The Australian cricket team has a busy couple of years in white ball cricket coming up, with the ODI World Cup in England next year and the Twenty20 World Cup held in Australia in 2020.
With those big tournaments coming up, I’ve ranked Australia’s white-ball quicks.
1. Mitchell Starc
Player of the tournament for the 2015 World Cup, Starc has an outstanding record in white-ball cricket. His injuries have often correlated with the Australian team underperforming.
2. Andrew Tye
Tye has come off a breakthrough season which saw him make his ODI debut against England. He is effective during the death overs, being able to limit the scoring of opposition batsmen. He has had an outstanding IPL season where he was the tournament’s leading wicket-taker.
(AAP Image/Joe Castro)
3. Nathan Coulter-Nile
Injury-plagued quick Coulter-Nile has had a tough couple of years with injury. He performed well last year during Australia’s tour of India but was unfortunately injured shortly after the Sheffield Shield started and hasn’t played since.
4. Pat Cummins
While it may be hard to imagine an Australian team without Pat Cummins in the best XI, it would be for good reason because Tye and Coulter-Nile have better records with the white ball.
5. Jason Behrendorff
Another injury plagued quick, Behrendorff played well during Australia’s tour of India which included 4/21 in his second match where he dismissed India’s top four. Unfortunately, Behrendorff picked up an injury in November and hasn’t played since.
6. Kane Richardson
Richardson had a good summer which started with some strong performances in India, as well as having some good outings in the Big Bash and the Twenty20 tri series.
7. Billy Stanlake
After a a poor start to his international career, Stanlake finally found form in the Twenty20 tri-series against England and New Zealand earlier this year.
8. Jhye Richardson
Richardson had a good start to his international career against Sri Lanka last year and followed it up with a good performance against England during his ODI debut earlier in 2018.
(AAP Image/Darren England)
9. Sean Abbott
Abbott has performed well at domestic level over the past couple of years and has been among the leading wicket-takers in both the one-day tournament and the Big Bash.
10. Joe Mennie
Mennie was the joint leading wicket-taker during last year’s one-day cup. He has also bowled well for Lancashire this season.
11. Josh Hazlewood
While he does a respectable white ball record, the reason that Hazlewood is at 11 on this list is because Australia have ten other bowlers more suited to white ball cricket.
Savage
Roar Rookie
The back up Australian quicks are best by some distance.Top 8 ranked in this article are quality bowlers and can play for any other limited overs team.For ODIs,Teams like India,SA and Eng are struggling in pace department atm.
KenoathCarnt
Guest
So dam thrustrating having Coulter Nile and Behrendorff out the would be the perfect backups for Starc and Cummins just baffling how that many top class bowlers are injured. Behrendorff played in that t20 against India and completely destroyed the top order and Coulter Nile was sublime in the one day series against India claiming Kholi a few times. They would absolutely kill it in English conditions with the movement they get with pace.
Nudge
Guest
Well said Burgy. Hazlewood is a fantastic one day bowler. Absolute worst position you would put him is third behind Starc and Cummins. He would easily be in the top 11 one day bowlers in the world
Doran Smith
Roar Guru
Disagree with Abbott and Hazlewood, I think they should be higher up the list, but I agree with you putting Behrendorff being reasonably high on the list.
BurgyGreen
Guest
Just had a glance at his stats, and while his 7 T20Is have been expensive, his ODI record is fantastic. An economy rate below 5 is awesome in this day and age - and his average and strike rate aren't too shabby either. I would honestly place him as our second most important ODI bowler. Open with Starc and Hazlewood, and then the third quick should be a specialist death bowler in either Tye or Coulter-Nile.
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
Ranking bowlers on ODIs and T20s combined doesn't make much sense to me, they're vastly different formats - the gap between them is practically as big as between ODIs and Tests.
BurgyGreen
Guest
Very harsh on Hazlewood. Better than Mennie, the Richardsons and Abbott at the very least.
Paul
Roar Guru
It's hard to be objective about this list when so many guys have played so little white ball cricket due to injury. You could, for example, easily have Hazlewood at 4 in place of NCN, as both have missed plenty of games in recent seasons. The nice thing is the depth of this squad is impressive and assuming all were fit, you could make a case for any 4 of them to play, depending on where and who they're playing