Cricket great Ian Healy has branded Australia’s World Cup debacle “not good enough” after the team were beaten by 134 runs by South Africa on Thursday night.
The result sees Australia fall to 0-2 and in a 10-team competition where each team plays each other once for four semi-final places, this leaves the team with very little room to maneuver.
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It is believed that Australia will need to win at least six of their last seven matches to book a place in the last four.
The defeat was also the first time in World Cup history that Australia had lost four consecutive matches at a World Cup, having been eliminated from the 2019 tournament after two defeats.
But it was the manner in which Australia lost that was most telling as the team were bundled out for 177 with over nine overs remaining chasing South Africa’s 7/311.
This leaves Australia second to last in the rankings, ahead of only Afghanistan.
Healy said Australia looked “unsettled”, which he said was disappointing because it is an element of tournament preparation that is within Australia’s control.
Healy compared the current team to the 1992 team he played in, which “drifted into it” after playing in all three World Cup series, a tournament Australia won.
Worryingly, this Australian team missed the semi-finals of this tournament, which was held in Australia and New Zealand – the last time Australia missed a World Cup playoff cricket.
“We weren’t as focused and fierce as the opposition at the start of the tournament and we fell behind,” Healy said of the 1992 team.
“Now these guys have this type of preparation and this type of drift and they are also unstable. So how did this all happen? It’s not good enough.
Greg Alexander said the warning signs seemed to be there when the South African series saw Australia win the first two matches before three 100-run defeats to lose the series.
Healy said the Australians were playing with their batting order throughout the series while some players overcame injuries, saying it was “so unstable and unprofessional”.
“You can’t play a World Cup against South Africa – they looked like they were going to eat us alive and India are so lively and involved.
“They are so hungry and lively and we are really stiff and tired and anxious.”
Healy called Pat Cummins’ retirement the biggest of the innings, calling it “desperate” and saying, “That tells me this team is nowhere and needs to figure something out quickly.”
As for the shock call to drop Alex Carey in favor of Josh Inglis, Healy said the decision was “unfair”.
“It’s a bit of a shame when a goalkeeper gets sent off for his stick,” Healy said.
“What does this indicate?” This indicates that the top order is not doing its job well enough and too much is being asked of the wicketkeeper with the bat.
“He is a good batsman and he is not in good form. I thought it was unfair and unnecessary to have Josh Inglis in the team because it destabilizes the goalkeeper.
“We’ve never needed a second wicketkeeper in a World Cup and if you need one it means the first wicketkeeper has got injured and then you can put the other guy in anyway.
Josh Inglis being in the team is holding back a batsman or a bowler. We don’t need a second goalkeeper in the XV.
“It wasn’t great and it wouldn’t help Alex Carey.”
He also questioned why none of the batters were moved.
Healy was not the only one to criticize the Australians.
Former nine Test and seven T20I spinner Steven O’Keefe said it was an “unusual” performance from Australia.
“They lost five catches. Over the past 12 months, Australia has achieved a success rate of 66.4 percent when it comes to catch attempts. We’re sitting right above Nepal,” O’Keefe said on the SEN show. The race home.
“You think about the great Australian teams of the time, they would turn half chances into full chances. Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Mark Waugh, those kinds of guys transformed the World Cup with their efforts on the pitch.
“A few catches were tough and came late in the inning, but you look for silver linings in this group… success leaves clues, but so do errors and when you look at the defensive players and the lineup. is not turned on or connected and we make so many mistakes.
“Maybe fatigue is a reason, but it’s certainly not an excuse after two World Cup matches.”
He added that the fielding issues were an “examination of the psyche of these guys”.
Speaking on SEN Tassie Breakfast, former Australia captain Tim Paine said he was shocked Carey was left out of the match.
“This World Cup would have been planned for over a year, ‘How we want to play, what our team line-up looks like,’” Paine said.
“For it to change in one game, I was shocked. It’s fascinating.
“I just don’t understand, if they didn’t think he was the man or if they thought he was so close to being dropped, then why go with him in the first game?
“We had a year of planning for this. So the two balls he faced against India were, ‘Oh, no, he’s done, we can’t pick him anymore.’ Is it for the World Cup? It’s going to be difficult to bring him back.
Australia will play against Sri Lanka on Monday evening.
