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Following Australia's shocking group stage exit from the ICC Men's T20 World Cup, former Australian captain Ricky Ponting expressed that the current Aussie set up does not have the aura that the Australian team featuring in previous ICC events used to have and misses some of their best and most experienced players which has not let them win big moments during their matches.
After a win over Ireland, Australia's T20 WC campaign ran into trouble with humiliating losses to Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. The clash between Zimbabwe and Ireland being washed out due to rain on Tuesday gave Zimbabwe that all-important one point to seal their first-ever Super Eight qualification, while it was curtains for Australia, which lacked its seniormost frontline pacers, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, who were battling injuries. Ahead of the tournament, besides Cummins and Hazlewood, Glenn Maxwell and Tim David also faced some injury concerns, but still managed to play; none of them looked at their absolute best. Also, their skipper, Mitchell Marsh, faced a groin injury, which caused him to miss the first two matches and seasoned superstar batter Steve Smith was added to the squad ahead of the Sri Lanka clash, which they lost. Steve, despite his 299-run season in the Big Bash League (BBL) before the WC and his excellence against spin, did not feature in the all-important match. Speaking on ICC Review, Ponting said, "I think I said to you the other day that you look at that Australian team on paper, it just does not look to have that sort of aura around it that a lot of other Australian teams have going into ICC events and World Cups," he said. "You need to have your best players and your most experienced players standing up and winning big moments for you in these tournaments if you want to go ahead and win, and Australia have not had that. "They probably have not got enough out of their top order batting with Cameron Green at number three, and then Tim David coming in at number four for the last couple of games. Those two haven't fired, and Australia have lost early wickets certainly in the game against Zimbabwe," he continued. The former Australian legend also pointed out that the Australians lost their last six wickets for 20 runs or so against Sri Lanka, and it did not help them in terms of momentum in the second part of the match, with a Pathum Nissanka century flattening a helpless Australian attack. "Once again, there is just little areas that you have to win that Australia have not been able to win. As a past player and these WhatsApp groups that we are on, we certainly do not sit back and bash the current players or talk about them in a negative way when they do not win. We just want to see our team do well. So, unfortunately, that has not happened over the last couple of weeks. And that is something that group of players has to live with," he concluded. (ANI)
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