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Australia’s lacklustre display against England in their opening match of the Champions Trophy was as much due to tactical blunders as a lack of talent and application.
While many will argue that Australia simply are not as good as England (and there is much merit to such a claim), the men in gold gave themselves no chance thanks to three pivotal strategic errors:
1. The persistence with an out-of-sorts Mitchell Starc
From his opening over, the left arm quick clearly lacked rhythm. His pace was down and he was not completing his action. Starc was simply ‘putting the ball there’ rather than hitting the surface with vigour.
Legendary former Aussie paceman Jason Gillespie recently noted in a column for The Roar that Starc needed to eradicate such bowling, which he described as “floaty.”
So why did skipper George Bailey get a patently struggling Starc to contribute 10 overs when he had other, better options?
Bailey bizarrely overlooked on-song pair Shane Watson and Mitchell Johnson, who bowled just 15 overs between them.
Starc returned to the bowling crease at the death and his concession of 25 runs from his final two overs wounded Australia and handed England some much-needed momentum.
He finished with the woeful figures of 1 for 75.
2. The non-selection of a spinner
Australia had plenty of good options with the ball against England – the only problem was that they were all quick bowlers.
George Bailey, who conceded post-match that not selecting a spinner was a mistake, was forced to resort to bowling rank part-time tweaker Adam Voges.
The Western Australian batsman, who rarely bowls even for his state, was tidy in his three overs, conceding just 13 runs.
This only served to highlight how valuable fellow left-arm spinner Xavier Doherty would have been on the dry surface.
Doherty will almost certainly play in Australia’s next Champions Trophy outing against New Zealand on Wednesday at the expense of one of the quicks.
Given the impressive efforts of James Faulkner, Clint McKay and Johnson yesterday, Starc may be the man to make way for Doherty.
3. The failure to attack England’s weaker bowlers
English pacemen James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Tim Bresnan were on fire yesterday. They gave the Aussie batsmen nothing to hit and posed a constant threat.
But England was without gun spinner Graeme Swann and did not have a reputable fifth bowler.
The key for Australia to overhaul England’s total of 269 was to attack fill-in spinner James Tredwell and cash in when part timers Joe Root and Ravi Bopara took the ball.
Inexplicably, Root was allowed to bowl five overs for just 20 runs as neither Bailey nor Hughes made any attempt to disrupt the youngster’s line and length.
Similarly, the Aussie batsmen treated Tredwell with a level of respect typically reserved for heart surgeons.
As a result, the required run rate ballooned and later-order batsmen were faced with the frightful task of scoring at breakneck speed against the rampant Anderson, Broad and Bresnan.