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Drama and farce reign, but Australia didn’t deserve a World Cup semi-final
By Daniel Brettig
Afghanistan sealed Australia’s T20 World Cup fate at 1.05am Caribbean time after a night of equal parts drama and farce, but the defining moment of a failed campaign for Mitchell Marsh’s team had arrived well before midday.
In many ways, Australia’s ODI World Cup victory in India last November was epitomised by Travis Head’s wondrous catch to get Rohit Sharma in the final.
Mitchell Marsh drops a catch off India’s Hardik Pandya during their T20 World Cup match in St Lucia.Credit: Getty Images
Head is not a natural athlete, but he made tremendous ground in Ahmedabad and kept steady to hold the chance and sum up the effort and attention to detail that delivered the trophy.
Less edifying but equally pivotal was the sight of Marsh spilling the simplest of chances from India’s Hardik Pandya in St Lucia. Pandya went on to make a critical 27 from 17 balls, before the Australian captain’s own innings was ended by a blinding take from Axar Patel.
Rohit, meanwhile, clattered 92 from 41 balls, including a 50 from 19 deliveries. Curiously, he did not face a single ball from Glenn Maxwell, who coaxed the miscue that Head caught in November.
In the two games that decided Australia’s fate in this Twenty20 World Cup, their fielding, bowling and batting errors were far too numerous, allowing India and Afghanistan the chance to strike defining blows that left Marsh struggling for answers.
Afghanistan’s captain Rashid Khan embraces teammate Gulbadin Naib after beating Bangladesh.Credit: AP
A nervy Afghanistan ultimately forged through by bowling out Bangladesh in a rain-addled encounter in St Vincent, in circumstances that will raise spirit of cricket questions as well as writing a new chapter in the undulating story of a cricket team now playing under the Taliban flag.
Captain Rashid Khan now leads his team to a world cup semi-final against South Africa, on Thursday morning AEST.
There was a sense of justice to the outcome: by winning only one of the three Super Eights games, Australia simply did not deserve to progress to the semis. To do so would have been the most fortunate campaign since Imran Khan’s team made the 1992 World Cup semis thanks to a point from a washout in which they had been bowled out for 74 by England.
If Marsh’s grassed catch summed up Australia’s fumbled campaign, the sight of Afghanistan all-rounder Gulbadin Naib hitting the deck in the slips with his team just ahead in Duckworth-Lewis-Stern calculations provided a dramatic postscript. There was another rain delay before the final Bangladesh wicket fell to seal Australia’s exit, but Marsh’s team should never have put themselves at the mercy of such an improbable turn of events.
Travis Head plays a shot as India’s Rishabh Pant keeps in St Lucia.Credit: Getty Images
Australia’s campaign was expected to be so much more: underlined by the fact Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley is presently in transit to the Caribbean for the semis and the final. The goal was to hold all global trophies, for Tests, ODIs and T20, at the same time.
That aspiration has now drifted away on the St Lucia sea breeze, along with the final moments of David Warner’s 15-year international career.
The first warning signs came against Scotland, where the Australians were “terrible” in the field – according to Mitchell Starc – and got away with it. But instead of building proficiency in subsequent games, the Australians looked more weary with each match; it must be said that they were able to shrug off a testy schedule more easily in India last year.
India, a formidable T20 side, had not faced Australia in either the 2021 tournament won under Aaron Finch, nor the 2022 edition in which the Australians slipped up to miss the semi-finals with the help of a washout.
On this occasion, Rohit’s side was much the sharper, marking the start of a transition not just for Warner, but for the Australian white-ball team as a whole.
Warner, Matthew Wade and Starc are among a group of players not expected to be seen next time Australia compete for a T20 world cup, and others such as Pat Cummins, Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis may well join them, either to prioritise the franchise circuit or concentrate solely on Test cricket. Maxwell and Stoinis will be particularly frustrated by their inability to summon more substantial performances in the chase.
Head, who threatened for a while to reprise his century in the ODI Cup decider, now faces the challenge of multiple formats as the team’s most explosive batter, and is already on close watch to ensure he is not a spent force by the time the India Tests roll around.
Marsh, too, will be closely monitored. By putting his hand up as captain, he gave Cummins a breather in leadership terms, but was entirely unable to impose himself on this tournament as he did in the UAE in 2021 and India last year. The selectors will have to ponder whether they lost more than they gained with this appointment.
Indian captain Rohit Sharma celebrates scoring his half-century against Australia.Credit: AP
Similar decisions must be made about the bowling attack, for which Nathan Ellis and Ashton Agar spent too many days on the substitutes’ bench given the conditions this tournament is being played in.
Aside from the exemplary Josh Hazlewood, Australia’s bowlers had been humbled after Marsh won the toss. Starc’s best is world beating, but he was obligingly full and predictable for Rohit.
Cummins and Adam Zampa also erred full, while Stoinis was wretchedly short against India’s captain, who is one of the most brutal exponents of the pull shot the game has ever seen.
Rohit’s early avalanche made a score of 220 plus very plausible. India were 2-155 with six overs left.
Starc, Zampa and Hazlewood were able to pull things back and only five boundaries came from those final six overs.
That recovery, also pointed to scoring getting more difficult again at the older ball, something Kuldeep Yadav and company used masterfully against a despairing Australian batting line-up.
Another of their substitutes, of course, was Jake Fraser-McGurk, he of the powerful bat swing and blazing IPL innings.
His time in Australia’s front rank of white-ball players starts now.
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