Australia – ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 profile
As part of our lead up to the ICC World Cup
2019 hosted by England and Wales, Expat Sport will bring you in depth profiles
of all ten qualifying teams set to put bat to ball when cricket’s premier competition
kicks off next May. We look at the players, coaches, the highs and lows of form
and make a nod to those we believe will make a success of their bid to be
crowned champions of the World.
Australia – Will the Baggy Greens prove too floppy for the Cricket World Cup?
It’s fair to say that of all the teams due to line up in the 2019 ICC World Cup in England and Wales next year, the Baggy Greens may have had the most disruptive preparations. Following the ‘sandpaper-gate’ scandal which saw former captain Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner, and young batman Cameron Bancroft all given hefty suspensions, the new-look ODI team was plunged directly into the maelstrom of a 5-0 whitewash by England back in June. New captain Tim Paine promised a ‘play hard but play fair’ attitude from his players, but it was clear that this hastily rearranged line-up were still very much caught in the headlights of the cricketing world’s scorn, and their on-field performance reflected their collective internal turmoil.
Flash forward a couple of months, and a few thousand news cycles, and the dust appears to have settled on the controversy somewhat. The T20 team have had a tri-series outing since then, losing the series to Pakistan but prevailing over lowly Zimbabwe. However, their ODI team has not played since that drubbing by England and with all eyes firmly on next year’s ICC prize, they have only six more competitive ODIs before their opening World Cup 2019 game against Afghanistan on June 1st at Bristol’s County Ground.
But if their new look test team is anything to go by, it’s clear that Justin Langer and the selectors have taken the crisis as an opportunity to blood a whole raft of new players, with as many as 5 debutantes expected to play in the upcoming UAE test series against Pakistan. The complication – which could either be a huge plus or a confusing negative – is that Warner and Smith’s bans come to an end in March 2019, thus making them eligible again for selection just in time for the competition to begin. On the face of it a huge gamble, given the pair will have played no international cricket at all in advance of possible inclusion in the World Cup squad.
Regardless, former greats, Mike Hussey and Steve Waugh both suggest that if Australia are to mount any sort of serious campaign, both Warner and Smith will need to be recalled.
Waugh said:
“You do need experience in those big match conditions, and while you want some young players there of course, you need the hard heads in World Cup finals and World Cup semi-finals.
“And that’s why someone like Smith and Warner will be crucial to our chances.”
Hussey added to Waugh’s comments stating that:
“It’s hard to say so far out, but the quality of player they are you probably would say they are (walk-up selections),”
“As long as they do everything right in the lead up; they’re in good touch skills-wise, they’re in good fitness, no injury concerns and they’ve done all the right things preparation-wise and behavioural-wise as well, then you’d have to think they’d come straight back in because they’re such quality players.
“They’ve been quality players for such a long period of time; they’ve had success at the highest level and are important players for Australia.
“I think they probably do (return) as long as they tick all the boxes along the way.”
Hussey does realise that any last minute rearrangement to the squad can lead to poor form on the pitch as he explained:
“It (the World Cup) is not a long time away and that’s the one thing that does concern me,”
“Leading into a World Cup year, you want to have continuity with your team, you want to get the guys playing together, getting the understanding, the communication out in the middle, knowing their roles very well and feeling comfortable around each other and that’s what England have been able to do.
“That’s why I think they’ll go into the World Cup as favourites because they have such a settled team and they’ve been playing together for quite a period of time now.
“Now Australia’s not going to have that luxury.
“We’re going to have some quality players coming back in but they’re not going to have much time to really build that continuity and communication between the group.”
While Paine’s captaincy in difficult times has been exemplary in terms of his demeanour, media duties and public facing action, his form with the bat has been questionable. He was named as captain of the test team but only ‘acting captain’ of the ODI team and this, Hussey goes on to explain, is another potential worry:
“I don’t think we should be picking players just because they’re a good leader,” he said.
“We need to pick the best players and hopefully they’ve got that cultural base in place that whoever comes in, they just know exactly what’s expected of them from a behavioural point of view and what the culture of the team demands of them as well.
“We need to be looking at who’s in our best team and the best players to play in that team.
“I’m not sure in 12 months’ time Tim Paine will be there because if you think Alex Carey is a better one-day option, you’re better off getting him in there sooner rather than later, if the selectors think he’s a better one-day option.”
So even without this brain-bending conundrum for the selectors, whatever way you look at it, 6 matches to find a settled line-up and build confidence is not many. Both South Africa and then India will provide the invaluable opposition for this rapid rebuilding process. The Proteus may prove beatable on recent form and on home soil, but India will be a sterner test if the likes of Kohli, Pandya and Karthik get in the groove.
All this uncertainty means that a team that would have been among the favourites for the tournament 18 months ago now represents an unknown variable that could ignite the tournament or splutter out with a whimper. And that, for the neutral, makes for a scintillating World Cup ‘curveball’ (excusing the mixed-sport metaphor!).
Expat Sport’s Dan McTiernan explores the current selection turmoil surrounding what remains an embryonic Australian ODI team, as well as gathering some intriguing commentary from former top-echelon Aussie cricketers, as to why the team members could change dramatically on the eve of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.
