The home advantage, their present form, the depth in their squad – the ingredients are in place for Australia to win the World Cup. Staying focussed could be their biggest challenge
Brydon Coverdale in Melbourne12-Feb-2015In many ways, it feels like Australia’s international summer is over. Judging by their results, it went swimmingly. Across four Tests against India they reclaimed the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, bookended by ODI and T20 wins over South Africa and an ODI tri-series victory over England and India. Only two games were lost – both to South Africa, a T20 and an ODI – in 32 days of cricket squeezed into three months.In many other ways, the most memorable part of Australia’s summer is just beginning. A Test series against India is important, but happens often. A home World Cup is rare and special: Ricky Ponting’s ODI career lasted 17 years and he never had the chance to play in one. The full weight of the event may not register for the Australians until they walk onto the MCG on Saturday to play England in front of 90,000 fans.There is only one man in their official setup who has that kind of experience. Bowling coach Craig McDermott played in the 1992 World Cup, when Australia failed to reach the semi-finals. They were the defending champions and had the home advantage. McDermott said this week that back then, Australia made the mistake of expecting they would win the tournament, that all would go to plan.From the outside, it seems there is no such complacency this time. On Wednesday, in an unofficial warm-up against the UAE, the Australians were diving around in the field like it was the World Cup final. Shane Watson took two outstanding catches at slip, and Glenn Maxwell ran and hurled himself forward at midwicket to pinch a one-handed stunner centimetres off the ground.As coach Darren Lehmann noted the following day, “history shows if you’re the best fielding side in the World Cup, you go a long way to winning it”. Australia will begin the World Cup as favourites, and Lehmann must ensure complacency does not creep in at any point. It should not be hard to get themselves up for the opening game against England.”I hope a lot of Australians come out to watch that first game,” Lehmann said. “Ninety thousand people, it’s going to be fantastic to see. It’s a World Cup opener. There’s one game in New Zealand at the same time. They’ll both be packed houses. The players are going to be in for a thrill.”There’s pressure on every team in any World Cup, wherever you’re playing, to win. For us it’s about embracing our own country and getting the support from the crowd, entertaining them and playing the brand of cricket we have over the last 18 months in the one-day format. If we do that, the results will look after themselves. We don’t look any further ahead than England and looking forward to great crowd support and putting on a good show.”Regardless of expectations or pressure, Australia will have the advantage of knowing the conditions for most of their matches. During the last World Cup in Asia, spin played a key role but this time Australia’s reliance on seam-bowling allrounders – Shane Watson, Mitchell Marsh and James Faulkner, when he is fit – is an indication of where they expect the wickets to come from.”It’s a bit of an advantage for us, with all our allrounders,” Lehmann said. “That’s the balance of the side we’ve gone with in selecting the squad. It gives you a few more options. The wickets traditionally don’t spin a lot here. They may spin a bit in New Zealand. But here they’re good cricket wickets. They’ll be high-scoring so your quality of bowling has got to be there.”It is even possible that Xavier Doherty could go through the tournament without playing a game. Doherty picked up two late wickets against the UAE but Michael Clarke also bowled two overs, and Lehmann said Australia would look to Clarke as well as Glenn Maxwell for some spin workload when the captain returns from his hamstring injury.Selecting the right mix is one of Lehmann’s challenges in this tournament, but another will be to keep his men focused over the next six weeks. Saturday begins a long and rambling month of cricket that takes the squad from Melbourne to Brisbane to Auckland to Perth to Sydney to Hobart, and that is before the knockout stages even begin.There is a lot of down time in that schedule. Australia play only three games in the first 18 days of the tournament, their first three matches all being played on consecutive Saturdays. Lehmann has floated the idea of allowing the players to return home at times, given the lengthy breaks. Former coach John Buchanan said this week that would be a mistake, that the squad mentality could not be broken.Whatever happens, the Australian management will have to take steps to stop the players going stir crazy. To that end there is a social committee, including veteran Brad Haddin, who will organise bonding events along the way. And the group will spend almost a full week in Auckland ahead of their match against New Zealand, which will mix things up more than staying in Australia.”Give them a few days off here and there, where possible,” Lehmann said of the plans. “Also embrace where we’re going. We go to New Zealand, so we’re all going early to New Zealand to have a couple of days seeing the culture of New Zealand. I’m sure they’ll be getting stuck into us while we’re there.”Enjoy the atmosphere of the whole six-eight weeks. That’s the big thing for us, the first three Saturdays we play so there’s a big gap in between. We’ll work out what we’re doing through there as we go. You’ve got to get away from the game as well. We’ll have enough training time leading into other matches, we’ve had a long summer.”
