As hopes for Australia’s Twenty20 World Cup showdown with England petered out, stumps were drawn and the teams shook hands, the abandonment was conveyed everywhere except where it arguably mattered most – on the MCG scoreboard.
Some of the 37,565 fans, who had gamely turned up and are now due a refund, then lingered for another 20 minutes, unsure of what was next. It was an apt illustration of how uncertainly Australia’s Cup campaign now sits.
Much as a combination of torrential rain and cold temperatures pushed the MCG outfield to a point where it stayed waterlogged until it was too late to play at all, so has Australia’s bid to defend last year’s title win in the UAE been pushed into a corner.
Aaron Finch was left with plenty to ponder after the MCG washout.Credit:Getty Images
Melbourne’s capricious October weather in the third La Nina summer in a row has cost the tournament three abandoned games in as many days, and as early as Thursday night the Australian players and staff were left with the sinking feeling that the MCG had simply copped too much rain for its drainage system to cope.
Some of the issues afflicting the Australians now were similarly foreshadowed. The struggles of an out-of-form Aaron Finch are compounded by the team’s preferred structure of heavy hitters right down the batting order, constraining the captain and David Warner with the responsibility of batting deep in the innings in support.
Steve Smith hovers somewhere near the team but not quite in it. On a greasy surface for a 20-over game there was every chance he would have played Friday night in place of Tim David, but as the game was progressively downsized by the rain, the selectors pivoted back to more explosive options.
Similarly, the weight of scoring quickly to pull innings out of a hole has at times told on each member of Australia’s vaunted Nos. 3-7. Marcus Stoinis’ fastest-ever World Cup 50 in Perth was a remarkable effort, but with more even contributions such a feat should not have been necessary to surpass a middling Sri Lankan total.
With the ball, the sheer consistency of Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and even Mitchell Starc, so valuable in Test cricket, has made the star trio just predictable enough to be attacked by brave opponents who have gambled on what to expect and got it right.
Matthew Wade.Credit:Getty Images
And even in COVID-19, the unfortunate withdrawal of Josh Inglis with a cut hand from a broken golf club left Matthew Wade needing to be ready to play against England even though he had tested positive for the virus and arrived at the MCG separately to the rest of the team. Otherwise, it would have been Glenn Maxwell donning the gloves.
For all these frustrations, the equation for the tournament hosts is now not only simple, but suited to their team configuration. Win, and win big, against Afghanistan in Brisbane and Ireland in Adelaide while hoping that England do not win both their remaining games.
“We’ve picked a pretty powerful batting line-up, and we’ve got bowlers that we think in certain conditions against certain opposition can do the job,” head coach Andrew McDonald said. “So we feel as though we’re pretty well covered for the options we have.
“First and foremost, we’ve got to improve certain facets of our game and build throughout the tournament. We just want to get back to playing the cricket we know we’re capable of, and we probably haven’t done that the first couple of games. So that excites me, the fact that there’s still plenty of improvement left in the group.”
A line-up chosen for its hitting power with the bat and consistency with the ball has the chance to impose in the final two rounds, much as a few past World Cup winning teams did in the run-up to the knockout games.
If they can manage that, the Australians still have the chance to leave the Cup with some more indelible memories than the sight of a sodden MCG in October.
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