Last Updated on 7 months by Charbel Coorey
Australia won the toss and bowled against Bangladesh in Antigua. The decision made sense given Bangladesh’s batting weaknesses and the true surface in North Sound. Mitch Marsh’s team went on to win easily and set up their Super Eights campaign.
Two days later, and it seemed Australia thought the same approach would work against Afghanistan. The cookie-cutter approach came back to bite, with the decision to bowl at the toss an incredible blunder by the usually-sound Aussie thinktank.
Kingstown is up there with the most difficult batting pitches in this World Cup. Nepal rolled Bangladesh for 106, only for the Tigers to still win by 21 runs. South Africa also struggled greatly against Nepal, somehow conjuring up a one-run win on a pitch where Nepal’s spinners took all seven Protea wickets. Bangladesh also beat the Netherlands batting first previously.
Australia decision to bowl against Afghanistan comes back to bite
With the team analysts on hand and every move of the opponent analysed in video footage, it was a fascinating decision by Australia at the toss. After all, Australia felt the surface would aid spin given they picked Ashton Agar in the XI. Also, couple this with Afghanistan’s strength in defending totals, and the call bewilders the mind even further.
Since the start of February this year, Afghanistan have only won a single T20I when chasing out of six attempts. This was against the inexperienced Papua New Guinea in the first round of this World Cup. Sri Lanka beat them twice in February by four and 72 runs respectively. Ireland won by 38 runs in March, while India and West Indies registered comfortable wins in this World Cup.
On a tricky Kingstown pitch where Glenn Maxwell spun the ball square, alarm bells were ringing early in the Afghanistan innings. Australia soon looked quite rattled, misfielding regularly and dropping catches to allow Afghanistan’s prolific opening pair to do their thing. With the surface showing more inconsistent pace and bounce, the Afghans found themselves in a glorious position thanks to Australia’s hospitality.
Questionable call to leave Mitchell Starc out of the XI
Also, the decision to leave Mitchell Starc screams of a thinktank that wasn’t sure how to tackle the Afghani challenge. In T20Is since the start of 2023, Ibrahim Zadran has been dismissed four times by left-arm seam at an average of 25.00 and strike rate of 133.33. Mohammad Nabi has struggled as well, having been dismissed six times at an average of 16.83 and strike rate of 114.78 in the same period in all T20s.
Starc against Rahmanullah Gurbaz was also a matchup worth testing. Gurbaz has been dismissed 12 times by left-arm seam at an average of 30.25 and strike rate of 138.54 in all T20s since the start of last year. These are certainly not bad numbers, but the quality of Gurbaz requires variety in your seam attack.
Also, Starc was in the same squad as Gurbaz in this season’s IPL, so the left-armer may have had some additional intel on how to get the better of Afghanistan’s excellent opening batsman.
Afghanistan are too good a side to view the match with a cookie-cutter approach. Just because things worked well against Bangladesh at a different venue does not mean they’ll work well against Rashid Khan’s team.
As a result of some muddled thinking that played into Afghanistan’s hands, Australia now face a huge game against India at the more batting-friendly St. Lucia.
The pressure is well and truly on, and it will be interesting to see how Mitch Marsh’s team responds.
