The Liebke Ratings: Australia vs Afghanistan World Cup group game

After losing a thrilling battle of batting ineptitude against New Zealand, Australia headed to Perth to take on Afghanistan. Here are the ratings from that game.

Shane Watson
Grade: C

With James Faulkner returning to the team, Australia took the bold step of dropping Shane Watson. It was a terrible blow for fans of Australian cricketing comedy and, across the nation’s living rooms, the following muddled conversation could be heard taking place.

“What’s on?”
“What, son?”
“What’s on?”
“Australia vs Afghanistan.”
“Watson?”
“Australia vs Afghanistan!”
“No, Shane Watson?”
“No Shane Watson.”
“Shame, what’s on?”
(Repeat endlessly.)

Aaron Finch
Grade: D

Aaron Finch, who has always struggled against Afghanistan at Perth, was out early in the innings. And after his dismissal, there were almost immediate calls for Watson to return and open in the disappointing Finch’s place.

That’s one idea, sure. Another one is for the Finch who makes centuries to return and open in the disappointing Finch’s place.

Glenn Maxwell
Grade: A

David Warner made 178 off 133 balls as he hammered child-threatening sixes into the crowd. In contrast, new number three Steve Smith cruised to 95 off 98 in a display that did not require a single wounded onlooker to fight back tears and be a brave little soldier. (Possible exception: Shane Watson.)

Both excellent innings, but both overshadowed by a Glenn Maxwell special. With reverse sweeps, power swats, paddle flicks and a myriad of other shots that may not even have Earth names, Maxwell was his usual blend of madness, genius and mad genius, racing to 88 off just 39 balls.

Is Glenn Maxwell Australia’s greatest ever batsman? Yes, of course he is. Did Greg Chappell ever pre-meditatively paddle flick an Afghanistan yorker for six? No. Did Ricky Ponting ever opt to get his eye in with a series of reverse-swept fours? No. Did Bradman continue to throw the bat in the ODI death overs with total disregard for the arbitrary milestone of three figures? Not once.

Now we just need Maxwell to similarly expand the silly pre-match countdown thing by substituting in, say, pi for whatever run-of-the-mill integer he’s given. I fully expect this to happen before the tournament ends.

Michael Clarke
Grade: B+

As the Australian innings continued to accelerate, captain Michael Clarke continued to drop himself down the order, sending Maxwell, James Faulkner, Mitch Marsh and Brad Haddin in before him.

It was a curious or professional or selfish or selfless decision from the captain, depending on whether or not you like hm. On the one hand, Clarke needs batting time in a match situation. On the other, it was a perfect opportunity to prepare for future finals matches by promoting the power players of the batting line-up to maximise the total.

In the end, Australia made a World Cup record total of 6/417, so it was difficult to complain too much about Clarke’s tactics.

Disappointingly, though, he then failed to send Bailey out to field in his place, which would have been the funnier coda to his non-batting. Instead, he bowled five overs of his left-arm off-spin, taking 1/14.

Which, while not funny, is something I’m willing to condone if it means he’s now taking Xavier Doherty’s spot in the squad.

The 2019 World Cup
Grade: C+

There has been much talk of the 2019 World Cup and how, under current ICC plans, the number of teams will be reduced from 14 to 10, almost certainly pushing out the associate nations such as Afghanistan.

There appears to be little the associate nations can do during this World Cup to avoid their 2019 axing. Afghanistan’s brave but doomed chase of 142 all out is unlikely to change ICC minds on the matter.

Much more likely to do so is Sachin Tendulkar publicly arguing that a decrease in World Cup participants would be bad for the game. Tendulkar went further, proposing that the number of countries taking part in the next World Cup should instead be increased to as many as 25.

I assume this means we now have to call him Sachin Twentyfivedulkar.

Fine by me.

Even money chances
Grade: C

Based on historical trends, Australia now have a 50-50 chance of winning any game where they bat first and score more than 400. Far too risky, of course, to reduce any of the finals to such a toss of the coin, so expect Australia to avoid such dangerously huge totals for the rest of this tournament.

That’s just common sense.