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Australia crashing out in the group stages of a tournament normally triggers days of trial and judgement on the back page of every newspaper.
Australia’s World T20 World side managed to avoid that completely.
Oh sorry. Yes, there was a T20 World Cup. Yes, it finished on Sunday. No, we didn’t go well. No, I didn’t hear a thing about it either.
And that’s the real question. Why in a nation where cricket is undoubtedly our national pastime, was there such a low level of interest in the T20 World Cup?
Cricket fatigue
There’s every chance that after such an incredible summer of Test matches fans simply needed a break from the game.
If you look at the northern Ashes series as the entree, the thoroughly satisfying home Ashes series as the main course and the fantastic South African series as the cherry on top, Australian cricket tragics have been treated to a solid nine months of top class contests.
There’s a moment in every summer when the single national consciousness begins to split into the multiple personalities of the winter football codes. Success on the pitch usually delays this moment, but early March is surely as far as that unified attention span for one sport goes.
The interchangeable game
Unlike Test players, the players in T20 games are almost wholly interchangeable. There are a few reasons for this, but the dominance of the bat over ball in this format is a big reason. The decreased time in which to get out is another.
Put it this way. In Test matches, there’s only a select few players who have the talent and temperament to score a century.
But in T20, any number of players can come out in the last four overs and belt the white ball to all corners of the park. Chris Gayle and Brendan McCullum are international superstars who can decimate any attack.
But Ahmed Shezad, Umar Akmal or TLW Cooper, who all featured in the tournaments top scorers list, can replicate their feats. Good luck seeing any of those guys score a Test century anytime soon.
In that way, tournaments are often interchangeable too. The fact the game is more like a highlights reel than an ebbing and flowing contest means that not only players, but also whole teams are interchangeable.
Which is another reason Australian fans barely acknowledged the tournament in Bangladesh. After all, didn’t we just have one of those here during the summer when the Big Bash was on? And at least that had players and teams that were somewhat recognisable.
No upside
There is just no upside for Australian fans following the T20 team. With the successes of the summer in the longer formats, and our great record in the ODI World Cup, anything less than a win is a failure.
The real joy in these tournaments belongs to the tiny minnow teams who spring an upset on the biggest stage that they will ever play on. I mean, imagine how happy all of the 17 cricket fans in the Netherlands were when they humiliated England, who looked like they’d asked the Dutch for their old playing strips that day.
T20 cricket is here to stay, and tickets were sold out for all matches in Bangladesh, while Indians were glued to their TVs for three weeks and Sri Lankans were delirious after their victory. But as far as Australians fans were concerned, we just did not care.
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