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It would be easy to pinpoint the final three overs of Australia’s stunning World Twenty20 loss, where 48 runs were leaked, as the cause of the defeat.
Too easy, Australian skipper George Bailey argues, because foundations of the loss had been laid long before Darren Sammy sent the antepenultimate ball of the match into a delirious Dhaka crowd.
The six-wicket defeat follows a first-up loss to Pakistan and all but certainly ends Australia’s hopes of escaping the group stage.
But Bailey struggled to blame his left-arm pace trio of Doug Bollinger, who gave up 11 runs in the 48th over, Mitchell Starc, who leaked 19 in the 49th, or James Faulkner, who coughed up the consecutive sixes which ultimately saw the Windies pass Australia’s target of 179.
Instead Bailey pointed to another lacklustre batting display, which was flattered by another blistering Glenn Maxwell cameo (45 off 22) and valuable runs to Brad Hodge (35), as well as more sloppy fielding.
“I think your mind tends to track back to the most recent thing in the bowling (as the cause for the loss),” Bailey said.
“But once again I don’t think we batted particularly well.
“Just having a quick think about it then I think all of the top six played pretty ordinary shots – poor shots at inappropriate times.
“I think the fact that we scraped to 178 was pleasing given that I don’t think we batted particularly well.”
Bailey felt more ordinary fielding, which was so costly in their loss to Pakistan, let Australia down immensely as well.
Chris Gayle smashed 53 off 35 balls to get the run chase off to a flying start – but he could have been dismissed for 26 when wicketkeeper Brad Haddin missed a relatively simple stumping chance.
But there were other, less noticeable, errors that hurt Australia.
“Once again we probably let ourselves down in the field with some chances,” Bailey added.
“That comes back to bite you harder in T20 than most formats. The repercussions of that are so instant.
“I’m sure there’s things we can do differently with the ball and there’d be guys who’d like to have better overs again and do something a little different.
“But I don’t think you can lay the blame just on the bowlers. Certainly all three disciplines were once again not up to the standards that we’ve set.”
Despite facing the likelihood of being bounced out of World T20 in the group stages, Bailey insists that there aren’t many areas that need to be addressed urgently.
“The balance (of the team) is right, there’s no doubt about that,” he said.
“We’ve just lost two close games in a tournament where you can’t afford to lose two close games.”
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