T20 Is A Shit Format, But That Doesn’t Mean We Should Be Shit At It

Musings on the T20 World Cup from an anonymous former Australian Test cricketer

I’ve never felt more humiliated than I did this morning when I was told by the bloke down at the servo that Australia had been knocked out of the T20 World Cup. Fuck me, I didn’t even know we were in it, and now we’re out? An absolute embarrassment for Australian cricket that had me spitting chips from the moment I heard about it.

Look, I don’t watch T20s. We all know it’s not real cricket - it’s batting practice with fireworks and a DJ, just three hours of slogging, interrupted by some bloke in a Hawaiian shirt shouting at you about KFC.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not totally ropeable about what’s gone on over in wherever this World Cup is being played. I want to say ‘Sri Lanka’, because apparently we’re going home because it rained there? In a game we weren’t even playing? Don’t fully understand it myself, but one thing I do understand is that the selectors must be held accountable for this humiliation.

Now we all know T20 cricket is the idiot’s version of the game. Nothing but mindless hitting for the TikTok generation, with their 6-7s and their Twitch streams and their not using headphones on public transport. But that just makes losing at it even worse. How does Australia get knocked out of a World Cup in the easiest, most shit-for-brains form of the game? I mean, just hit sixes. That’s it. That’s the whole sport. You’re telling me Australia - the most successful cricket nation in the history of cricketing history itself - can’t hit sixes any more? Who the fuck did we select in our team? Did we raid a physics department? Storm a chess club? Pick eleven accountants from H&R Block and hand them bats?

It’s unacceptable, because I don’t care if it’s T20, ODIs, Tests, beach cricket, indoor cricket, or hitting a tennis ball with your granddad in the backyard, if you’re wearing Australian colours, you’re not supposed to lose. Especially not in the group stages, which is apparently all we got up to here. Group stages! That’s not even the main event. It’s like getting knocked out of the tournament based on a nets session.

Now, like I said, I didn’t watch any of the matches. I don’t have Stan Sport Plus or Amazon Prime for Nerds or the Kayo Unlimited Bullshit World Cup package, or wherever the fuck this tournament was being streamed in the middle of the fucking night, but according to Bing (the search engine, not the fast bowler), we lost to Zimbabwe?

That can’t be right, can it? I thought Zimbabwe gave up cricket when the Flower brothers packed it in. How are they back two decades later knocking us out of this pissant tournament? Did they get bonus points or something for showing up?

I mean, good on them, I suppose. I confess to still not fully understanding it, but you’d have to imagine it’s on the up and up. So, you doff your cap. They earned it, they played better apparently. But that doesn’t make it less embarrassing for those of us only just now learning about this.

And speaking of embarrassing, am I being punked by some AI bullshit, or did Mitch Marsh spend most of his time over there lounging around with a busted testicle? Have I got that right? Because if that’s legit, the selectors need to have a long hard look at themselves. You can’t have a captain with only one serviceable nut. Just ask Nazi Germany. In the long run, it simply doesn’t work.

But even though I didn’t watch any of this absolute dogshit circus, I’m still pretty sure I know exactly what went wrong.

Simply put, we picked way too many T20 hacks. Blokes who can only play T20, as if that’s anything to hang your hat on. Jokers who’ve never faced a moving red ball in their lives. Dickheads who can’t play proper cricket, so they hide in the shortest format.

I promise you, if we’d sent our Ashes-winning heroes over there - Aussies who take proper pride in the baggy green, Aussies who know the feel of a baggy green on their head, rather than the sturdy yellow worn by these limited-overs clowns - then we sure as fuck wouldn’t have been knocked out in the group stages.

You think Zimbabwe are a better team than England? I mean, yeah, they probably are. Of course they are. But I’d still have backed Alex Carey and Big Beau Webster and, fuck, even Jakey Weatherald to get the job done over them. A hell of a lot more than your Tim Davids or Nathan Ellises or whoever the hell else was in this doomed shithouse World Cup squad who’ve brought such shame to those of us who have just found out what they’ve done.

My point is that even though I don’t know what happened, I know that something went catastrophically wrong and somebody’s head needs to roll. A group stage exit is unacceptable for any Australian team. In any format. Even the formats we think are rancid garbage.

Because even though T20’s the cricketing version of beer pong, and I don’t give two shits about it, I still want Australia to win at it.

So from now on, George Bailey, I need you to sort your shit out. If we’re going to enter T20 World Cups, we should treat them like they matter, even though they don’t. Just win the thing and get the fuck out of town. Treat it like a chore. Mow the lawn, take out the bins, win the T20 World Cup, move on with your life.

Or, if you can’t be arsed doing that, at least have the guts to stand up to the ICC and say ‘this isn’t real cricket, we’re not playing’.

Focus on Tests and ODIs. The real formats. The ones that require actual skill rather than just closing your eyes and swinging like you’re trying to kill a spider with a newspaper.

At least that way you’re not embarrassing yourselves. And, more importantly, you’re not embarrassing all those cricket-loving Aussie fans who at some point in the next few days are probably going to find out what’s happened here and be utterly humiliated by it.