Australia’s narrow win over Afghanistan on Friday night and their subsequent failure to make the semi-final of the current T20 World Cup has plenty of pundits scratching their heads.
Although Glenn Maxwell somewhat controversially said the team and he himself wouldn’t be dwelling on the loss, I am not so certain that is the case for Mitchell Starc.
Starc looked less than happy to be perched in the Australian dugout in Adelaide omitted from the side in a must win-game.
He no doubt would have loved to be on the pitch as Afghanistan looked like causing a huge upset. While he looked frustrated, I am sure all Australian cricket supporters were equally frustrated, as Starc has a good record on the Adelaide pitch.
There have been some odd selections during the failed campaign for the title holders.
It seems to me that there are few real positives to come from this tournament and makes me question – do we really need a T20 World Cup at the beginning of a Cricket Season?
It seems that ground attendance numbers have been down at almost all games unless India is involved.
When you consider that there is a Rugby League World Cup in progress; the Wallabies are in the middle of their European Tour and the AFLW competition is still being played at home it really is small wonder crowd numbers are down and eyeballs on TV broadcasts are lower than anticipated in this country.
There was no build up to the series – and we (Joe Public) fell into the tournament cold turkey barely realising it was underway – in fact the start of the tournament was quite underwhelming.
It is hard to find a positive from the Australian performance. A quickfire half-century by Marcus Stoinis against Sri Lanka in Perth was perhaps the standout individual performance.
On the bowling front nothing to really get excited about.
If there is something to hang on to it is that since the inception of T20 no country has gone back-to-back as World Cup holders.
Perhaps that is just the fickle nature of the game.
Or perhaps for the Aussies might be – it’s time for a changing of the guard and that as supporters we may need to get used to this situation.
All is not lost, the sun will come up in the morning.
What I did like during this tournament was the performance of so called minnows Ireland and the Netherlands who have shown they can no longer be taken lightly. Afghanistan also announced their arrival on the world stage.
While it may have caused some pain it is good for the growth of the game. What is it that they say “No gain without pain.” Perhaps we are about to endure a period of pain in the T20 arena. But truthfully – how many true cricket lover’s care.
Casey
Who wins – India, I think unless someone nobbles Virat Kohli.
