Defending champions Australia made a host of changes to their lineup for Friday’s crucial T20 World Cup Group 1 fixture against Afghanistan, with skipper Aaron Finch among those missing out.
Finch, who had picked up a hamstring niggle after the Ireland game, passed the baton of leadership, albeit temporarily, to wicketkeeper Matthew Wade while swashbuckling middle-order batter Tim David was also ruled out due to fitness issues, with Steve Smith and Cameron Green taking their places.
What did raise a few eyebrows however, was the host team leaving out left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc from their lineup and bringing Kane Richardson in his place, a move that Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott admitted came as a “little bit of a surprise” to them.
Australia assistant coach Daniel Vettori however, described the move to replace Starc with Richardson as a “tactical” one, where they intended to use Richardson’s skills in the death overs.
“We brought in Kane to play the role he executed tonight at the back-end of the powerplay, looking at the death overs where Kane has been exceptional in the past.
“It was more around the effectiveness of Hazlewood and Cummins at the top and their ability to take the new ball and be wicket-takers,” the former New Zealand left-arm spinner said after the match.
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Starc had leaked runs in two of Australia’s three completed matches in the tournament before the Afghanistan clash, getting smashed for 43 runs for two wickets against Ireland and bowling out a wicketless spell that cost the Aussies 36 runs against New Zealand in the opening Super 12 clash. Starc however, was the pick of the bowlers against Sri Lanka with a haul of 1/23 from four overs.
Richardson, too, proved expensive in the Afghanistan clash, conceding 17 and 16 runs in his second and fourth overs respectively, conceding back-to-back sixes to Rashid Khan off his last two deliveries of the evening.
Read: Disjointed Australia searching for answers in home tournament
Vettori however, defended the South Australian right-arm quick and said that he could’ve ended up having a great day had he “tidied up” a little.
“I think we’ll reflect on that and Kane would say he probably missed a couple at the back end of two overs. But apart from that the majority of his spell was what we expected. So if that had been tidied up he would have had a great day,” Vettori added.
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