Former Australian captain Michael Clarke hasn’t held back on the team after their T20 World Cup title defence ended with a meek exit in the group stages.
Playing the tournament on home soil for the first time, the Aussies never recovered from an 89-run thrashing at the hands of New Zealand. They were then unable to defeat Ireland and Afghanistan by enough to pass the Black Caps or England, missing the semi-finals due to their poor net run rate.
Speaking on Big Sports Breakfast, Clarke, who captained Australia’s Test team between 2011 and 2015 and led the team to its first ever T20 World Cup final appearance in 2010, said the team just didn’t have the ‘fire in the belly’ necessary to thrash Ireland and Afghanistan by more than their eventual 42-run and four-run margins, criticising their approach to both games.
“The frustrating thing for me is, I think they missed a trick against Ireland… and then against Afghanistan, I don’t know what I was watching,” Clarke said.
“It felt like they were doing everything they could just to beat Afghanistan. I know you can never just wipe the floor with a team and have that attitude, but they had to. They had to walk out there against Afghanistan and say, ‘We’re going to make 200 and bowl you out for 100’ – but they just didn’t have that aggressiveness.
“They didn’t have that fire in the belly – even in the field, they looked a bit sluggish.”
For Clarke, that narrow victory perfectly encapsulated the team as a whole, as he went on to criticise their ‘defensive’ approach to games.
“I think Australians in general, on the biggest stage under the most amount of pressure, always put in on the line and have a crack. We’re not scared to lose,” Clarke said.
“Yet we picked an aggressive 11 in this World Cup squad, yet played so defensively. Very un-Australian.”
Clarke wasn’t just critical of the players, saving some ire for coach Andrew McDonald, who played four Tests alongside the former skipper in early 2009.
Clarke described McDonald as a ‘great bloke’ but unable to match the more ruthless approach of predecessor Justin Langer toward the playing group, saying the team’s malaise would never have set in under the Western Australian’s eye.
“I feel for Andrew McDonald because he’s a great bloke but I guarantee to you, if JL was coach of this team, this team would have got a massive boot up the backside well before the tournament started,” Clarke said.
Of equal concern to Clarke is the general public’s apathy or even delight towards the Aussies’ failure this World Cup, putting the onus on Test captain Pat Cummins as well as McDonald to turn their image around in the eyes of the fans as home series against the West Indies and South Africa loom.
Cameron Green spills a catch in the outfield against Afghanistan. (Photo by Mark Brake-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
“At the moment I feel like there’s a real dislike for the Aussie team, and I want to see that turn around,” Clarke said.
“We’ve got messages this morning – it seems like so many people are happy that Australia lost.
“There’s still angst around Justin Langer being sacked or resigning, how that went down. I think there’s angst around our style of play and how we’re playing. Patty Cummins has got a big job as captain and Andrew McDonald if he’s going to be coach in trying to turn a few things around.
“Australian cricket has always tried to be the No.1 team in the country but we’re nowhere near that now.”
Another former star Aussie international in Shane Watson has called for the team to move on from captain Aaron Finch, who is widely expected to retire from T20 internationals in coming months having already bid farewell to ODI cricket earlier this year.
And Watson is in no doubt as to who should replace him.
“I’ve had an opinion on who should have been the short-term T20 World Cup captain for a while, and that’s David Warner,” Watson said.
“But that seems to have been caught up in the bureaucracy of Australian cricket because of a couple of lines of a code of conduct legal document.
“For me, David Warner is an excellent decision-maker under pressure, tactically he’s very good, he’s a very good leader and he’s very experienced as well.
“I’m just disappointed that for his sake he hasn’t had an opportunity to lead the Aussies because he’s a very good leader.
“Obviously it’s not a long-term solution, but another T20 World Cup is coming up in a few years and Dave is still going to be performing very well.”
Clarke’s sentiments were echoed by another former Test player in Simon O’Donnell, with the all-rounder turned cricket pundit slamming claims from the Australian camp that the team were fatigued heading into the tournament.
“We understand where that fatigue comes from and why it’s there. I’m sure they’ll have those discussions, but we can’t go to tournaments like this and still play in the IPL and all the things we do outside of playing for Australia,” O’Donnell said on SEN.
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“People are putting a lot more importance on outside tournaments than they are of climbing the ladder to get to play for Australia… I must admit, fatigue doesn’t hold water with me.”
Even long-time Australian foes were left unimpressed by the hosts’ meek exit from the tournament, with former England captain Michael Vaughan describing the Aussies as ‘a nice team to play against’ – and not in a good way.
“Australian sides of old certainly would’ve got 140, 150 against New Zealand and then would have blown Ireland away for 80 or 90,” Vaughan told Cricbuzz Live.
“They would’ve been ruthless… I look at this group, I don’t think they’re quite as ruthless as some of the old teams.
“I don’t see that from this Australian team. I think they’re quite a nice team to play against.”
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