Australia World Cup-winning captain Michael Clarke gave the Australian cricket team a much-needed reality check in the ongoing ODI World Cup and criticized the selectors for Alex Carey’s dramatic ouster from the team after failure against India and the “horrible” World Cup preparation coming into the marquee event.
The comments made by the former Australian skipper came after Pat Cummins-led side suffered their second consecutive defeat in the ODI World Cup, losing to South Africa by 134 runs with an appalling collapse of 6-43 which was also their highest defeat in terms of runs in the World Cup history.
Speaking on Sky Sports Radio’s Big Sports Breakfast, Michael Clarke said that the five-time champions were completely outplayed in the game, as there were no positives for the team to look into the game and questioned the selection of Josh Inglis over their primary wicket-keeper Alex Carey, who was dropped from the playing 11 after the poor performance against the host nation India.
“I don’t know what positives we can take out of that game, I don’t think selections were right? I’m unsure how you can take Alex Carey to India in the World Cup squad, give him one game and then drop him”.
“No disrespect [to] Josh Inglis, I don’t know him at all and I’ve heard from a lot of people that he’s very talented and there’s something about him, but unfortunately last night he didn’t have a great night with the gloves,” Michael Clarke said.
The five-time champions made two changes in their playing 11 for the South Africa game as Alex Carey was benched in favour of Josh Inglis, and Marcus Stoinis made his comeback to take the place of Cameron Green, with both the players having poor outings for the team.
Although it seemed reasonable to recall Inglis in light of Carey’s recent ODI batting performance, the right-handed could only five runs in the match before being dismissed by Kagiso Rabada with a peach of delivery in the match.
I Fought Harder Than Anyone For Pat Cummins To Be Australian Captain – Michael Clarke
Michael Clarke feels that the Australian skipper Pat Cummins got his strategies wrong in the game against Proteas and said that he wasn’t aggressive enough in the field after opting to bowl first on a tricky wicket in Lucknow and reckons that the team never looked like trying to pick wickets in the initial part of the game.
“I fought harder than anyone for Pat Cummins to be Australian captain and I still stand here and say I think he’s the right man for the job but tactically last night I think he got it wrong again, I love him and I’m more than happy for him to be captain but he’s got to do some work on that.”
“He won the toss and bowled, I think he ball chased and I don’t think he was aggressive enough. I don’t think he looked to take wickets. I feel like I’m wasting my breath. The easiest way to slow scoring is to take wickets yet we continue in Twenty20 cricket and one-day cricket, try to prevent runs,” Michael Clarke added.
Australia have suffered four straight defeats in their ODI World Cup history for the first time. They suffered defeats in their final two ODI World Cup 2019 and their 2023 campaign has gotten off to the worst possible start the Pat Cummins-led side would look to turn things around in upcoming games in World Cup 2023.