Why Australia needs its mojo back … in a hurry
IT’S time for Australian cricket to get its mojo back.
To get aggressive. Be confident. Rattle the sabres. Stop the bickering. Get on with the job and snap out of its Covid-19 slumber.
The T20 World Cup, which features Australia’s first match against South Africa on Saturday night, is an unusual place to start, because it remains the last great black hole in Australian cricket and no one can fully understand why.
When it comes to 50-over World Cups, Australia has dominated like no other nation, with five title wins, including four of the last six tournaments, which would only serve to make a victory in this tournament in the UAE a major moment.
There were 50-over World Cups when Australia only had to walk on the field to make opposition sides tremble. You could see it in their eyes.
Yet in the T20 Cups, Australia has rarely come close, making the final only once in six attempts.
The 30-over gap between those two white-ball formats has somehow provided a chasm which has swallowed up Australia’s ambitions in the game’s shortest format.
Australia has been drifting as a cricket nation for five years, winning three of its last eight Test series, four of its last seven 50-over series and none of its last five T20 series.
The surprise of it is that Australia’s attack of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon is one of the most successful it has ever fielded and Steve
Smith one of its greatest ever batsmen. Many exceptional teams have been built on less.
Each format tells a different story and the demise of Australia’s T20 team has a lot to do with the frequent rotation of the side, lack of role clarity and players asked to do different roles to what they perform in the Big Bash.
But back to South Africa. Australia has selection challenges all the way down the order, but while the pressure on players like David Warner is totally justified it is also true World Cups are won by heavyduty performers like Warner, rather than short-format Flash Harries.
Virat Kohli was player of the tournament at the last two T20 World Cups, while England’s Kevin Pietersen and Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi also won this title. World Cups are where great players excel.
Warner turns 35 next week, about the age when the brutal interrogation that go with opening the batting can grind even the best players down, but he deserves to be given every chance to shine.
Smith’s place has been questioned, but Australia has not got a good enough batting team to drop a player with a Test average of 61.
The Covid era has not enhanced the image of Australian cricket, with a feud between coach Justin Langer and the players the main news story. But a World Cup victory would instantly change the narrative.