Australia’s greatest T20 challenges may lay ahead of them, but the progress they’ve made under Justin Langer is clear. The Aussies last night completed a 5-0 run across their series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
At Perth Stadium they kept Pakistan to just 8-106, thanks to fine spells from Kane Richardson (3-18 from four overs), Sean Abbott (2-14 from four), Billy Stanlake (0-19 from four), Mitchell Starc (2-29 from four) and Ashton Agar (1-25 from four).
Then, Aaron Finch (52* from 36 balls) and David Warner (48* from 35 balls) helped them canter to the easiest of ten-wicket wins.
Since Justin Langer took over as coach last year, Australia have recorded an impressive 12-8 win-loss record in T20Is. Most importantly, they have won their past three T20 series, including a 2-0 win away from home against the commanding Indian side.
They would very likely be the number one ranked T20 team in the world right now if not for rain washing out the first match against Pakistan in Sydney, where Australia were bossing the tourists.
When Langer took over he was handed a group of players shattered by the ball tampering scandal in South Africa. He could not call upon the banned pair of David Warner and Smith, nor pace stars Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc, who were continually rested from the shortest format.
Now that he has a full complement of players to choose from, Langer has the Aussie side sauntering. Australia didn’t just beat Pakistan and Sri Lanka, they demolished them. With the ball, the Aussie quicks consistently made inroads in the Power Play and excelled at the death, while their spinners choked the run rate in the middle overs.
With the bat, Australia’s top four ran amok, thumping swing, seam, cutters, express pace, slower balls, bouncers, full balls, off breaks, leg breaks, googlies – the lot. Questions remain over the makeup of their middle order. Yet those batsmen barely were required across these six T20Is the past fortnight.
Aaron Finch (207 runs at 52, with a strike rate of 162 in these six matches) looks to be back to the scorching touch that previously earned him a long stay as the world’s number one ranked T20 batsman. The skipper remains brutal through the leg side, and murderous against spin, yet has also clearly improved his off side play.
The Sri Lankan and Pakistani bowlers regularly looked at a loss for plans to stall Finch’s momentum.
David Warner (287 runs at 287, with a strike rate of 146), meanwhile, is categorically in career-best T20 form. Since the start of the 2019 IPL season, Warner has piled up 979 runs at 89 in this format. Those are truly gobsmacking numbers.
What’s more is that he hasn’t just been slugging attacks, but rather pacing his innings perfectly depending upon conditions and circumstances. On the rare occasions Finch has looked slightly bogged down Warner has upped the ante. When Finch has been cutting loose, Warner has been happy to operate in his slipstream.
Make no mistake, they are the world’s top T20 opening pair. Followed by Steve Smith and Glenn Maxwell – Australia’s best T20 batsman over the past three years – you have the strongest top four in the world. That’s fortunate, in more ways than one for Australia, as their middle order looks decidedly ropey.
But in T20s your top four is paramount, especially on the true Australian pitches where next year’s World Cup will be played.
It would be unwise, though, to focus too heavily on Australia’s destructive batting. Their bowlers deserve equal praise. Across these six matches they conceded scores of 9-99, 8-106, 5-107, 117, 6-142, and 6-150. Only for very brief periods did an opposition batting line-up gain the ascendancy.
Starc (eight wickets at 15), Richardson (eight wickets at 18), Agar (seven wickets at 19), Cummins (seven wickets at 16), Zampa (five wickets at 25), Stanlake (two wickets 21) and Abbott (two wickets at 7) all went at well below seven runs an over.
They received excellent support from their fieldsmen. It was, across all six games, a very well-rounded performance by Australia. They batted, bowled and fielded like a team that can win next year’s World Cup. Yet that goal remains distant and they will face tougher foes in the coming months, including India and New Zealand. After those series we will get a far sharper image of where Australia stand as a T20 side.
Right now, though, things couldn’t be rosier for Langer and his men.
Harvey Wilson
Roar Rookie
Yet, few care
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
That’s great, I hope you’ll be pushing for selection in the next coupla years. There’ll be hundreds off thousands more kids watching the G Test match in Australia on FTA hopefully aspiring to be out there one day. They’ll be doing that even though their parents don’t have a coupla thousand bucks a year for a luxury item. In fact fanatical fans will watch through a haze of pixelation to glimpse their hero Smith, just as they did listening on a Crystal set for Bradmans exploits. Starve those fanatics though and the breeding ground dries up. The ECB has now realised that a FTA presence is necessary as participation dwindles to fifty somethings in village greens, complicated by Asian immigrants who don’t want to play formalised cricket and pay subs for the privilege of doing what they do as a group in a park anyway. They all watch Sky and Star India, but it isn’t creating a competitive county comp or by extension candidates for Test spots. CA has to recognise that now, with a third of the population, lost ground will be expensive to claw back. I bet they’re wishing now with the recent results they’d had a wider audience to promote to. Ironically when the Test starts, the majority of Aussies won’t have seen their own side play since England, even though they’ve played two opponents at home already.
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
I'm outta here!
Dwanye
Roar Rookie
Agreed. So long as it not the ‘canary yellow’.
Alex Hudson
Roar Guru
The Australian T20 team has been doing great although I would've liked to see the inclusion of a few more T20 specialists in the side. For example, D'Arcy Short, Chris Lynn and Jake Weatherald (to name a few). This would've been a good chance for them to put their names forward for the World Cup and get the game time they deserve. D'Arcy Short got player of the tournament in the 2018/19 Big Bash as well as the 2019 Vitality Blast and definitely deserves to play for Australia.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
I can't be certain, but given Star Sports (India, even though HK based) has the rights to all ICC tournaments through to 2023, so it may be the Ch 9 simply did the side deal with Star for T20WC, as CA has no control over broadcasting of that event. I think the last thing I (was forced to) watched on FTA was the WC final as Foxtel didn't have the rights to the match. The horror of being pelted with advertising tripe after every 6 balls...not an experience I wish to repeat in a hurry. When Ch7 show games on their other channels is it in HD or SD? I actually can't believe there are still SD channels. I'm happy to pay my $2.50 a day for the sports package; gets me all the cricket, Australia or otherwise (plus obviously pretty much every other major sport globally); looking forward to starting off the day later this month with the Test from NZ v Eng, then switching over to the Aussie Test.
Josh H
Roar Rookie
Australia's T20 team has worn black for a while now; the first T20 uniform I remember Australia wearing was the predominantly grey (might be wrong though) so I guess they're trying to do something different
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
I saw it on tv the other month
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
Makes your comment even more obscure then!
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
Nice to know a FTA will show something, even if it is only Aussie games outta context. Makes the Ch7 rights deal even more curious if CH9 is showing it. Was there something in the 7 deal for Sutherland? That is why he stayed around passed his used by date, to finalise the rights deal wasn’t it? Maybe someday the FTA stations will realise pay viewers watch specific channels for their programming and everyone else is capable of that too. Why they persist in showing Friends and Seinfeld on a daily loop for years and believe they can’t drag that off for 4-6 weeks of a tournament is hard to fathom. They keep talking about their main channel and that was part of the rights agreement CH7 had with CA. CA insisted it had to be on THE main channel! It’s 2020 tell your viewers the channel number and buy the other games from the ICC so our first generation cricket fans can watch Afghanistan play Pakistan and learn the context of the sport.
anon
Roar Pro
It would have been a 6-0 drubbing if not for rain. Predictable result on home soil against Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Both sides are always such a disappointment over here. Before the Pakistan series every was talking them up as best in the world but I said they would go to water over here. And that's what they predictably did.
Richo
Guest
Zampa actually has a fantastic record in t20s so it'll likely be zampa and agar as our spinning options. Assuming we stick with agar at seven our bowling is looking pretty damn good.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Foxtel will broadcast every game of the T20WC (something an FTA would never do, so very glad we have Foxtel in the broadcast landscape), Chanel #9 will broadcast all Australia games, plus a few others and the finals.
KenoathCarnt
Roar Rookie
This team is on fire and Agar is playing a good part in that. I am so glad selectors went with a more agressive bowling allrounder. There are only 2 things that remain to solidify the perfect balance to the team. 1. Having Turner bowling by the WC to throw in the odd over or 2 if one of the bowlers are going for runs. 2. Locking down a 2nd spinner,but fortunately the WC is in AUS so that isn't as big a problem.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
PS why do they keep coming back to this dark green/blue/black uniform? Australia’s pyjama cricket colour is yellow/gold, and it’s unique to us. There’s several other countries with green: Pakistan, SA, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland. I can only guess that they think it’s better for the sponsor’s logo. Or they have no sense of identity or tradition. And those little shirts that go two inches below the shoulder instead of keeping the sun off? What’s that about? Some stupid fashion concept? Apart from setting a very bad example in sun protection.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
All good, but disappointing they didn’t bat first a couple of times. Bowled first five out of six times against somewhat inexperienced teams who weren’t used to Australian conditions. Last night when they won the toss would have been the time to Test themselves batting first again. Won’t play another T20 for a few months. McDermott and Turner remain question marks. I read that a majority of Turner’s scores in last BBL were single figures, and he also flopped in IPL. But good to see the spinners improving. As for Australia definitely having best top four T20 batsmen - I think India would be happy to argue about that - with Sharma, Dhawan, Kohli and Rahul: those guys have better records on all pitches, though ours presumably have an advantage at home.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
So good the masses can't see em. CA is about profit, the slimebags couldn't care less as long as cut comes back to them.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
I've never eaten at Maccas. I saw somewhere they had a nutritional readout table.
Mango Jack
Roar Guru
I just hope the Kiwis provide sterner opposition. The games so far have been so lopsided it's hard to get too excited. And Pak are supposed to prefer limited over games, which does not bode well for the upcoming tests.
Mango Jack
Roar Guru
Yes, they are if you don't have Fox, unfortunately, due to CA's short-sighted money grab.