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Australia’s ODI batting is the heathiest it has been since 2016. The openers are dominating, Steve Smith is cruising, Glenn Maxwell is running amok, Alex Carey has found his groove and Usman Khawaja may just have turned a corner.
The Australians have now won 13 of their past 14 ODIs and are all but assured of playing in the World Cup semi-finals.
It is extraordinary to consider that, prior to this hot streak, Australia’s previous 13 wins in ODIs had been stretched out across 44 matches.
Australia – the World Cup goliaths – have peaked at the right time, just as they seem to do every four years.
That’s not to suggest they are favourites to win this World Cup, as India, England and New Zealand are all major roadblocks. Rather, it is to underscore Australia’s phenomenal turnaround.
Just over three months ago they were ODI roadkill, flattened across pitch after pitch, whether home or away, batting first or second, in bowler or batting friendly conditions. At that stage they had won only four of their previous 26 completed ODIs, a form trough that began in New Zealand in January 2017 and finished in India in March 2019.
Shoddy batting was the root cause of this deep slump. During that two-year period of floundering efforts, Australia’s average score when batting first was just 258. Consistently they batted their full 50 overs only to finish with a sub-par score in the 250-280 range. From the 15 times they batted first in that time, Australia passed 300 on only three occasions.
Move forward to the present day, and Australia now have an average score of 308 when batting first across their recent 14-match hot streak.
That culminated with Australia thrashing 5/381 against Bangladesh on Thursday, their highest ODI total since the 2015 World Cup, and their third-highest in history.
David Warner and Steve Smith have slotted back into Australia’s powerful batting order. (Photo by Harry Trump-IDI/IDI via Getty Images)
Australia’s batting unit is not designed to make massive scores, like the England and West Indian line-ups.
Instead, Australia have constructed a top seven with reliability and consistency in mind, which only makes it all the more significant that against Bangladesh they scored what – for the Aussies – is a truly colossal total.
For this Australian batting line-up to crack 381, almost everything needs to click. That is what’s happening right now.
Aaron Finch is in career-best form, having plundered 967 runs at 74 across Australia’s past 14 matches. His opening partner David Warner started this World Cup slowly, in terms of strike rate at least, but has since gone from a jog to a run to a sprint.
Of Warner’s 16 ODI centuries, only four have been scored at a quicker strike rate than his mark of 113 against Bangladesh. That imperious knock of 166 from 147 balls was also instructive in that the left-hander still appeared to have plenty of room for improvement.
Without even being at his best, or even close to it quite often, Warner has churned out 447 runs at 89 in this World Cup. That is downright terrifying for Australia’s upcoming opponents. He now has three more group games to tune up for the knock-out stages.
Steve Smith, meanwhile, appears primed already. He has looked in pristine nick since since returning from his year-long ban last month.
While Marcus Stoinis still can’t buy a run at No.5, Glenn Maxwell is in ominous touch at six. The Victorian all-rounder managed to drop jaws in the space of nine balls against Bangladesh, scoring 32 runs in that time before being run out from his tenth delivery faced.
Quite remarkably, Maxwell has scored at a strike rate of 210 so far in this tournament. That equates to a scoring rate of 12.6 runs per over. Among batsmen with a minimum of 100 runs in this World Cup, the next fastest scoring rate is 8.2 runs per over by England captain Eoin Morgan. That is an extraordinary gulf between Maxwell and the next best.
His ability to thrash even good deliveries to the boundary from his first ball faced is an invaluable weapon for Australia. Maxwell was one of the standout players of the 2015 World Cup and is again rising to the occasion.
Behind him at seven, Alex Carey has grown into his role as a finisher. He has made 135 runs at 45 in this World Cup at a strike rate of 111. This is the continuation of a trend that has seen the keeper-batsman make 393 runs at 36 with a strike rate of 102 in the ODIs where he’s batted down the order between six and eight.
Aside from Stoinis, Australia’s batting line-up is humming. And so it needs to be as Australia now face the major tasks of tackling England, New Zealand and South Africa in their final group games before, presumably, entering the knockout stages.
Australia’s bowling, beyond star openers Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc, is labouring at present, but their batting has not been in a better shape since soon after their last World Cup triumph.
That’s a very good sign.