Australia’s pacer Mitchell Starc opened up on being dropped during the T20 World Cup 2024 Super 8 match against Afghanistan which the Baggy Greens lost and their chances of making it to the tournament’s semi-final lessened.
Starc was benched against Afghanistan for the second in a T20 World Cup match as in 2022, he also sat on the bench in Adelaide where Australia also failed to make it to the last four.
"No two World Cups in a row," Starc was quoted as saying by Sydney Morning Herald on the Willow Talk podcast when asked about his omission for the Afghanistan match.
"Just the match-up, they saw previous games on that ground in St Vincent with spin playing a part and obviously Ash [Ashton Agar] and the left-armer enticing them to make a change.
"They probably played the spin quite well and batting first probably assessed the conditions a little bit better than we did, and had a couple of stumbles that in the end cost us the game. It was probably the fielding that cost us again that game. That meant we had to win against India and we fell short there as well.”
Starc also expressed his displeasure with the World Cup schedule saying that after playing two night games they had to play a day game all of a sudden.
"We finished ahead of England and end up where we were pre-seeded as the second side. All of a sudden, you're in a different group. The argument was it was because it was so hard to get around the West Indies, so fans knew where your team was playing. So then why don't you have the chock-a-block tournament at the front and then spread it out at the back end?” Starc added.
"We had the two night games and the third was a day game, so it wasn't the best preparation. We had a delayed flight out of St Vincent, it was a 90-minute drive from the airport to the hotel in St Lucia, and then we had a 10 o'clock toss.
"I think that was probably maybe a misread [by organisers], the fact that the front half of the tournament was more spread out, and then you hit the super eights and travel around the West Indies is probably not the easiest thing to do, certainly not to travel home from," concluded Starc.
- Mitchell Starc
