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Australia on track to win ODI World Cup

30th August, 2014
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The Aussie cricket team take on India in Canberra for the fourth ODI. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)
Expert
30th August, 2014
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Australia have an emerging problem with defending massive totals. But will it be less relevant come next year’s World Cup?

Three of the last five times Australia have set a run chase in a one-day international, their opponents have mowed down an enormous total.

First India reined in giant scores of 359 and 350 in the subcontinent in October last year. Then South Africa clinically surpassed the total of 327 set by Australia in Harare on Wednesday.

But, for the moment, this issue may not matter as much as some may think. Australia are a bat first team. They prefer to have initial use of the wicket, set a large total and then back their potent pace attack to defend it.

Since the start of 2012, they have batted first in 72 per cent of their ODI matches. During that period, they have set their opponents large chases of more than 275 in 15 of those 38 times when batting first.

Eleven times they successfully defended those totals. Four times they coughed up the win. That is a very reasonable ratio.

However, three of those four failures have not only come in recent times but also when they’ve set mammoth chases. This problem, though, only rears its mutant head when Australia are playing on ultra-flat, dry decks on small grounds.

In Australian conditions the highest run chase they have given up since the start of 2012 is 280 against Sri Lanka in Hobart two-and-a-half years ago.

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Faced with hard, responsive decks and man-sized boundaries the Australian attack is an entirely different proposition. Faf du Plessis delighted in lunging onto the front foot to launch Mitchell Johnson for six on a road of a surface in Harare this week.

But transplant that contest to the Gabba or the WACA and Faf’s feet would likely be glued to the crease as he became the hunted, not the hunter.

Fortunately for Australia, the only one-day matches of any significance in the near future will take place in their home conditions. Forget ODI rankings, the World Cup starting in Australia in February is all that matters.

The likes of du Plessis and Indian shotmakers Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma will have a monumental task to replicate their bullying of the Aussie bowlers on lively pitches Down Under.

If Cricket Australia are wise they will ensure the decks for the World Cup are blindingly quick. Australia’s lack of an effective spin bowler is their sole weakness.

This Achilles heel has been brutally exposed on dry foreign decks. But it can be masked in a home environment where the likes of Johnson and Mitchell Starc will become major weapons swinging the ball at more than 145 kilometres per hour.

All-rounders James Faulkner and Shane Watson are also more bowlers on Australian pitches. In fact, Australia’s pace depth is such that they may not even choose to field a specialist spinner consistently in the World Cup.

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The Australian selectors may believe that the likes of Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith, Michael Clarke and even opening batsman Aaron Finch can provide the side with sufficient spin options in conditions more suited to the quicks.

Such a strategy seemed to backfire on Australia on Wednesday when they clearly lacked a frontline spin option after omitting Nathan Lyon.

But that Harare deck could scarcely be more different to the surfaces we will see in the World Cup. Meanwhile, one point which has been somewhat overlooked in the rush to ridicule Australia’s inability to defend bog totals is the fact that their batting line-up is in monstrous touch.

Australia’s batting depth at ODI level is extraordinary. Against South Africa, they were without three superstar members of their top four in Michael Clarke, Shane Watson and David Warner.

Yet they still smashed 327 against an attack boasting Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and the sixth-ranked ODI bowler in the world Ryan McLaren.

That trio of Australian batsman form a brilliant base for any ODI top six. Then add in Aaron Finch, who has three tons in his past seven ODIs, the fourth-ranked ODI batsman in the world George Bailey, and perhaps the side’s most-feared batsman Glenn Maxwell, who over his past 16 matches has averaged 44 at a strike rate above 130.

Warner, Finch, Watson, Clarke, Bailey and Maxwell are the best, most destructive top six in ODI cricket.

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If they continue to make huge 300-plus scores in the World Cup, teams like India and South Africa will be at long odds to chase them down.

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