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Australia will look to get their campaign back on track when they take on Afghanistan in their World Cup 2015 game at the WACA in Perth. Join The Roar for all the action from 5:00pm (AEDT).
It’s been a patchy start for Australia this World Cup, but not all of it has been their own doing.
The schedule has been such that after playing their first game on the opening day of the tournament, they have just had two games from the next 18 days. One was washed out in Brisbane, while the other was that thriller against New Zealand.
That Australia lost such a close encounter would have been heart-breaking, but the fact remains they struggled to bat against the swinging ball.
Michael Clarke was unhappy with the preparation in the lead-up to that encounter and the headlines pointed to a feud between captain and coach Darren Lehmann. When asked whether he was OK with the team’s preparation this time around, Clarke said he wasn’t looking to help the media with their headlines.
What Clarke also revealed in the pre-match media conference was that Australia wasn’t ready with their playing XI.
Over the last few months, Australia have usually announced their starting XI at least a day in advance, but it looks like they are waiting on the fitness of a number of players. Clarke did reveal two things – Pat Cummins is ruled out, and Steven Smith is fit to play despite being hit in the nets.
Josh Hazlewood is likely to take Cummins’ spot and he was seen bowling in the same nets as Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Starc as the Aussies practiced.
In another net, James Faulkner was clocking the overs but it remains to be seen if he will return to the starting XI. If he does, what will be more interesting is which player he replaces in the side. Shane Watson looks most likely to take the axe.
Afghanistan are coming off a nerve-wracking win last game over Scotland, after they went down to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in their previous two games. While the Bangladesh game was one-sided, they returned to trouble Sri Lanka and almost caused an upset.
They have been training hard under the auspices of their coach, Englishman Andy Moles, and had earlier in the year come to play some cricket in Perth. As a result, the track might not be as difficult to bat for them as it was for UAE, and we might see a charged up Afghanistan side.
You can follow the live scores and blog of this Australia vs Afghanistan World Cup encounter from 5:00pm (AEDT), and post your comments in the section below.
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