Shane Watson has counselled Australia not to dismiss a failed home World Cup campaign as the result of a few bad overs against New Zealand, instead suggesting the team’s leaders look closely at how players were shuffled away from familiar roles.
Speaking around the launch of his book Winning The Inner Battle, released this week, Watson said he held concerns for the tournament hosts as he saw their players being juggled around in series against India and England before the event.
While there were mitigating factors such as injuries, a demanding schedule and the need to make contingency plans around players such as Cameron Green, Watson said that he doubted all players were completely clear on their roles.
David Warner was bowled trying a right-handed cover drive against Afghanistan.Credit:Getty
“You could put a broad brush and just say Australia was knocked off by the first over from Finn Allen, the way he took Mitch [Starc] down and go ‘New Zealand caught the Aussies by surprise and we weren’t good enough and got into a situation we couldn’t get out of because we lost so badly’,” Watson told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
“But I was worried in the lead-up about our preparation because we were chopping and changing our batting order, chopping and changing our team. Yes, there was a lot of games of T20 cricket in the lead up and management of people’s workloads or keeping people fresh, I get that to a point.
“With a T20 World Cup coming up in your home country, so it’s front and centre with the Australian public, I was very disappointed they kept chopping and changing who was batting where because then people don’t fully and deeply understand their role. They’re not batting or bowling in those positions.”
He raised the example of Starc’s changing position in the bowling attack; Glenn Maxwell, who moved from batting four in early games to No.6 in the critical final encounter with Afghanistan, was another player shuffled around.
“Why does it come to the T20 World Cup where Mitch Starc all of a sudden after bowling the first over of the first game … moves to bowling at other times,” Watson said. “There’s little things that they could have got on top of earlier.
“Even around Aaron Finch. Yes, it’s great that he scored runs against Ireland and he got into better positions more consistently in that game, then unfortunately strained his hamstring. But it took him a lot of games to find that. The selectors and coach committed to that so early.”
As a commentator, Watson was present both in the UAE for Australia’s triumph last year and also for their early elimination this time. He felt that more squad changes could have been made between events because not only were conditions different, but the circumstances of Australia’s win were unlikely to repeat.
“Last time in Dubai it clicked all of a sudden. Warner, Stoinis, Wade, just bang, it was a perfect storm,” Watson said. “But I think we got complacent. We got complacent to go, that was our team, we stuck with it, and when you stick with a team and people know their roles. But we mucked around with it a little bit as well.
“If their preparation was as good as it can be, then you can look back and go ‘well, we put everything in place we possibly could. We had the same team just about with people resting here and there. We gave ourselves the best chance and then we were hit hard by New Zealand.’ To me that would sit comfortably.”
Former test cricketer Shane Watson.
Head coach Andrew McDonald, speaking as the Australian players and staff returned home for a few days ahead of a 50-over series against England, outlined why it had not been possible to field the same team all the way through.
“I think the lead-in actually gave us some positives,” he said. “We had some injured people coming back and they got some time. I look at the positives around those games, they allowed some people to get up to speed from injuries, and that was probably the tale of the lead-in, we had a few moving parts in terms of injuries.
“Hence why we had different structures at different times, you saw Cam Green go up the top of the order and that played out at the end of the World Cup. We felt we were trying to put plans in place for what potentially may happen.”
Shane Watson: Winning The Inner Battle is available for sale here.
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