2024-07-12 06:51:25
Sydney: Australia’s fast bowler Mitchell Starc has expressed his displeasure over being left out of the Super Eight stage match against Afghanistan in the T20 World Cup. The T20 World Cup 2021 champion Australian team suffered an unexpected defeat by 21 runs at the hands of Afghanistan and the team could not even reach the semi-finals. Australia replaced Starc with Ashton Agar but he could not take any wicket.
Starc told Sydney Morning Herald, “The team management trusted the match-up because spinners were playing on that ground in the last match. That’s why Ashton was given a chance. He bowled well in the powerplay.” He said, “But Afghanistan played spin well and probably assessed the situation better than us. We made some mistakes for which we had to pay the price.”
He also expressed his displeasure over the tournament schedule and said, ‘We were ahead of England in the group stage and suddenly we were in a different group. We got two day-night matches and the third match was a day match. We could not prepare well. Our flight got delayed and the hotel was one and a half hours away from the airport. We had to play the match the next morning.’
It is noteworthy that when the team captain Mitchell Marsh was questioned after the defeat to Afghanistan, he said that there is no better team than India to beat to reach the semi-finals. When they lost to India as well, the boastful Marsh said that Bangladesh will do their job, which itself lost to Afghanistan. In this way, the Australian team was disheartened. The Indian team entered the finals by defeating England badly, while Afghanistan lost to South Africa.
The Indian team broke South Africa’s dreams by defeating them by 7 runs in a thrilling final and achieved the pride of being the world champion. After this, India’s 3 big stars, captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja said goodbye to T20 International cricket.