance of progressing to the semi-finals.

But Australia’s poor net run rate has left them in a precarious position — if South Africa defeats England on Saturday evening, Australia’s T20 World Cup campaign is almost certainly over.

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The team’s preparation leading into this year’s competition was less than ideal — many of the side’s first-choice players opted out of white-ball tours during the winter following the first leg of the 2021 Indian Premier League.

Without the likes of David Warner and Glenn Maxwell at their disposal, the Aussies were humbled by Bangladesh and the West Indies 4-1.

But the full-strength Australian side regrouped ahead of the T20 World Cup, albeit with hardly any match experience under their belt.

The warm-up fixture against India was Pat Cummins’ first match in almost six months. When Warner cracked a pull shot against South Africa in Australia’s tournament opener, it was his first boundary in professional cricket since April.

Australian cricket fans were also baffled to discover that Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Cummins had never played a T20 international together before last month’s match against the Proteas.

Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age while promoting his best-selling book The Spirit of Cricket – India, Waugh called for an overhaul of Cricket Australia’s approach to T20 cricket.

“Sure we’re competitive but if we want to be the best side in the world you’ve got to make sacrifices,” he said.

“I think players pulling out of this recent tour didn’t do the preparation any good. It was disjointed. A lot of the players who went on the tours aren’t at the World Cup. It’s a very different side.

“It’s hard to just push some magic button and say, ‘Let’s play well together if we’re going to do well at the World Cup’. It happens over a period of time.

“Financially, it’s (the IPL) a big part of their income, so it’s difficult to say, ‘You can’t go to the IPL, we want you to play every game for Australia’. There’s got to be a medium there somewhere that suits both.”

Waugh assisted national men’s coach Justin Langer during the 2019 Ashes series, where Australia retained the urn on English soil for the first time in 18 years.

Due to the overcrowded cricket calendar, national selectors habitually rest Australia’s multi-format players whenever a T20 series rolls around. This is partially why Hazlewood did not represent Australia in the game’s shortest format for four years after the 2016 T20 World Cup.

Similarly, the likes of Cummins and Warner rarely get an opportunity to prove their worth in the Big Bash League due to international commitments. Warner, arguably Australia’s most successful T20 cricketer of all time, has not played a BBL match since the 2013/14 summer.

Meanwhile, Australian selectors are still unsure whether there should be four or five strike bowlers in the starting XI, flipping between the two options throughout the T20 tournament.

West Australian all-rounder Mitchell Marsh, who was Australia’s only decent better during the winter tours of Bangladesh and the West Indies, was axed from the side earlier this week.

After the infamous ball-tampering saga rocked Australian cricket in 2018, the Ethics Review Centre released 42 culture review recommendations for Cricket Australia to adopt.

Recommendation No. 17 stated: “Members of Australian Test and One Day teams be excused from playing International T20 cricket to the extent necessary for them to play Sheffield Shield and Grade cricket.”

CA’s response was blunt: “This Recommendation is not accepted. CA will continue to select the best available team for International Cricket taking into account CA’s selection policy and the Players’ Pact, including T20 Internationals.”

That decision has quickly backfired — the oversaturated schedule has forced Australia’s multi-format cricketers into withdrawing from white-ball tours ahead of the T20 World Cup, and the domino effect means Steve Smith and Cummins will start their Ashes campaign with zero red-ball match experience to fall back on.

Originally published as ‘Disjointed’: Steve Waugh pinpoints Australian cricket team’s biggest problem