CHENNAI: The Ashes hangover has faded away Down Under. The countdown for another big event has started: the 2020 World T20.It wouldn’t be wrong to say that Australia don’t lavish on the shortest format the kind of focus they do on the longest. They are yet to win a World T20. But there have been a few silver linings. Their batting lynchpins are back after the ball-tampering exile. One of them hit his first T20I hundred in his comeback game in the format. After a topsy-turvy 2018, they have won all five T20Is this year.
“Obviously Australia have not enjoyed a lot of success in T20s in the past couple of years,” said all-rounder Ben Cutting, who will be turning out for Deccan Gladiators in the T10 League in a fortnight. The event will be played in Abu Dhabi from November 15. “But when you have senior players like David Warner and Steve Smith — who have been playing lot of IPL and other leagues — in the form they are in, it’s going to go a long way
for Australia.”
It isn’t as if everything is hunky-dory for Australia at the moment. Experiments keep continuing without giving the results they want. Skipper Aaron Finch has been the only constant fixture in the XI in all the T20Is since Sandpapergate. Glenn Maxwell, the next most-consistent player in this context (18 out of 19), has temporarily called time on his career. That Warner has become their fourth-best run-scorer for this period in just three games shows how their other batting options have performed. They’ve had 27 players turn out in T20Is since that fateful day in Cape Town, and they have only Ashton Turner, Alex Carey and Ben McDermott to show as their designated players in the mould of Maxwell.
D’Arcy Short — Australia’s third-best with the bat in this time-frame — didn’t even feature in the T20Is against Sri Lanka. Chris Lynn may be a blue-chip stock in T20 leagues, but he’s yet to turn out for Australia this year.
Cutting feels that all of this could end up nullifying the aforementioned advantages. “We’ve not taken T20s seriously enough in the past couple of years. We know how busy the schedule is. But this format is our least priority. We don’t pick the best XI. We rest guys who should have been in the team. Experimentation can be dangerous.
“It won’t be surprising to see the team change four, five times again before the World Cup. Guys like Lynn and Short should be part of the squad. The selectors should think outside the box too, look at players from Australia who are playing T20s around the world.”