Australia face must-win matches to make semi-finals
Australia must reverse the embarrassment of their ill-fated winter tour against the West Indies and Bangladesh if they are to make the semi-finals of the Twenty20 World Cup.
And even then Australia’s fate is likely to revolve around tournament favourites England beating South Africa next Sunday morning to ensure a clear passage.
Australia’s next match is against qualifier Bangladesh on Thursday night, followed by their last group tie against the West Indies on Saturday night.
On tournament form, Australia should be favourites for both those matches, but that wasn’t the case earlier this year.
Following mass pull-outs, Australia took a significantly weakened team on tour, suffering historic T20 4-1 series losses to both opponents.
While Bangladesh bathed in the glory of their home success last August, the quality of the pitches they produced were so poor it has done them no good on the world stage, hindering their preparation instead of helping.
Bangladesh slumped to defeat against the West Indies in their last outing.Credit:Getty
Bangladesh sits at the bottom of group 1 as the only team without a win after four consecutive losses, the latest against South Africa on Tuesday night. South Africa bowled out Bangladesh for just 84 to win by six wickets with 39 balls to spare.
The easy win leaves South Africa a game clear of Australia in second spot on the group 1 table behind unbeaten England with a very significant run rate differential. The top two teams in each group go through to the semi-finals.
Bangladesh’s poor performances have been compounded by the loss of star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, who was ruled out of the tournament due to a hamstring injury after the loss against the West Indies. He is currently the highest ranked all-rounder on the official ICC table.
Bangladesh lost to South Africa on Tuesday night and sits at the bottom of group 1.Credit:Getty Images
West Indies are also out of the running for the semi-finals after just one win from three matches, which included being bowled out for 55 against England.
Not that Australia fared much better in their most recent match, being bowled out by England for 125 to lose by eight wickets with 50 balls to spare. It once again highlighted the flaky and unpredictable nature of Australia’s batting.
Australia’s senior assistant coach Andrew McDonald believes the coming matches will be very different to those difficult mid-year encounters following the return of Australia’s front-line batting line-up in different conditions.
“It’s a slightly different group (of players) but the reality is Bangladesh did have a significant series win against us on their home soil and so did the West Indies so the two games in front of us give us a great measuring stick as to how far we’ve moved forward,†McDonald said.
He believes the change of conditions will be significant given that both Australia’s remaining group matches are day games and the dew will not be a factor.
In night matches the team bowling first usually have a significant advantage because the ball moves around under lights before the dew comes down later in the match, allowing the ball to skid on.
“We’ll probably get a little bit of a trial by spin, which has been our great challenge over the last 12 to 18 months,†McDonald said.
“We feel with Steve Smith and Glenn Maxwell coming back into the line-up along with Aaron Finch and David Warner we’ve probably got some capable players against spin compared to what we had on the last tour.â€
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