Mike Hussey believes that in Mark Wood and Alex Hales, England has a pair of players tailor-made for the first men’s Twenty20 World Cup held in Australia.
During England’s first game on a fast, bouncy surface immediately after the tour of Pakistan, Hales and Wood each played a very Australian game to allow the tourists to squeeze past Aaron Finch’s side.
Mark Wood dismisses Marnus Labuschagne during last summer’s Ashes series. Credit:Getty
In Wood’s case, his high pace and accuracy shook up what was looking like a comfortable chase for Australia, evoking memories of some of his Ashes spells in a losing side last summer.
As for Hales, 66 T20 matches in Australia returning a strike rate of 151.24 and an average of 32.41 have pushed him ahead of Phil Salt in the duel to partner Jos Buttler at the top – a decision he vindicated in Perth.
“He was brilliant and at that stage of the game when he came back on, it needed something special, and he provided that by being able to pick up wickets with that extra pace,” Hussey said of Wood. “So he’s a great character and gives 100 per cent every time.
“Alex has done extremely well in the Big Bash, and knows these conditions so well. It was great for him to come back into the team. There’s pressure on for places, so for him to get that score under his belt will give him a lot of confidence and hold him in good stead hopefully for the whole summer.”
Though he had earned a considerable reputation as a limited overs “finisher”, capable of clearing the boundary to seal a chase – memorably doing so in the 2010 World T20 semi-final against Pakistan in the West Indies – Hussey said that the game had since moved into another stratosphere.
“The guys build their bodies basically for power hitting, they practice power hitting a lot more than we did, and they’re more consistent and more powerful at doing it,” Hussey said. “And if the conditions are good like they were [in Perth] then it’s very difficult to stop from a bowling perspective.”
This is partly because batting sides have simplified their thinking. Rather than worrying too much about a required run rate, chases in particular are melted down to the question of how many fours or sixes need to be hit. When 15 an over for four overs becomes five sixes in four overs, the equation suddenly looks more realistic.
Alex Hales has been a dominant performer for the Sydney Thunder.Credit:Getty
“I’ve certainly heard players and coaches talk about, ‘How many fours or sixes do we need with a run a ball off every other ball,’” Hussey said. “It doesn’t look as daunting that way, sometimes it gets up to 15 runs an over required, and you’re thinking far out, you need to hit every single ball for six.
“But over a five over period, you might only need four sixes and then a run a ball off every other ball. Four sixes in 30 balls doesn’t seem as daunting. The modern-day player practices hitting sixes all the time, so 12 runs an over, even maybe a bit more doesn’t seem to hold the same fear these days as maybe it did in the past.”
