Australia's conundrum at World T20, 2016

Having witnessed Australia’s performance so far at World T20, it’s clearly evident that Australia certainly have a huge conundrum of picking right team combinations, if not team selection. Their team line up for first two matches comprised of as many as four all-rounders in Watson, Maxwell, Marsh and Faulkner. It’s good to have all-rounders, but having four of them playing together, that too, more or less of the same style defies cricketing logic and makes their batting vulnerable. One of them, probably Marsh or Faulkner have to make way for a specialist batsman like Finch who is unnecessarily and undeservingly warming the benches. Turning our focus to batting, Australia’s batting order certainly seems to be ill-ordered. What is David Warner doing at No.4? With his hard-hitting abilities and huge amount of experience of playing in the IPL under his belt, he should partner Khawaja at the top. Finch desperately needs to make a comeback at the expense of Marsh and should bat at crucial No. 3 position. Now, Smith, Watson and Maxwell can float around in the batting order, occupying No.4, 5 and 6 positions depending upon the match situation.

Smith and Australia must make amends in their team combination and batting unit to revive their chances at World T20

Thus, in spite of having talented bunch of batting unit, it was utterly disappointing to see Australia faltering in 142-run chase against NZ and crawling their way in the chase of 157 against Bangladesh. If their batting order just look unorganized, their bowling seems to be completely depleted. With Mitchell Starc unavailable due to injury, they are certainly missing their trump card who can bowl those lethal yorkers exceedingly well at the death and one who has an immense experience of playing in Indian conditions as well due to the IPL. Though Zampa has done a good job so far, Australia certainly missed the trick by not picking experienced campaigner in Nathan Lyon and opting Agar over him. Also, why is hazlewood not being picked and Hastings get picked? Hazlewood has been Australia’s workhorse for over a year now and is quite an intelligent bowler who knows his game quite well. Surely, Hazlewood deserved a chance, at least after his hat-trick against the Windies in the warm up match. So, Coulter-Nile, Hazlewood and Zampa should form Australia’s bowling line up and all-rounders should chip in as usual. Thus, with two more crucial matches to go against tough opponents like Pakistan and India, Australia certainly have the personnel to pull-off wins, but, they should get their team combination and batting order absolutely spot on.