When you start a campaign, you know that there will be losses along the way. Every movie that brings together a group of sassy and capable characters is going to let a few of them fall for the sake of narrative drive and dramatic development. For those in charge of Australia’s cricket team, perhaps the opening World Cup engagement against India was a sacrifice they were willing to make, one necessary dip in a long story arc.
That’s the most charitable explanation, anyway, for a strange start to the tournament – strange not in terms of the result or how it played out, but in how that situation was set up in the first place. It is a proud and ancient cricket custom to greet a bad batting performance by focusing solely on the bowlers, but even leaving aside Australia’s being bowled out for 199, something about the team’s configuration spoke of a lack of clarity.
You are setting up for a game in Chennai. The pitches here crumble, take turn, play slow and difficult. They always do. The many IPL players in your squad already know this. Your opposition has three quality spinners, ready to go. So, you pick your best fast bowling attack? Yes, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, as though this were day one at the Gabba.
And yes, they do some damage. Starc performs his specialty, the first-over wicket with a white Kookaburra. Hazelwood adds two more in the next over. The jag back to trap Rohit Sharma is bowling brilliance, the other two wickets owe more to the batting. If Australia were defending more than 200, or if Mitchell Marsh were able to hang on to what would have been a fourth wicket from Virat Kohli’s top edge, then the result might have been different.
But on a surface like this, that new-ball threat only lasts a few overs. Then the game devolves to one of skilled bowlers thumping a chewed-up dog toy into the pitch, precision becoming a life of drudge, while sensible batting can nudge the score along without great risk. The target is gradually chewed away, then finished in a few last gulps. India’s bowling has already done most of the work.
The visitors have nothing to match India’s employment of three quality spin bowlers, all past tormentors of Australia in their own right, able to make best use of those conditions to find some turn, cause some consternation, get some deliveries to stop in the pitch while others hang in the air.
Of course, Australia’s squad makes it impossible to pick a team based on slow bowling. The cap of 15 players squeezes until it brings on migraines. Travis Head is sore but gets picked injured, Marcus Stoinis soon becomes so. That leaves 13 fit players to choose from for the team’s tournament opener. But in any case, there was only ever one frontline spinner.
So when Adam Zampa is clouted for three boundaries in his first over, the match is a long way from its ending and yet feels all but done. A team that has won the toss and chosen to bat in the afternoon heat now has to bowl with the evening dew and the consequent difficulty in gripping the ball. A leg-spinner is neutralised before he begins. Glenn Maxwell does his best as a finger-spin counterpart but tidiness can’t do its job without threat.
And perhaps all of this is broadly part of the plan – not the loss per se, but accommodating its possibility. That squad of 15 must be picked for the whole tournament, not the opening fixture. That first match may be against a team with a top-tier spin attack in conditions to suit. The next eight meetings of the group stage, less so. No other team can create quite that disparity. More common will be higher scores on flatter pitches ringed by small boundaries, where fast-bowling prowess may be Australia’s own point of advantage.
At least that is the theory. Australia’s next two fixtures are at Lucknow, where the head groundsman was recently sacked by the Indian board because his surface had too much turn. South Africa have two fine practitioners of the slow arts in Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi, left-armers of orthodox and unorthodox persuasions. Sri Lanka have the perplexing variations of Maheesh Theekshana and another left-armer in Dunith Wellalage. Australia’s batting has to find a way, and the long game has a week to prove its worth.
