Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood may be headed for a future focused on Test cricket in the mould of James Anderson and Stuart Broad, as the selectors consider recasting a specialist Twenty20 bowling attack ahead of the next World Cup.
A back-up tier of fast men, including Nathan Ellis, Riley Meredith, Brendan Doggett, Lance Morris and Jhye Richardson, will contend to be elevated to the front rank in the shortest format in the gap between now and the 2024 event in the United States and Caribbean.
The big three: Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc.Credit:Getty
The dropping of Starc for Australia’s final group game against Afghanistan, after he was earlier deprived of the new ball, has been a source of major discussion around the elimination of the home side – maintaining a history where no team has ever defended the title, nor won it on home soil.
But in truth the use of 32-year-old Starc, 29-year-old Cummins and 30-year-old Hazlewood as all-format fast bowlers has been a point of discussion among the selection panel for some time given how much Australia prioritises Test cricket and the desire to get the best out of the trio in their remaining years.
Though Cummins has been appointed captain for the ODI World Cup in India next year, it is likely that the Broad and Anderson model, where England’s two Test match stalwarts have not played a white-ball game between them since 2016, will become the norm beyond that event.
Head coach Andrew McDonald, who has worked closely with Cummins as Test and now one-day captain, said that while the reality of two World Cups in two years had dictated a fairly consistent group of players, the scenario for next time was very different.
Aaron Finch, Matthew Wade and Steve Smith are three other players who are likely to be missing from Cup considerations next time around. A nine-month gap between now and Australia’s next T20 assignment allows plenty of time for reflection.
“For this World Cup we thought those three, Mitch Starc, Patty Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, were best suited to be a part of the squad to navigate through to the World Cup,” McDonald said in Adelaide as the squad returned to home ports. “So I think it will be a case by case.
“We’ve seen Nathan Ellis building some depth, he was really impressive in the lead-in. Kane Richardson is impressive in his own right, and you’ve got Riley Meredith, another one who’s back now. So we feel we’re building some depth to that bowling department, it’s just about who we choose for what conditions and when.
“We’ll go through what that looks like in terms of building towards the next World Cup in 2024, there’ll be some natural turnover with the space and the age profile of our team, so there’ll be some people that get opportunities from next August when we play T20 again.”
McDonald also explained the rationale behind Starc’s omission for Kane Richardson, and acknowledged that the dropping of a player with the left-armer’s white-ball record was always likely to cause plenty of chatter.
“We were looking to reinforce the back end with Kane Richardson, so we put a premium on death bowling,” he said. “That was the decision in a nutshell really, there was Kane up against Starcy for a bit of death bowling depth, and Kane got the nod.
“Anytime you leave out a player of the stature of Mitchell Starc, it’s always going to create significant attention to that selection. The reality is we’ve got 15 players that arguably could have been in the XI, and those that miss out are always going to be genuinely stiff.”
Intriguingly, the numbers story of the past three years indicates that Starc is now a better Test bowler than he ever was, while there has also been a perceptible decline in his white-ball fortunes.
This can be partly attributed to the fact that Starc foregoes the Indian Premier League in order to prioritise playing for Australia, and also to how his red ball game has evolved since he spent four out of five Ashes Tests in reserve in England in 2019.
Between then and now, Starc has taken 72 Test wickets at 25.72 while improving his economy and maintaining his strike rate. In parallel, his 42 T20I wickets have been claimed at an inferior average and economy to Starc’s career marks.
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