The defending champions Australia find themselves in danger of a group stage exit at their home in the ongoing T20 World Cup. The former Australia captain Ricky Ponting said the side have no excuses not to make it into the top four of a home tournament.
Ponting, who has led Australia to back-to-back fifty-over World Cup triumphs and reached the semifinals in the inaugural edition of the tournament, expressed his disappointment with where Australia stand at the moment.
“If they don’t make it through, there’ll be some questions asked I’m sure, because I had them in the top three coming here,”
he said.
“I thought the final would be between two of Australia, India and England. No one gave Australia a chance in the last [World Cup] over in the UAE in conditions that didn’t suit. But then, they’re [currently] in home conditions, that all of these guys have been brought up [in] and played a lot of cricket,”
he added.
Ponting had Australia as one of the favourites alongside India and England ahead of the tournament, and with the home conditions suiting the side, he thought Australia would ease their way into the semifinals.
“I thought that everything was just sort of aligning itself quite nicely for the Aussies to make it through. But even their form coming in wasn’t great either with the lead-up that they had, and they did play a lot of T20 games coming here. So there can’t be any excuse as far as preparation is concerned,”
Ponting added.
The Aussies have been sloppy in the field as well, dropping three catches in the competition so far, looking back, it could prove very costly. They dropped New Zealand’s Finn Allen on 19, who went on to hammer 42 off 16 balls to take the game away from the hosts. They also gave a reprieve to Ireland’s Lorcan Tucker on 35 at the Gabba, who went on to score an unbeaten 71 off 48.
The Aussie great added that nailing big moments in a tournament like World Cup is crucial and the Aaron Finch-led side hasn’t quite done that this year compared to their triumph in the UAE.
“Looking back to the last one [T20 World Cup], Australia nailed all the big moments. They haven’t so far in this tournament, and that’s quite often the difference.”
Australia lost their opening group match against New Zealand by a heavy margin of 89 runs, which put a huge dent in their net run-rate. They then defeated Sri Lanka by seven wickets before a crucial match against England was washed out and it became a net run-rate battle between the two sides.
They had a great opportunity to surpass England’s net run-rate when they defeated Ireland in the previous game. After posting 179, Australia had reduced Ireland to 25 for 5 but let the grip loose and conceded 137, eventually managing a 42-run victory.
Australia will take on Afghanistan in their final group match on Friday, where they need to win by more than a 60-run margin and then hope Sri Lanka fights England till the end on Saturday.
