'We need a reboot in T20 cricket' - Mark Waugh calls for tougher actions after Australia's disappointing T20 World Cup 2024 campaign

Australia were thwarted from the T20 World Cup 2024 as they could not make it to the semifinals after succumbing to Afghanistan and India in the Super 8 stages. Their loss against Afghanistan was a shocker to many as the experts deemed the team to reach the semifinals. After Australia’s disappointing World Cup outing, former Australia cricketer, Mark Waugh, has called for a total team reboot.

Australia managed to win their debut T20 World Cup trophy in 2021 and since then the performance of the team in the subsequent events has gone south at the marquee event. In the 2022 edition, they were ousted in the group stages and followed it up with the Super 8 stage in the latest edition. With the substantial firepower and talent at their disposal, Waugh reckoned that including the young guns and selection process has to be looked into. 

“We need a reboot in T20 cricket. With the amount of talent we’ve got in the squad and around the squad, we should do a lot better than that. We’ve got a lot of good players who didn’t play in that tournament. Jake Fraser-McGurk should have been in the squad, because you just have him there, ready, locked, and loaded to go if you need him, but he wasn’t there,” Waugh was quoted as saying by Fox Sports. 

“The non-selection of Mitchell Starc against Afghanistan was crucial, and even Josh Inglis not getting a game. I reckon we need a reboot by having a different coach for T20 cricket, or 50-over cricket (as well). I think a fresh set of eyes, someone in there to come in and make some change. I think we need to look at some fresh eyes in that T20 outfit,” he added.

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My belief is to still have that one coach and share the workload within: McDonald

Notably, the former Australian cricketer, Justin Langer, was demoted from the Head Coach position in 2022 and Andrew McDonald took over the reins. The team has since won the World Test Championship in 2023, Ashes 2023, and World Cup 2023. McDonald asserted that the split coaching in the Australian team is far from working back in 2022.

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“My belief is to still have that one coach and share the workload within that. I think for me the continuity of messaging is critical, but also the priorities shift. And people probably don’t like me saying this, but the priorities do shift at certain times. You can’t be everything to everyone. If you had split coaches, which format takes priority? I think the ability to have one selection panel, one coach to work through that, give the direction to what the priorities are at the time and managing the overall squad,” said McDonald.