If the definition of insanity really is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result each time, then the Australian selectors have shown that when it comes to Twenty20 strategies and game plans, they’re properly certifiable.
In the five previous edition of the ICC World Twenty 20, Australia has lost the final in 2010 (to England in the Caribbean), finished third in 2007 and 2012, finished eighth of 16 teams in 2014, and 11th of 12 teams in 2009.
And unless there’s a rapid rethink of current selection and strategies for the sixth edition of the WT20 kicking off in March, it’s hard to see how Australia’s consistently inconsistent record in the tournament will improve.
There should be massive alarm bells ringing in the selection room with the way Australia’s bigger hitters have been rendered completely ineffective when the ball is not coming onto the bat. With India hosting the WT20, it’s patently clear that slower and particular spin bowling is going to play a huge role.
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Moreover, India have again proven – if it wasn’t already obvious after six weeks of the Big Bash League – that taking the pace off the ball is still superbly effective on the harder Australian pitches.
The selectors ignored a number of batting options in bringing the squad together for the three matches against India, preferring to pin all hopes on long hitters. Even knowing that India were going to bowl spin for at least 40 per cent of the innings, footwork and subtlety was eschewed for fence-clearing and POW-WER!
The result has been rather predictable. Australia started well in all three games – 1/56 in Adelaide, 0/62 in Melbourne, and 1/57 in Sydney – but as soon as the Ravis, Jadeja and Ashwin, came into the attack, the power game was replaced by leaden feet and poor execution borne out of desperation. When Yuvraj Singh was thrown the ball at the SCG, half the balls the Australian batsmen faced were bowled off just a couple of steps.
You can’t imagine it being much less than 10 overs of spin per game once they get to India.
Even just a token amount of research could see teams playing three and even four spinners against Australia, given the evidence presented in this series. Jadeja and Ashwin took nine wickets between them at 20.5, and Yuvraj chipped in with another couple himself. In total, 11 of the 23 wickets Australia lost in the three games fell to spin.
And this means that the Australian squad for the World T20 can’t be heaving with top-order slappers. Room has to be found for the players capable of pushing the ones and twos in the middle overs with the field spread.
Narrowing the field down to seven batting options was already going to difficult, as I identified last week. In that column, I suggested that five bats – Shaun Marsh, Travis Head, Chris Lynn, George Bailey, and Usman Khawaja – were probably playing for the final two spots behind the evidently certain picks of David Warner, Shane Watson, Steven Smith, and Glenn Maxwell.
I have no doubt Aaron Finch will go to India, with Cricket Australia confirming yesterday his hamstring injury did not require surgery. I’ve raised my doubts over his captaincy before, though, and it was interesting to read yesterday’s injury update specifically mention that along with the WT20 squad being named on February 11, “the captain for the tournament would be announced when the squad was revealed.”
To use Ryan Buckland’s line, that might mean nothing, but I’ll bet it means something.
Now that the series is done, I think I’m leaning toward Bailey and Khawaja winning those final spots, and further, that both probably should slot into the preferred XI.
Watson’s hundred on Sunday night, and his IPL experience and record probably squeezes Marsh out now, in my opinion. Twice Marsh was guilty of poor shot selection and/or execution when his partner was off to a belting start. In Warner, Watson, and Finch – never mind Smith and Khawaja – Australia just doesn’t need another top order bat.
Head will quite likely have a long international career, but this tournament is maybe six months or a year too early for him. Lynn can – and in this series, did – get bogged down by spin, and that will only become more pronounced in India. When the ball’s coming on, Lynn is as destructive a ball-striker as anyone, but that’s just not that likely to be the case on the subcontinent.
And so in putting all this forward, I’m essentially leaning toward a top six of Warner and Watson opening, Khawaja, Maxwell and Smith in the middle, but somewhat interchangeable as the situation needs, and with Bailey at no.6 to close out the innings.
Perhaps if Finch doesn’t get there – he tweeted during the second innings on Sunday night that he’ll be right – that might reopen the door for Marsh, but I don’t think he’d be in the top six, either way.
If nothing else, this series has proved that Australia still has a lot of work to do to be a threat to the Twenty20 format. Sure, shooting oneself in the foot via the selection table for a decade often hasn’t helped, but the penny has to drop that an all-power game is ineffective in those conditions.
For Australia to have any chance at the World Twenty20 next month, it just has to.
Amith
Guest
You are right, khawaja is much better fielder then marsh and scores much quicker too, good points Chris
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Even when Lynn smacked his BBL hundred and people were talking about him in terms of the World T20, I was still really worried that even in that innings he really struggled against the spinners, had trouble getting anything more than singles off them and whenever he tried to attack them he invariably got out. In the T20's against India that showed up even more and we saw that he struggled to get more than singles off the spinners and then when he finally got to face pace bowling felt like he had to make up for it by hitting every ball for 6 and got himself out. So while I'm a Lynn fan, he really needs to find ways of scoring heavily off spin bowling to do well in T20 cricket outside of the BBL.
Don Freo
Guest
Shaun Marsh is an excellent fieldsman. Steve Smith has dropped sitters too. Marsh is fast, wonderful in the outfield, very safe in slips and has a bullet arm. Maybe you are looking at Dan Marsh, Chris.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
The thing is that Marsh did really well in the IPL in the first couple of seasons, but not so much recently. T20 has really evolved in that time, with bowlers and batsmen continually trying new things to get one over on each other, and I just wonder if he may have been good the way T20 used to be played, but hasn't been able to keep up.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Do those reasons include not having a surname of Marsh and not being from Western Australia? Khawaja certainly has more upside than Marsh. Some people comment about him not being the greatest fielder, but compared to Shaun Marsh, Khawaja is probably the better fielder of the two. So while he'd lose out on that count to many others, S.Marsh isn't one of them. I'd certainly rather have Khawaja batting in the power play than Shaun Marsh. Marsh is well known for having a really low strike rate during the power play and taking a lot longer to get going. Khawaja, on the other hand, has been brilliant during the power play this season.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
They definitely need to take a keeper who is good with the gloves up to the stumps with the ball spinning everywhere. The Bancroft experiment showed that with a bad missed stumping to a player on 6 who went on to bat his team to victory with a strike rate of almost 200 pretty much costing Australia the match. Better off going for a slightly lesser batsman if required to have someone who is good enough with the gloves. Not sure who that is. I can't comment either way on Handscomb's glovework against spin. I really don't get why they persist with Wade in T20's at all though. Not only is his glovework not good enough, but he isn't that good a T20 batsman. In T20 internationals he averages 20 with a strike rate of only 115. And his domestic T20 record is barely any better.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
I've always thought it a bit weird that Finch remained T20 captain after Clarke retired and handed the reigns to Smith. While Clarke was captain and not playing T20's, you had to have someone else to captain the T20 side. But with Smith a lock in all three formats I would think he should also be captian in all three formats.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
The only question for Mitch Marsh is whether he's both batting and bowling better than Faulkner and squeezes him out. Faulkner is currently living on past reputation with his recent form really poor with both bat and ball. I suspect he'll be picked, but unless he can turn things around quickly he'll become a real liability.
Don Freo
Guest
If you judge a player's career on 6 balls, you probably need to watch a bit more cricket. Stats indicate very little until there is a reasonable sample. A Test strike rate of 44 for an opener is excellent. Especially in the days before run a minute cricket bats. Even now, it is a steady rate. Look at Cowan and Hughes today. Matty Elliott was a wonderful stroke player who had shots all around the wicket. Keep following the game. You'll appreciate it the more you watch it. If you watch it enough, you'll begin to celebrate what these boys can do.
Fox Molder
Guest
Umm. Not so much. Elliott - a test strike rate of 44.44 (Ave 33.48) and a single ODI run from 6 balls.
Don Freo
Guest
Maxi's technique is very sound and very traditional. You are talking about Glenn Maxwell, aren't you? Not Neil Maxwell? Maybe technique is the word you are struggling with. Do you mean shot selection?
The truth hurts
Guest
Agreed and fair rebuttle just a point you may or may not agree with Brett but I think Maxwells lack of technique in certain areas of his defence will get found out on Indian wickets as well . There are times when the so called big show is all too often a no show and his average I think in the short form , which is not scary by any stretch reflects a lack of technique and brain fades but when his flamboyant style comes off we seem to forget all those times when it does not. I am going to watch with interest how he handles swinging conditions in NZ as well something that is an Achilles heel of the entire Australian batting line up and to his grear credit Steve Smith has been honest enough to admit this. This will be an interesting series all round and as Craddick said in the SMH this wiil decide whether Australia are and average side but home ground wonders or a side of quality and I agree. Williamson will prove he is a better player than Smith as well by the end of it amd indeed he out batted Smith in his home conditions in the series in Australia anyway and he is the only batsman in the world ranked in the top 6 in all three formats which speaks eons about his technique and class in all conditions across all formats
The Bush
Roar Guru
The funniest part was how Haddin "retired" from T20I and then just suddenly made a comeback and no one noticed...
IndianCricketFan
Guest
Actually no one saw him doing that. Playing against spinners on the flat Indian pitches will be different than playing them on the dustbowls of India!
IndianCricketFan
Guest
Look it's been established pretty well that Australia don't play too many T20 matches, so understandably the statistics of most of their players will be average or below average. Marsh has been brilliant in the IPL against spin bowlers and Khawaja was all over the place while facing Indian spinners in the A tour. And spinners will be the used plenty in the WC and definitely against Australia!
IndianCricketFan
Guest
I'd say that's a simple one. Boyce and Zampa should play. Maxi can bowl as well. Unfortunately Lyon drops out of the team.
Broken-hearted toy
Guest
Finch is really not competing with all-rounders. He's the incumbent at the top of the order and he's skipper. Why would they suddenly just dump him when he's done so little wrong?
Prosenjit
Guest
Indian side in the odis included dhawan,rohit sharma,kohli,rahane,dhoni,jadeja,yadav,ishant, vubi kumar and ashwin(2 matches).inexperienced?a couple of new guys, yes.but australia too had boland,paris,hasting and richardson with few matches between them.
Don Freo
Guest
I think Tana is right in that Faulkner can reclaim things...when he has support. Faulkner's skill set is not to lead the attack but rather to put the bite on when we are on top. That's where Hazlewood and Pattinson (and Paris?) might find themselves to be required in India.
Don Freo
Guest
Worth listening to Virat's take on the bowling. He says India suffered with inexperience in the ODIs and Oz struggled with inexperience in the T20. Exactly. It is not life and death...it is a learning time. Those comments come from the most delightful interview I have seen for a long time. Maxi's interview blog with Virat is on the Cricket Australia website now. It is charming...as are Virat and Maxi.