Review of Australia’s performance in ICC World Cup 2011
It was the first time in the last couple of decades that Australia were not rated as one of the favourites of the ICC Cricket World Cup.
It proved to be a right prediction by the cricket analysts as the Kangaroos failed to defend their title for the third consecutive time as they were thrown out of the mega event in the quarter-final by India.
Australian cricket witnessed its decline after the retirement of their ace cricketers like Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Adam-Gilchrist-c918 and Mathew Hayden but the ICC World Cup 2011 has officially ended their dominance in world cricket.
Their record-breaking run of 34 undefeated games in World Cup cricket was broken by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Green-c60723 thrashed them by 4 wickets with many overs to spare.
Ricky Ponting and company played seven matches in the showpiece event and won 4 out of them. They faced defeat in two, whereas their fixture against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Zimbabwe-c3045 comprehensively but
effectively they won just one match against a big cricketing nation- http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754.
The Kangaroos were completely outplayed by Pakistan and India and even Sri Lanka were in a good position to put them under pressure before the rain intervened. Overall, it was a forgettable World Cup for http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 with very few positives.
Australia’s biggest problem has been their bowling line-up since last couple of years as they no longer have the services of Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne or Jason Gillespie. Even Brett Lee and Shaun Tait have restricted themselves to limited overs cricket
only.
This was the basic reason why Ponting and his men were not able to regain the 2010-11 Ashes as their bowlers struggled to bowl out the English team twice in all the Test matches. The only exception was the Perth Test, when Mitchell Johnson found his rhythm
back all of a sudden and helped Australia to level the series at that point.
It was the same story in the ICC World Cup 2011 as the Australian bowling looked flat in Subcontinent, especially in the quarter-final against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 as the co-hosts chased down 260 runs on a difficult track without much of a trouble.
The Kangaroos might never be able to find a substitute of Shane Warne but they would have to do something about their spin-bowling department sooner rather than later as a quality spinner is almost essential for a team to do well in international cricket.
Jason Krejza was extremely disappointing in the mega event as he failed to land the ball consistently on good areas. He has the ability to spin the ball on any surface but accuracy is the biggest hallmark of any good spin bowler, which he lacks.
Due to the poor showing in the ICC World Cup 2011, Ponting had to resign from captaincy and most probably their coach Tim Nielsen would be sacked after the series against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747.
In many ways, this is the start of a new era for Australian cricket under the captaincy of Michael http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Clarke-c51120. Aussies are still the number one ranked One Day International team in international cricket and it will be interesting to see how long their hold onto
their top spot.
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