The Australian fast bowler Mitchell Starc has expressed his disappointment for being dropped from the team management for yesterday’s crucial T20 World Cup Super Eights match against Afghanistan.
This resulted in the 2021 T20 World Cup winners suffering a loss by 21 runs, which greatly damaged their chances of making it to the semifinals. The omission of Starc from this game meant he missed two world cup games in a row against Afghanistan; hence, there was more reason for him to be angry.
Australia had gone with left-arm spinner Ashton Agar as Starc’s replacement. Agar managed to keep things tight against Afghan batters but could not pick any wicket, which was an unsuccessful tactical decision. On Willow Talk podcast, Starc added that he felt let down by this drop.
“Two in a row – No,” Parami News quoted Starc as saying with reference to his absence from consecutive World Cups games against Afghanistan.
That decision had been influenced by previous matches on the same ground at St Vincent where spin had played an influential role. In explaining away these changes, Starc said.
“Ok – they saw past games on that particular ground when spin was involved and obviously Ash and left-armer have lured them into thinking about it,” said Starc.
This is not the first time that Starc has ever been left out of a match with Afghanistan during a T20 World Cup. Also in 2022, he was omitted for a match in Adelaide and similar Australia did not manage to advance into semis again because of this mistake.
Afterwards, they fell to India in the Super Eights round thus leading to their exit from the tournament. Moreover, the scheduling process along with pre-seeding arrangements made by the organizers were also criticized by him personally because Australia fell under pre-determined group although topping it during pool stages.
“We finished ahead of England and end up where we were pre-seeded as the second side. All of a sudden, you’re in a different group,” he said.
He then went on to talk about some logistical problems with travelling in the Caribbean that appeared to highlight how this competition might have been better planned.
“Not ideal. We had two night games and then the third one was during the day so not ideal preparation. We were delayed out of St Vincent, it was a 90-minute drive from airport to hotel in St Lucia then we had a 10 o’clock toss,” Starc noted.
Lastly, he acknowledged that getting around different locations across the Caribbean islands can be quite difficult.
“That’s probably is not fun travel wise through the West Indies anyway let alone back home” he concluded.
Therefore, Mitchell Starc’s comments make it all worse by bringing up the selection debate as well as discussing tournament logistics after their early exit from T20 World Cup.
