Australia had a rather disappointing series looking at the results but they wouldn’t be too worried about it. They used this opportunity perfectly by trying different players. The star performers in the BBL have been given some quality time with the Australian Team.
Australia’s Strengths and Takeaways from the series
Matthew Wade has performed exceptionally well with the bat throughout the series scoring runs at the death in almost every game and the Indian bowlers could get him out only once, which came in the final over of the series. He would’ve loved to have a couple more wins as captain but has shown that he still has it in him to finish games. Several Batsmen stepped up for Australia with Josh Inglis and Glenn Maxwell scoring centuries, and Head has given them some flying starts.
On the bowling front, Australia would be delighted with the performances of Jason Behrendorff and Sangha, the former took the new ball and troubled the Indian Batsmen and was quite economical while the latter has shown improvement from each game. Ben Dwarshius who played the final two games looked quite effective and picked up 5 wickets. Aaron Hardie is looking like a player with a lot of potential and needs to be given more game time to come good.
Weakness
With the upcoming WC to be played in the Caribbean, The Batting against Spin would be something to ponder upon for the Aussies. Their batsmen have failed to read the spinners and allowed the Indian Spinners to dictate terms. They lost as many as 15 wickets to spin scoring at just above 7 RPO. Team management has to work on it and find some way to address the situation.
Also, The form of some players might be a bit of a concern for Australia. Marcus Stoinis who is an integral part of the squad has not been in good touch and didn’t look comfortable in this series. The All-rounders Tim David and Matthew Short couldn’t deliver as they would’ve expected them to. Although Tanveer Sangha looked good in the series his habit of bowling a couple of short balls regularly is not helping him in building the pressure and it has to be worked on. Nathan Ellis performed in bits and pieces and Australia would love to see more solid performances from him.
X-factor
Tanveer Sangha can be an X-factor for the Australians in the T20 World Cup 2024. He has different variations and with the pitches expected to help spinners, he can a be difficult customer to deal with, just like in the final game of this series in Bengaluru where he troubled the Indian batsmen.