NEWS
Follow UsOnly if they could have stayed in the crease longer! After one of the most demoralizing losses so far in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023, Australia have found themselves in a do-or-die situation, with the likes of India, New Zealand, Pakistan, and South Africa racing ahead too fast.
In Lucknow, chasing 313, Australia were down to 69/5 in no time, and any team would struggle to recover from that. Even though Marnus Labuschagne tried to arrest the collapse at the backend, they had hardly any batting left and were eventually shut out for 177.
“It’s a tough one to swallow,” Labuschagne said in the post-match press conference. “Haven't really had too much time to digest it all because obviously got out there at the end. It certainly felt like conditions were nipping around. It was quite a steep bounce out there. And we probably saw right at the back end there the dew really came in, and it probably played a part, but we didn't have any batters left - so yeah in summation, just lost too many wickets early.
“The conditions. One, they bowled a nice length, a length that was tough for scoring. And yeah, the ball just sort of did the talking for them. They just bolted through - the ball was swinging; the ball was seaming. I'm not sure what the numbers were for that, but it certainly felt like it was doing more tonight than it did in the afternoon for us.”
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There was a mini-controversy of sorts when Marcus Stoinis was caught behind in the 18th over, but there were doubts about Stoinis’ gloves having any contact with the bat at the time of impact. The third umpire decided to check the front-on angle and thus concluded it as a dismissal, which sent many in the Australian camp into shock mode.
“Look, the umpires really didn't know what was going on. They just saw what we saw, so it wasn't really too much going on. I mean, for me, it looked like, and I was on the field, I can't see, but it looked like his hand was off the bat; it hit the glove. And so, because they didn't go to the side-on angle, Marcus and I were just asking, have they checked?
“Because they just saw the spike from the front on, and they didn't sort of get a close-up zoom in of the side. Well, sorry, not one that we had. And that just looked like there was clear daylight between the two gloves and the handle. But once again, I have been into the third umpire room, and the screens are big, and everything's much clearer than me standing in the middle looking at a pretty pixelated screen.”
Australia were pretty sloppy on the fielding, dropping easy catches and letting many easy boundaries. It was very unlike Australia, who have been one of the better fielding sides in the world. While Thursday’s fielding was a concern, Labuschagne added that it was not a fair representation of their quality.
“I can't speak for each individual on how much cricket we've played. We certainly have played a lot, but I'm not here to sit and make excuses. We're playing the World Cup for Australia. We have to be ready; we have to be better than that. It's hard to put your finger on it.
“I mean, we're one of the best fielding sides in the world - we pride ourselves on that, and, you know, we just didn't seem to get it right today. We created opportunities and just didn't take them, and yeah, it just wasn't a great performance from us. But we have to bounce back and get this train rolling,” the Aussie batter added.
