Australians were so emotionless; it would have been a miracle had they made the semifinals: O’Donnell

Melbourne: Former Australian allrounder Simon O’Donnell is finding it hard to comprehend why the team led by Aaron Finch in the ICC T20 World Cup was so “emotionless”, especially given the fact that the format is so full of thrills and excitement.

Australia, who were the defending champions and firm favourites to win the trophy at home, suffered a massive 89-run loss at the hands of New Zealand and then their abandoned match against England followed by their lacklustre win against Afghanistan — where they had to really boost their net run rate — ended their campaign prematurely, with New Zealand and England making the last-four from Group 1.

O’Donnell, who has been critical of Australia’s tactic in the World Cup, said, “I couldn’t understand how emotionless we were, particularly in that format. You’ve got to be up to win T20s and I thought we just looked not there.”

The former cricketer, who played six Tests and 87 ODIs for Australia, found it hard to believe why the team looked completely disengaged from the tournament while the other competing sides looked so committed and “emotionally engaged”.

“That’s hard to probably explain, but you just look at the other teams and the way they were going about it and how emotionally engaged in the game they were and there were times where you just felt the Aussies switched on and switched off. We were never settled. In the lead-in games we were never settled. They were still fiddling with the order and stuff,” O’Donnell was quoted as saying by sen.com.au on Monday.

He felt that even if Australia would have made it to the semifinal, it would have been more on account of luck than a whole-hearted effort.

“It’s hard to put your finger on it, but we were off pace and it would’ve been a fluke to get into a semis. We didn’t deserve it. We weren’t playing good enough cricket. David Warner didn’t go too bad in that last game (vs Afghanistan), but I think he had four digs for 26 runs. We were just way off,” he added.

–IANS