Melbourne, Nov 18 (IANS) Legendary Australian wicketkeeper-batter Ian Healy feels his country’s cricket governing board got the scheduling of the side ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup at home “wrong” and blamed it for the dismal performance in the mega event, which concluded recently.
Australia could not progress beyond the Super 12 stage of the T20 World Cup, with New Zealand and England making the semifinal grade from the group, paving the way for an early exit of the defending champions led by Aaron Finch.
Healy, who played 119 Tests and 168 ODIs, believes the performance of Finch’s side reflected a tired team. Looking ahead, Healy has asked Cricket Australia (CA) to scale back the schedule as the side aims to corner glory in the ODI World Cup in India next year and the 2024 T20 World Cup.
“They got it (scheduling) wrong… it was way wrong. Three games in Townsville, then they went to Cairns against New Zealand, then they went to India for a week,” the former wicketkeeper told SENQ’s Pat and Heals.
“Then Perth for a game against England, then Canberra, they came back over to the east. That’s way too many games in the lead-up to a tournament. Cricket Australia, get it right,” added Healy.
“It’s too late for next year (ODI World Cup), but in years to come, you need to get this right,” said Healy.
T20 skipper Finch had admitted ahead of the T20 World Cup that there was a sense of fatigue amongst the team.
“I think the guys are probably a little bit tired at the moment,” Finch had said. “The schedule has been so packed over the last six to eight weeks that we identified a couple of months ago that we wanted to make sure that we’re in a position to be peaking at the right time of the World Cup and not beforehand.”
Healy added he hoped the team would not look jaded in the lead-up to the 2024 T20 World Cup in the West Indies and USA.
“Let’s just hope they don’t drag this Australian team into another World Cup next year as tired as they were in the lead-up to this T20 World Cup.”
–IANS
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