Australia were nowhere near good enough, selections were strange: Michael Clarke

The Australian squad has been ravaged by injuries, but Clarke said that they still had enough to make it out of the group stages.

“Yes, we’ve had injuries. When players, captains, or coaches do the media afterward, they will obviously mention the injuries, and there’s nowhere to hide there. We’ve had plenty of those, but we were nowhere near good from the first ball of the tournament. Now, we’ve got one game to go and we’re on a plane home,” Clarke said before training his gun at the selection decisions of Australia.

“I think some of the decision-making around the selections was interesting, to be polite, but extremely strange. I think we missed Mitch Marsh, our captain, at the start of the tournament. Having that injury at that time was tough; I thought he’d been playing really good T20 cricket and his tactical leadership has been very good. Marsh opening the batting was important for us as well. When he came back in for that last ‘must-win’ game, he played well; he and Travis Head got us off to an absolute flyer. Having him in the team from the start of this campaign would have been important,” Clarke added.

But Clarke made his displeasure known about the Steve Smith situation that has become a major talking point in Australia after their inability to make it out of the group stages. Smith was initially not part of the Australian side travelling to Sri Lanka and India, but later called in as a replacement for Josh Hazlewood.

“Regarding the Smith thing: I’ll say it again—if you’re going to select him in the squad, how is he not in the starting eleven? This is where I think common sense doesn’t seem to be as common as it should be. Playing in Sri Lanka is different from playing in India, Australia, or South Africa. I don’t think you can say Steve Smith is just an opening batter in T20 cricket. If you’re playing in Australia or South Africa or England, I agree. But playing in the subcontinent—particularly Sri Lanka—he is our best player of spin. He can bat three, four, five, or six.
He’s our best fielder and can field anywhere. If needed, he could even bowl some part-time overs.

“Even if he wasn’t going to open, I’m okay with the selectors going with Mitch Marsh and Travis Head. They have been our opening batters for the last couple of years, and they played beautifully. But Smitty could have played in that middle order because he’s our best player against spin in those conditions.

“I talk about this all the time: just because you make runs in the BBL (Big Bash League) doesn’t mean you naturally go into the Australian eleven. Opening the batting in the BBL is a different role than batting at four, five, or six for Australia. Selecting a squad is about looking at the individual player, the conditions, and the opposition. I don’t think we’re getting that as right as we should, and the spotlight gets shone on that when your best players are not playing.

“In Test cricket, we’re getting away with not picking a spinner sometimes because guys like Mitch Starc, Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, and Cameron Green are making up for it. We’re able to hide certain decisions because our best players are performing. But our best players weren’t fit or weren’t selected for this World Cup. We 100% missed Cummins and Hazlewood and Starc even though he’s retired. This shines a light on how important experienced senior players are in big campaigns. After a World Cup or an Ashes series, you can retire or drop players—but during the World Cup campaign, you need them. You need your best, most experienced players in major tournaments. After that, have a break, move forward, and allow a new player to come in before the next cycle. That is another reason why, for mine, once they were a man short, Smith had to be a part of this tournament.

Clarke continued: “I just think if we’re playing in Australia, it is that black and white: if Head or Marsh gets injured, Smith comes in. Otherwise, you can pick someone else at three, four, five, or six. But in Sri Lankan conditions, I don’t agree with that. I think Smitty could have batted three, four, or five. That role—starting against spin, strike rotation, running between the wickets, while still having the power game to find the boundary—would have been massive for us in those conditions.”