Australia’s head coach, Andrew McDonald, has firmly rejected suggestions that his side’s embarrassing early exit from the T20 World Cup was due to a distraction caused by the upcoming Ashes series.
The reigning champions’ campaign has been cut short following unexpected defeats to Zimbabwe and tournament co-hosts Sri Lanka.
These results mean Australia will finish outside the top two positions in Group B, rendering Friday’s final match against Oman in Pallekele a mere dead rubber.
The team’s performance has drawn sharp criticism, with former Australia captain Ricky Ponting lamenting their lack of “aura”. His ex-team-mate Matthew Hayden went further, criticising their preparation and drawing parallels to England’s much-maligned build-up to the Ashes.
Despite Australia’s 4-1 victory over England in that series, McDonald insisted that the battle to reclaim the urn did not compromise their World Cup planning, even in the face of an unsatisfactory campaign in Sri Lanka.
“We’ve been fully locked into this for a period of time,” McDonald stated. “This is one of our priorities. I have heard that sort of narrative that T20 World Cups don’t matter to us.
“I think all that is a response to the performances of Australian cricket teams in these competitions. We won in 2021 and we haven’t been as successful since then. The expectations on the Australian cricket team are high and rightfully so.
“But to sit back and say that we’re prioritising other formats or other versions of the game and not the T20 World Cup is entirely false. We’ve got a pretty devastated group, it’s fair to say.”
Australia’s Ashes triumph came despite the absence of Test captain Pat Cummins, fast bowler Josh Hazlewood, and spinner Nathan Lyon for significant portions of the series.
However, Cummins and Hazlewood were unable to recover in time for this tournament, while T20 captain Mitch Marsh missed Australia’s first two games after sustaining “internal testicular bleeding” from a net session injury.
The team also faced scrutiny for waiting until midway through the group stage to name celebrated batter Steve Smith as Hazlewood’s official replacement, despite his absence being known beforehand.
Addressing the injury concerns, McDonald added: “Have we had some challenges on the back of injuries? That’s always something we deal with and every nation has to deal with it.
“Unfortunately they weren’t able to make this tournament and does that make a difference to your performance? In some ways yes, but I truly believe that the players that were here are good enough.
“It shouldn’t be about the players that we’re missing. It should be looking at the performances and we’re disappointed in those. We need to own those and the critique is fair and reasonable.”
