Australia’s T20 World Cup starts tonight, and they’re tipped to go all the way. But with a patchwork squad, the path to victory is far from clear. For starters, who’s going to make the team?
Plenty of outlets have named Australia favourites in this competition, but perhaps that sentiment is borne aloft on Australia’s surging form in Test cricket. Those performances were built on fine work with the ball, but none of those bowlers will feature in this tournament.
Mitchell Johnson was the only one due to play, and on the type of subcontinental pitches where seam bowlers can be reduced to the same job as the buffet stackers at the Dhaka Continental, his violent pace through the air and his pitched-up swing could have been pivotal.
He took 24 wickets from 17 games as the Mumbai Indians stormed to the IPL title last year, and have a look at the clip below for some high-quality early destruction with the white ball.
Sadly MJ won’t be there, struck down with a toe infection suffered from the sheer amount of arse he kicked over the summer. While he nurses that little piggy back to health, and grooms his toe hair into a delightful tiny foot-moustache, the fast cartel in Bangladesh will comprise Doug Bollinger, Nathan Coulter-Nile, James Faulkner and Mitchell Starc.
None of these bowlers screams economy. Starc has the best T20 rate of the lot, at 6.99 an over. The rest are between 7 and 8 across their careers. Faulkner of course can bat – his fearless recent finishing demands that he’ll play. But while any of these guys on his day can rake in a few wickets, but they’re all equally liable to hit the fence in volume.
(Edit: Faulkner has been confirmed as missing the first match through injury, but he’ll be back for the second.)
So what to do? If Australia paid attention on Friday night, they’d have noticed the three Indian spinners tied Pakistan in knots through the middle overs on a track that turned. Brad Hogg is a walk-up start with his left-arm wrist spin, a rare bowling style at international level sent down by a practiced and accurate practitioner. Hogg learned his trade training with Mills bombs before the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917, and has been in the nets ever since.
At the opposite end of the scale, leg spinner James Muirhead was born nine months after the 2005 Ashes, and looks strangely familiar. The first eight-year-old to play international cricket since Shahid Afridi, he could form half of a devastating spin duo if the selectors are feeling adventurous. They won’t be.
All this means that Australia’s all-rounders will play a huge part. And no, I don’t mean Dan Christian, who bowls medium-medium length balls in the tonking slot, then bumbles around for two overs getting off the strike. Presumably he’s in Bangladesh because he owes someone money.
Shane Watson’s medium pacers, accuracy and occasional faster one will be important if the wickets are slow, while Glenn Maxwell’s off-spinners have reaped him a pocketful of wickets in recent times. Both will also feature in the top order as destructive batsmen.
There are a few more options, with part-time spin available from Aaron Finch, David Warner, Cameron White and Brad Hodge. In this team, only the skipper and the keeper don’t bowl.
Warner and Finch have to open together, if only to maintain the Mario and Luigi pairing of two angry little nuggets punching through everything in sight and turning flowers into fire. The 8-bit men, the only thing blocky about them is their stature.
Watson will probably bat at three in case one of the openers fails, then captain George Bailey has shown a liking for getting Maxwell high in the order. Bailey himself will follow at five, so with Brad Haddin at seven, one of the main batsmen will have to miss out.
Bailey stated during Australia’s summer that he’d like Hodge as a finisher, so you expect he’ll get the nod. Mind you, Hodge has been shafted so many times that they may just yell “Psych!” while they snatch his cap and send him down to the corner restaurant to pick up a stack of muglai paratha.
If Hodge plays, White will be the unlucky one. While he started his career as a leg spinner, his bowling has long since become unconvincing, and his excellent recent batting form has been as an opener.
The only other option is to go with three frontline bowlers, and get the rest of the overs out of the menagerie. With Watson and Maxwell as fourth and fifth bowlers, it’s not the worst idea, though you’d be a little nervous.
Even if Australia plays five specialists, the quality at their disposal is not going to contain good batting sides. Perhaps Australia’s best option is to bat as deep as they can, and make every innings a monster.
Predicted XI
David Warner
Aaron Finch
Shane Watson
Glenn Maxwell
George Bailey
Brad Hodge
Brad Haddin
James Faulkner (Nathan Coulter-Nile for the first match)
Mitchell Starc
Brad Hogg
Doug Bollinger
My maverick renegade XI
David Warner
Aaron Finch
Shane Watson
George Bailey
Brad Hodge
Glenn Maxwell
Cameron White
James Faulkner
Brad Haddin
Brad Hogg
Mitchell Starc
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