Acting captain Matthew Wade says Australia’s batsmen must improve against spin bowling after his team were dismissed for their lowest Twenty20 international total in a humiliating loss to Bangladesh.
Chasing Bangladesh’s 8-122, Australia lost 8-24 to be bowled out for 62 in just 13.4 overs and crash to a 60-run defeat in their series’ fifth and final match in Dhaka on Monday.
Australia’s previous lowest score was 79 against England in Southampton in 2005 in just the second T20 played.
The 4-1 series loss was the same result as last month’s T20 games in the West Indies.
Australia have lost five successive T20 series and won just six of their last 21 matches.
Apart from Mitchell Marsh (156 runs at 31.20), no Australian scored more than 57 runs in the Bangladesh series.
Australia was missing seven established players including Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith and David Warner while captain Aaron Finch missed much of the tour with a knee injury.
“Tonight was not good enough for an Australian cricket team regardless of the personnel we’ve got here,” Wade said.
Wade – who made just 20 runs in the first four games – top scored on Monday with a run-a-ball 22 with slow bowler Shakib Al Hasan (4-9) and Mohammad Saifuddin (3-12) Bangladesh’s chief destroyers.
Al Hasan’s haul helped him become the second bowler to take 100 T20 wickets.
Ben McDermott (17 off 16) was the only other Australian to make double figures.
Australia’s highest score of the T20 series in Bangladesh was 121.
“I think the reality is we know we need to get better at spin, myself included,” Wade said.
“There’s a lot of players in this team that we need to find a way to score runs in these conditions.”
Australia went into the final game with three specialist spinners, with the recalled Adam Zampa joining Ashton Agar and Mitchell Swepson.
Zampa (1-24) trapped Shakib Al Hasan LBW.
It was Zampa’s 52nd T20 scalp, making him Australia’s all-time wicket-taker in the format, leapfrogging Mitchell Starc who was rested for the series’ last two games.
Dan Christian (2-17) took his first T20 wickets in seven and a half years stretching back to February 2014.
Australia’s only selected paceman Nathan Ellis (2-16) followed up his hat-trick on debut last week with another impressive display.
Wade doubted Australia would encounter similar conditions at the World Cup in the United Arab Emirates and Oman in October and November and expected a full strength line-up at the tournament.
Smith, Warner and Cummins haven’t played a T20 since last year, but Wade wasn’t concerned if Australia didn’t have any more lead-up matches to the World Cup.
“It’s not vital that we all play a game together before the World Cup, we’ve all played plenty of cricket together,” said Wade, who could find some positives from their disappointing T20 series.
“The exposure some of our younger players got to these conditions was obviously a positive going forward.
“The way Mitchell Marsh played here and in the West Indies was a huge step forward in his international career.
“Nathan Ellis got some exposure, AJ Tye bowled really, really well.”
DTM
Roar Rookie
He performed well compared to the rest of the team but the rest of the team were pathetic. I'm a fan of Mitch Marsh in the shorter forms of the game so I'm not being churlish at all (maybe I just have high expectations?). The problem for Marsh, as I outlined above, is he wont bat at 3 ahead of Smith and is unlikely to bat ahead of Maxwell. So he comes in at 5 (at best) and that's very different to coming in at 3 with some time to work the ball around.
JGK
Roar Guru
In other news: - the sky is blue - lockdown sucks
TheCunningLinguistic
Guest
Mitch Marsh did ok?? He topped the batting for the Windies Series and took the most wickets for the Aussies and 2nd most in the series, then topped the scoring in the Bangladesh series, finishing well above any other batsman. Saying he did ‘ok’ is a bit churlish, he has performed incredibly well!
josh
Roar Rookie
I get it, but the actions of CA don't. Chop and changing teams, we never seem to pick, maybe cause we don't know what our best team is. Feels like the players and fans could pick a better team than the selectors and coaches. Our tactics are about 5 years behind. I'm not sure what our strategy is, I'm not sure CA know what the strategy is.
Tigerbill44
Roar Guru
At least Dan Christian can say 'I made Shakib Al Hasan famous'.
Tempo
Roar Rookie
Controversial opinion there Wadey!
Peter
Roar Rookie
CA: "move right along, nothing to see here"
DTM
Roar Rookie
One simple answer - $. Unfortunately, 20/20 cricket is the money spinner that allows us to have test and one day cricket. I think international T20's outside of World Cups are a waste of time but they still generate revenue for host countries. I'm not sure this series even gave the Australian coaches any guide to assist with team selection for the World Cup. Yes, Marsh did ok at 3 but he wont bat there when the big guns are back and at 4 or 5 he'll most likely fail as he wont have time to get set.
Peter
Roar Rookie
Maybe they would do a bit better if enough of us actually gave a damn. Bob Dylan was right when he sang, "You've got to serve someone." Would Cricket Australia have us believe that in feeding us this dross it is serving the best interests of the game in Australia. Cricket Australia are supposed to be the custodians of the game instead they have over the last twenty years done their level best to white ant it. Despite the undeniable lack of interest shown by the general public, despite the one dimensional nature of the PRODUCT, despite raising serious questions over physical and mental fatigue Cricket Australia schedules more and yet more of this nonsense. I would add spectator fatigue to that growing list as well but I guess that is self evident, at least it is in this country. Despite all this, The Australian media still see's fit to report on the games in great detail. Like Winnie The Pooh those that can count but in doing so forget to value are so attracted to the honey on offer that they have in my opinion stuck their head in the Jar once too often to see the damage that they have caused. We sing the praises of cultural diversity in this country so it bemuses me that Twenty Twenty Cricket should be used as a kind of one trick pony for cultural interchange. Is there no other tools in the Government's propaganda armery other than to flog this DEAD horse ? As propaganda attempts go it is about as crude as the game itself.
Tony
Roar Guru
Thank you captain obvious Wade. Any batsman, particularly in the professional game, who can't play pace, spin, and everything in between competently, is a pretender. Playing spin bowling well, is what used to separate batsmen from tail enders. The side we sent to Bangladesh could reverse the batting order and get the same result.
josh
Roar Rookie
Why are we bothering to pretend T20 matters to Australian cricket? It never has been a real priority for CA.
Paul
Roar Guru
I feel sorry for Matthew Wade. It's an honour to captain any cricket team but to be chosen as captain of an Australian team has to be up there with the best feelings, but he was sold a pup. That this team managed to take one game off the Tigers was an achievement, given their inability to build any pressure with the bat. Sadly for most of the batsmen, this tour has set them back 12 months or more in terms of playing for Australia on a regular basis in this format. I also think Wade needs to think hard about that statement the team doesn't need to play a game together before the World Cup. We have no clear decision on who bat 3 and no real answers to who will keep wicket and bat 6. I'd have thought the proper teams needs at least a half dozen games against decent opposition to get that right.
E-Meter
Roar Rookie
But we're in a rebuilding phase, the apologists will claim. The women's team would have done better.