Hayden, speaking in his capacity as Pakistan’s team mentor, drew comparisons from his playing days when the selectors made bold calls to rebuild teams with an eye on future World Cups.
“The Australian team has some thinking to do. There has to be some freshness,” Hayden said. “And I think one of the great strengths of Australian cricket has been its ability to be able to recognise when to make that gear change into a different playing roster. I think full credit and respect has to go to the players that played this tournament, [they] certainly deserve to be there.
“A little bit like Mark Waugh giving away to someone like myself after World Cup campaigns, it’s always been quite ruthless preparing for the next World Cup and they seemingly come around more often than not.
“Just 12 months ago we were sitting here talking about the T20 champions and that was Australia…so the tournaments are coming around quick and fast. But certainly from an Australian cricket point of view, there has to be planning heading towards World Cups. They’re the premium events. They’re the events that everyone across the world plans for, and Australia, unfortunately, just didn’t get it right.”
“Every time an Australian team goes into a major series or tournament … the expectations are very high,” Bailey said. “We’re disappointed we’re not taking part from this point on in the semis. Specifically to Starcy…it was a tactical decision, it was a match-up decision. People can make of that what they will. And they are.”
However, Bailey was in agreement that Australia’s tournament had been left with too much catching up to do after the opening 89-run defeat against New Zealand at the SCG. Daniel Vettori, the assistant coach, has since suggested that it would be have been a wiser approach from the batters to minimise the margin of defeat when victory was out of the question.
“To get behind the net run-rate as far as we did it meant a lot of things were probably out of our control,” Bailey said. “Every game post that you provide opportunities to try and chase some of that net run-rate back, but you have to give credit to other teams as well. That’s where it went wrong, that first game, to be beaten so comprehensively. You’d like to think that batting line-up should be able to find its way to 140-150 then you are probably having a different conversation.”
