Cricket, T20: Australian team in need of total overhaul to usher in next generation stars
The early end to Australia’s T20 World Cup campaign proves it’s time to put the broom through its Twenty20 team and go young. BEN HORNE explains why inside.
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It’s time for Australia to put the broom through its Twenty20 team and go young.
Tim David is the only member of the team aged in his 20s and Australia’s humbling failure to make the semi-final stage for the fourth time in the past five T20 World Cups should prompt selectors to pour their focus into flushing out a new generation of international cricketers.
There will be successes and failures, but it’s time to start looking – and then actually backing the youngsters, no matter what.
This is not a criticism of Australia’s selections for this tournament and is not the reason why they’ve been bounced out unceremoniously by Afghanistan. It’s more an overall comment on the ageing nucleus of the squad across all formats.
Dad’s Army can continue on in Test cricket, no problem, and natural attrition will take its course.
But T20 cricket is the ideal format to blood young talent and try and rebuild an entirely new-look group of players to tackle the next edition of the Twenty20 World Cup in 2026 and put their case forward for the other formats as well.
Jake Fraser-McGurk and Cameron Green are the future, while Josh Inglis, Spencer Johnson, Xavier Bartlett, Nathan Ellis, Aaron Hardie, Matt Short and young NSW tyro Oliver Davies should all be picked for Australia’s next T20 series.
David Warner has retired, but selectors must now consider how many other players join him in being phased out of the T20 format.
Australia’s Test team will be better off if Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and possibly even Pat Cummins are no longer part of the T20 set-up.
Not only because it will help preserve them for the format that matters most, but it is in Australia’s interests overall because maybe a Johnson, Bartlett, Jhye Richardson or Lance Morris can announce themselves, and the international exposure will help them nail any Test opportunities that might come their way after the big three retire.
The last thing Australia needs is to fall off a cliff when their champions do inevitably fade off into the sunset – and the early signs replacing Warner have been a worry at Test level.
Glenn Maxwell is undoubtedly still in Australia’s best ODI and T20 teams, but he will be 37 by the time the next T20 World Cup rolls around and he doesn’t need to necessarily be playing bilateral T20 cricket.
Perhaps his spot could go to Sydney Thunder dynamo Davies?
Matthew Wade and Marcus Stoinis have been great warriors in T20 cricket but they shouldn’t be part of the next World Cup in two years’ time.
What about West Australian all-rounder Hardie and ODI keeper, Inglis?
Green is a must and he was desperately unlucky not to be part of this XI.
Mitchell Marsh has had a wonderful career renaissance across all formats, but at age 32 and with his history of injuries, something has to give at some point. Perhaps he might soon need to choose between prioritising Test cricket or the short forms.
It sounds extreme but if Travis Head (30), Adam Zampa (32) and David (28) were the only survivors of this World Cup XI come 2026, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing for Australia, even though the veterans are all greats of the game and could possibly be still worthy of selection in two years’ time.
Hazlewood, 33, disagrees.
“They come around pretty quick the T20 World Cups every two years. I don’t know, there might be a couple of changes … you’d think it’d be a natural slow change, I don’t think it’ll be anything drastic,” Hazlewood said.
“ … A lot of the guys are still playing the franchise cricket if they’re not playing for Australia. So they’re available to be picked. There’s some class players in our 15 and we have a couple on the bench as well.”
At some point a regeneration needs to take place across all of Australian cricket, and what better place to start than the T20 team?
Australia’s extremely average record in T20 World Cups, save for their one outstanding win in 2021, says they are not a special team in this format and taking a different approach is far from outlandish.
IS MARSH THE RIGHT CAPTAIN?
Handing Mitchell Marsh the T20 captaincy was a fair and deserved reward for his understated but outstanding leadership skills and performances over recent years.
However, unfortunately Marsh had an underwhelming tournament overall and there were signs that perhaps the responsibility of captaincy didn’t really help his overall game.
Marsh produced some handy contributions without delivering the matchwinning captain’s knock Australia craved.
He only became available to bowl in the Super 8s but was reluctant to use himself, and he dropped four catches including the sitter against India which proved critical in Australia’s elimination.
Marsh will learn from the experience but the T20 captaincy probably needs to at least be reviewed.
The all-rounder has played so freely and confidently over recent years, Australia don’t want Marsh’s tremendous attributes as a player to be restricted by a role which others could easily step up and take on.
DROP CATCH WOES
Australia’s fielding and catching this World Cup was deplorable by their lofty standards.
It’s always easy from the sidelines to toss up the old, ‘they need to work harder’, but in the case of fielding, maybe there is some truth to that.
Andrew McDonald and Pat Cummins’ philosophy on trusting players to tailor their own individual preparation and approach has worked wonders with their batting and bowling and is a major reason why Australia won last year’s ODI World Cup and Test Championship.
But fielding and catching is a completely different discipline.
Perhaps some level of complacency has set in.
Are players as fit as they could be? Does more pre-match work need to be done to acclimatise to specific grounds? These are questions Australia should be asking themselves, because fielding so poorly in three World Cup matches seems more than a blip on the radar.
LADY LUCK
As much as we all want answers after Australia is bundled out of a World Cup in shock circumstances, the reality is T20 cricket is a fickle format where you do need the rub of the green.
Australia could not have set themselves up any better in the tournament after winning their first five matches, but unfortunately one ugly stuff-up against Afghanistan backed them into a corner they couldn’t get out of.
As disappointing as it is that Australia couldn’t press for an unprecedented Triple Crown of World Cups all held at the same time, the reality is it’s hard to launch an inquiry searching for answers in a format where the margins are so small and literally two bad overs can be enough to derail a match and a tournament.
An almost farcically unfair schedule compared to the likes of India and England also played its part in killing off Australia.
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