Sunday, October 14, 2012

Hits and Misses - ICC World T20 2012, Team Australia

Australia

Hits

1. Who else but the Man of the Tournament Shane Watson. He did it all for the Aussie's in this World Twenty20... opened the batting, opened the bowling, took wickets when required, hit sixes at will and fielded brilliantly. He topped every conceivable list for a large part of the World Twenty20. 4 Man of the Match awards meant that there was precious little that he left for other team mates to do or achieve!! He eventually failed in the Semi Final against West Indies and Australia duly folded up without much of a fight.

2. Australia finally found a left arm pace bowler named Mitchell who could bowl with pace and more importantly control. Mitchell Starc bowled incisively at the start of the innings as he swung the ball at pace. He got early wickets and was one of the brightest stars in this ICC World Twenty20.

3. Mike Hussey was brilliant as always and he did the job required of him nonchalantly. His 54* which took Australia into the Semi Final was one of the innings of this World Twenty20. The next best score in that innings was a mere 15 as the whole Aussie line up capitulated against high quality Pakistan spin bowling on a slow and low, turning pitch.

Misses

1. The oldest player of this World T20, Brad Hogg, took just 2 wickets while playing all the games. It deprived Australia wickets in the middle of the innings. One of those wickets was against Ireland which made matters worse in the final analysis.

2. The Aussie middle order was always talked about as their weaker suit but they never got a proper hit in the middle until their final Super Eights match against Pakistan and against the West Indies in the Semi Final when Australia lost Watson and Warner early. They combusted spectacularly on both occasions going down completely without a fight. They were 5-65 and 6-43 against Pakistan and West Indies respectively and the matches were easily lost.

See the previous post's in Hits and Misses,

Team South Africa
Team New Zealand
Team England
Team India

2 comments:

T F Carthick said...

Good analysis. Keep the series rolling.

Vinay Leo R. said...

Hmm. Not sure why Aussies ended up not in the final. Maybe too top heavy, but they were consistent, and Watson esp got me a lot of points in the Fantasy game.