Australian cricket legend Michael Clarke has blamed poor preparation for the ODI team’s woeful start to the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup and warned they threatened to sink to the same levels as the Australian rugby team.
The Wallabies were infamously knocked out of the Rugby World Cup in France at the pool stage for the first time in their history, leaving coach Eddie Jones fighting for his job and rumored to be heading to Japan.
Australian cricket coach Andrew McDonald is now also feeling the heat after the Aussies suffered heavy losses in India and South Africa to put their tour on life support.
While the Aussies could still reach the knockout stages of the World Cup, Clarke said their current form would see them crushed by spin-loving nations like Sri Lanka and Pakistan and warned a Wallabies-like collapse could becomes reality.
Australian captain Pat Cummins can’t hide his pain after losing his wicket against South Africa in the Australians’ second consecutive World Cup defeat.
The Wallabies were knocked out of the Rugby World Cup in Pools for the first time in history
Former Aussie Test and ODI champion Michael Clarke fears the Australian cricket team is going the same way as the Wallabies
Sri Lanka will find it difficult in these conditions. We haven’t played Pakistan yet. We have a really tough cricket ahead of us and if we play like this we will not qualify,” he further said. Sky Sports Radio’s Big Sports Breakfast.
“I am more worried about the sub-continent teams… if we are like that against South Africa, the rotation in the sub-continent teams… we will be laughing.
“If we’re not careful in the conversation we’ve had in the last three weeks about the Wallabies, in two weeks we’ll have it about Australian cricket.”
Clarke said a strong performance in The Ashes and winning the Test Championship had resulted in issues rife in the Australian set-up for some time.
He blamed player selection and tournament preparation as the main reasons for the Aussie’s woes.
“I think we made the wrong choices for a long time. I really do,” he said.
“And again, (national selector) George Bailey, great fellow – love him George. But it’s not about the person. I’m not having a crack at the person.
“But what we have done for the last, I will say six months (or even) more than that. We’ve done a lot of wrong things to give ourselves the best chance.’
Mitch Marsh takes a vital hit from Virat Kohli’s batting during the clash against India that had a huge impact on the final score
Marcus Stoinis, pictured with Marnus Labuschagne after losing his wicket against South Africa, has had a World Cup to forget so far in India.
“Going back to the Test series in India, our build-up to that tour was embarrassing,” Clarke continued.
“We’re not there at the moment and honestly, no disrespect, but we haven’t been for a while,” he said.
‘Twenty20 World Cup, it’s not right. We are better than that. It is wrong. Leaving England, the series tied, is not right. That series was ours for the taking.
The way we lost from India to India… our preparation for that tour (was) okay. Then winning the Test Championship – amazing. So it swept all these other things under the rug. This is not right.
“Now here, our preparation for this World Cup, we won two games out of seven. We had a great lead up to this World Cup, a tremendous amount of cricket, good competitive cricket.
“We should have gone back to India in our prime.”
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