- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
No Mitchell Starc, no Mitchell Johnson, no Shane Watson, no Brad Haddin, no Michael Clarke. Same positive result.
Yesterday Australia played their first home ODI since the World Cup missing almost half the side which won the final.
Together those five cricketers – four retired and one out injured – have played 760 ODIs, which is almost twice as many as the whole side which cruised to victory against India at the WACA.
You would expect such an exodus of experience and talent to cripple a team. Yet, since the World Cup, Australia have displayed an intimidating level of depth in their 50-over talent pool.
They started this new era by beating the resurgent England 3-2 away from home, claiming the final match of that series with a makeshift line-up missing seven players from their world-beating XI.
Yesterday they cobbled together a bowling attack which was minus four of the men who made up their top five ODI bowlers just months ago – Starc, Johnson, Pat Cummins and Nathan Coulter-Nile.
As India rolled towards what looked set to be a huge first innings score, it seemed Australia had been overconfident in the depth of their pace stocks by fielding two debutant paceman.
Joel Paris, the 23-year-old West Australian, is very green, but at least earned his spot with back-to-back standout seasons in the domestic 50-over competition.
Having surprised everyone by making the Test squad this summer, Scott Boland was a similarly unlikely starter yesterday. He would not be among my top 15 limited-overs bowlers in Australia.
Boland has averaged a very poor 36 with the ball across the past two domestic 50-over competitions. To offer debuts to both him and Paris in the same match against the number-two ranked ODI team in the world was a bold, even arrogant move by the Australians.
To be fair to Boland, though, he bowled tidily before going for 30 from his final two overs at the death. It was interesting to see that he operated at a fairly gentle pace – an average speed of 133km/h and top of 139km/h.
Boland often has broken 140km/h in domestic cricket, but given his supposed hurrying pace was the main justification for his shock international selection, his lack of speed was notable.
Paris operated at the same speed as Boland, yet he had been picked for his ability to swing the ball rather than intimidate batsmen. The left-armer found minimal movement through the air, which limited his threat to India’s star-laced batting line-up.
Much more so than 26-year-old Boland, Paris shapes as a fine prospect in both ODIs and Test cricket and should benefit greatly from this early exposure to the top level.
Attack leader Josh Hazlewood looked leagues ahead of either of them though, as he continues to flourish into a high-quality international player. Watching his mature and intelligent performance yesterday, one could easily forget that he himself is a rookie, having played just 33 matches for Australia across all three formats.
Australia’s most experienced player was David Warner, with just 66 ODIs to his name. Highlighting the massive gulf in experience is the fact six of the Indian players had played more games than Warner.
Most of Australia’s experience lies in their batting line-up, which remains supreme despite the retirements of Clarke, Watson and Haddin.
The home side were in bother when they lost two early wickets. But captain Steve Smith and former skipper George Bailey built a pair of clinical hundreds to guide Australia to a comfortable win.
Bailey’s position in the side had been questioned by many cricket followers, in a large part because of the glut of gifted batsmen plundering runs in the domestic 50-over competition. The likes of Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Joe Burns, Adam Voges, Callum Ferguson, and Michael Klinger all are worthy of international selection.
Indeed, those batsmen would command a spot in most other ODI line-ups. It is this intense level of competition which has kept Australia at or near the apex of ODI cricket for the past 20 years.
Australia have a gigantic lead atop the ODI rankings and the signs are positive that they can hold on to that spot for some time to come.