Follow UsWith nine wins on the trot, Australia are in the midst of their longest-ever winning streak in T20Is, but it’s the manner of their batting approach of late that’s turned heads.
Across their last six T20Is, the Aussies have hit a whopping 77 sixes, taking the attack to the bowlers from the get-go. And they did the same in the first T20I against South Africa in Darwin on August 10 (Sunday) as well, pummelling 13 sixes compared to South Africa’s 2.
The remarkable thing was that, on Sunday, the Kangaroos lost 3 wickets inside the first 19 balls, but that didn’t stop them from taking the aggressive route. It eventually paid dividends as the Aussies won by 17 runs by purely ‘out-hitting’ the Proteas.
In the aftermath of the game, Tim David, who was the protagonist of the first T20I (82 off 53 balls), insisted that the 2021 T20WC champs will continue to embrace this approach as they build towards the World Cup in India & Sri Lanka next year.
"I think if you'd watched our guys bat over the last period, wherever they bat around the world and when they play for the Australian team, it's close to all guns blazing,” David said after the first T20I, reported cricket.com.au
"So yeah, you can probably expect to see that a little bit from our team. That's how we think we play best."
According to the right-hander, this ‘new’ approach is not a result of inputs from the coaches. Rather, it’s the players themselves who have taken the matter into their own hands, zeroing in on this ‘all-out’ approach as the one that best suits the side.
"We've been playing together as a group now for a while, so there's not a great deal of instruction from the coaches," David said.
"They trust the players. We trust ourselves to go out there and we understand the game situation and we make decisions on the fly, because that's the nature of T20 cricket.”
So far in 2025, Australia have hit 44 more sixes than South Africa in the same number of games. The second T20I will also be played in Darwin, on August 12 (Tuesday).