Cricket news: Aussies must adopt unforgiving approach to final two group matches, says Brad Haddin
Brad Haddin says Aaron Finch and David Warner need to set the tone over the next two games in the power play or Australia will be on the plane home early from the T20 World Cup.
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One of the last men to raise a World Cup cricket trophy for Australia has declared it’s time for Aaron Finch’s men to break the shackles and play without fear on their pressurised path towards tournament survival.
Despite the damaging loss to England, Brad Haddin says there’s still no reason why Australia shouldn’t be able to book a place in the semi-finals, but to do so they must flick a mental switch and go out and attack their final two matches as if there’s nothing to lose.
Australia must beat Bangladesh on Thursday night and West Indies on Saturday, and even that might not be enough to ensure semi-final qualification, because a shocking net run rate means South Africa can leapfrog them into the knockouts if they’re good enough to upset England.
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Haddin, a key general in the famous 2015 ODI World Cup triumph, says Australia needs to go back to the XI that won them the first two games of this tournament, but more importantly than that, recapture the daring bravery that used to be their DNA.
“With the situation they now find themselves in, they have got to win and they’ve got to win well,” said Haddin, Fox Cricket’s leading World Cup analyst.
“If South Africa can cause an upset against England, Australia are going to need to have a better net run rate. They have to go out play brave, play what’s in front of them and move the game forward.”
Australia has never won a World Twenty20, but is the most successful ever 50-over World Cup team — a record built on a dogged mindset of being fearless and unforgiving.
Haddin said England have taken that mantle off them in white ball cricket, and with the World Cup on the line, it’s time to seize it back: especially when it comes to Saturday’s final group game against a West Indies side capable of beating anyone on their day.
Put simply, hesitancy is what could kill Australia’s World Cup hopes and Haddin says it’s up to batting big dogs David Warner, Aaron Finch and Mitchell Marsh to set the barometer for the rest of the team and go out looking for a kill.
“What we’ve found in the tournament is you need to win the power play. Australia have the firepower with the bat to do that,” he said.
“With Warner and Finch and Mitchell Marsh, I’d like to see them take that power play on.”
“At the start of the tournament I had Australia in the semis. If results go the way I can see no reason why that should change.
“I think Australia will get over Bangladesh pretty easy. But the West Indies worry me. They’re a team that has played horrible cricket through this whole tournament, but they’re one of those sides, they’ve won this tournament twice, and they make me nervous in one off games when they have nothing to play for. They have so many match winners.”
Australia’s first big test will be at the selection table as a decision looms on how to repair the pieces after a change in strategy backfired spectacularly in the costly loss to England.
Haddin believes Australia was just finding its stride after its opening two wins and it was a mistake to change from the formula of Marsh bolstering a seven-man batting line-up, and the blue-chip fast bowling attack, Adam Zampa and the all-rounders doing the job with the ball.
“Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis and Marsh are better than just part time bowlers. Stoinis bowls a lot of pressure overs for Delhi (in the IPL), Marsh can bowl in the power play and swings the ball and Maxi has won World Cups as a spinner,” Haddin said.
“Especially against Bangladesh I’d go with the three quicks. I think Mitchell Starc can intimidate them at the top. If the ball does swing, we saw South Africa rip through Bangladesh a couple of nights back.
“I think with Australia’s three quicks they complement each other. I don’t see those three breaking up for the rest of the tournament.”
Desperate Aussies down to their final few tricks
England’s destructive victory over Australia in the T20 World Cup will send selectors back to the drawing board, and back to square one for Thursday’s clash against Bangladesh.
Mitch Marsh is expected to be recalled as the team contemplates the vast distance between itself and the world’s best.
Tournament favourites England made short work of erasing any confidence Aaron Finch’s men gained from their victory over Sri Lanka a few days earlier.
England then turned around and defied the trend of the tournament by smashing Sri Lanka despite batting first and being just 3-47 after 10 overs in the difficult Sharjah conditions. England found its way to 4-163 by the end of the 20th thanks mostly to an extraordinary 101 not out from Jos Buttler.
The batsman’s first 50 came from 45 balls, and the next 51 from just 22 deliveries. He is in imperious form and his teammates are being drawn along in the slipstream.
Australia’s batsmen can only dream of such form, although Glenn Maxwell’s IPL performance suggests a player in nearby territory.
Australia made one change going into its last match – Marsh made way for West Australian teammate Ashton Agar.
It seemed brave at the time, apparently you could do without Marsh – who was the only in-form batsman to emerge from the lead-in tournaments – because the batting was strong enough without him. This after David Warner and Aaron Finch, the team’s biggest headaches, had finally found some touch with the bat against Sri Lanka.
Australia has to win its remaining matches to be any chance of featuring in the finals.
Agar was introduced against England in the belief that if Jason Roy and Jos Buttler had a weakness, it was against spin.
But the toss, and a wicket that seemed more suited to seam, saw a more traditional approach to the England innings.
Assistant coach Andrew McDonald dismissed the flaccid performance against the old enemy, saying it was “not a true reflection of our batting group” and “you can have these off nights in Twenty20 cricket”.
Nonetheless expect a reset against Bangladesh. The misplaced confidence in the batting after the second game has been revised, the strength of the bowling line-up solidified.
If selectors drop Agar they have a choice of bringing Marsh back and returning to the earlier wobbly but winning combination, and can share the fifth bowling role between Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis and Marsh.
“He (Marsh) is at full fitness, he was available for selection last game, there was no injury,” McDonald said on Tuesday. “He will be back on the selection table and if there is a shift back to the structure of the first two games, it is probably likely that he will get the nod among those seven batters.
“He has been a reliable servant over the past 12 months, had some great from lines against West Indies and Bangladesh, so he’ll heavily come into consideration.”
Mitchell Johnson says Marsh needs to be recalled, but perhaps selectors could look to bat Stoinis at No. 3 and the other all-rounder further down the order.
“They didn't’ really need to change anything, I don’t think,” Johnson said. “I don’t think result would have changed but batting and bowling, you just have to stick to your guns with the batsmen you’ve got and keep them in that order that works. Sometimes I think it really has to be a simple game plan.
“You’ve got to work out who your No. 3, No. 4, No. 5 is. I think sometimes it gets changed too much and that plays on guys’ minds. Then the bowling side of things, it’s a very good bowling attack.”
Colour blind Aussies need red and white approach
Mitchell Johnson has questioned whether the right call has been made in sending Mitchell Starc to the World Cup rather than having him ramp up for the Ashes.
According to the former Aussie star, Australia has become a prisoner of a ‘jack of all trades master of none’ mentality where its big stars play across all three formats and, as a result, are too stretched to ever properly prepare.
Only two members of the England squad that destroyed Australia in Saturday’s T20 game will be part of this summer’s Ashes, and Johnson believes Australia needs to take a punt and move towards a similar approach where more specialised teams are picked for red and white ball cricket.
The man who single-handedly destroyed England in the 2013-14 Ashes says if he were still playing he would have pulled out of the World Cup to focus on what he believes will be a very difficult Test assignment against a comparatively match-hardened England — and he feels the likes of Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins should have done the same.
“I’m a bit stuck because they haven’t played any longer form cricket. I think there was an opportunity for a lot of guys to be playing Shield cricket,” said Johnson speaking on behalf of Booking.com who are the official accommodation partner for the ICC T20 World Cup in the UAE and coming to Australia next year.
“I know this will probably stir the pot a little bit, but that’s how I’ve seen it.
“If it was my career … and I hadn’t played any longer form for a whole year with an Ashes series coming up … I would have been playing a couple of Shield games just to get my body right and get myself into a good rhythm.
“For me, if I’m a selector I’m picking people who are in form. And this is a different year to normal. Normally you’ve played a lot more Test match cricket and you can off that form … but this is going to be a tricky one this year for the selectors and George Bailey’s (national selector) biggest test so far.
“I don’t know who you go with to be honest (for the first Test). I don’t know what you do with Starc.
“I think they’re only playing one practice game before the Test match starts, so it’s going to be a closer series than what some people may think.”
Johnson can’t quite put his finger on why Australia seems to be underachieving in Twenty20 cricket when on paper they are fielding a world class side.
But he feels one issue could be the fact Australia is yet to embrace the strategy of picking vastly different T20 to Test teams, and David Warner, Steve Smith, Starc, Cummins and Hazlewood are all three form players.
Johnson admits it takes great bravery and risk to leave players behind who are clearly in your best side, but he fears the knock on effect of what it could do to Australia’s Ashes hopes when half the side — including the entire fast bowling attack — have had no decent red ball preparation.
“Maybe some of the guys did think about it (skipping the World Cup). But obviously it’s pretty hard to say no to a World Cup and if you turn around and say no, it looks like you’re not taking T20 cricket serious. It’s almost like you can’t win,” Johnson said.
“Maybe in the future that’s where they’re heading towards, having a separate T20 team.
“You still have your core players or experienced players but I think you can work around that and get some young guys or guys who have been performing in the Big Bash.
“You can call it a risk but it’s really important to pick guys on their form.”
Johnson said Australia should recall Mitchell Marsh for their must-win match against Bangladesh on Thursday, but would promote Marcus Stoinis to bat at No.3.
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