Australia’s assistant coach Daniel Vettori revealed the team management believed Kane Richardson is an excellent death-over bowler and thought of utilising it in the T20 World Cup 2022 game against Afghanistan.
Australia’s decision to leave out Starc in the crunch game against Afghanistan on Friday didn’t go well as they copped a fair bit of criticism from the cricket fraternity. Vettori, defended the call pointing out Kane Richardson’s death overs ability.
Once their premier bowler across formats, Starc hasn’t been at his best and was used as the third pace option in the ongoing tournament. In their final group fixture, the Aussies decided to drop him for Richardson who is renowned as a death overs specialist. Speaking after the match, Vettori revealed it was a tactical decision to bring in Richardson.
“It was a tactical decision. We brought in Kane to play the role he executed tonight at the back-end of the powerplay, at the death overs where Kane has been exceptional in the past.
We were looking to use Josh Hazlewood and Pat [Cummins] with the new ball and that pushed Mitch into a role where he’s competing with Kane Richardson, especially at the death where everyone thought Kane excels,”
he said.
Starc had managed three wickets in three matches in the tournament, conceding at 8.50 – considerably higher rate than his teammates. His economy in death overs in the last three years has gone up from 8.66 to 10.30. Richardson in the same period has conceded at 9.50 rpo.
“It was thought among the hierarchy that Kane is exceptional at the death and we’ll utilise him there as opposed to Mitch,”
Vettori added.
However, the move didn’t quite work out as Richardson himself went for 48 runs in four overs. Australia needed to win by a big margin to surpass England’s net run-rate, but they barely escaped, winning by just four runs.
The Aussies now have to rely on Sri Lanka beating England to reach the semifinals.
