Over the years, Australia have been contenders heading into any ICC tournament. The kind of depth and pool of talent that they have in their ranks makes it impossible for them to be ignored and undermined by any opposition. However, the last few months have been a trial by fire for the Australian team and with the T20 world cup shifted to the United Arab Emirates, the problems have been compounding for this Australian team with an impending battle with spin. So, while considering the dream 11 tips and prediction as we approach the T20 world cup, there is a certain amount of caution that needs to be exercised while selecting players from the Australian cricket team.
Coming into the world cup on the back of two heavy series defeats, they are certainly not at their best. First, they lost a series 4-1 away to the West Indies and then followed it up with a heavy defeat against Bangladesh by the same margin. What is evident is their lack of ability to score big against the turning ball and on slower pitches.
Their record in the UAE doesn’t inspire much confidence either. The last time they were in the UAE in 2018-19, they suffered a really heavy loss against the Pakistan team who beat them 0-3 in what was a one-sided competition to say the least.
With the kind of problems, they are going thorough, they are going to look at players like Steven Smith, David Warner, Pat Cummins and Glenn Maxwell who have had experience of playing in the IPL and would be there for the second part of the 2021 edition too. This really augurs well for them but that is only a small chunk of their side involved in the IPL.
Another problem that they have been facing is the lack of good spin bowlers who can restrict the opposition. Australians have always been known for their fast bowling and with the slow pitches, bowlers like Mitchel Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins lose their edge. This makes them vulnerable to a beating. They are fast bowlers who like giving the batsmen some chin music but on slow pitches, the ball just sits up to be hit and tanked into the stands.
As spin options, they have included Ashton Agar, Mitchell Swepson and Adam Zampa in their squad. All three bowlers are really intelligent bowlers but it is with the rest of the bowlers that the team may face a problem.
A big area of concern for them is going to be the ability to accelerate against the spinners. They have players in the middle order who are very good players of spin but struggle when it comes to acceleration against the slower bowling options.
A couple of players who seem to have a lot of options against spin are Glenn Maxwell and Steven Smith. They know how to rotate the strike and also clear the boundary when required. Glenn often uses the switch hit to put the slower bowlers off their mark.
The inclusion of players such as John Inglis is going to be exciting as he has recently impressed in the recently concluded ‘The Hundred’ and the Vitality Blast where his strike rate was 175 scoring over 580 runs.
Australia however is a team that cannot ever be counted out in a major tournament. They turn up and bring their A game every single time and you would expect nothing else from this team. They would have certainly worked hard on their technique in the off season.
