Mark Waugh blasts West Indies over 'wrong' tactics in Aussie T20 victory
The former Aussie player was critical of the visiting team after a bold opening move.
Aussie cricket great Mark Waugh has taken aim at the West Indies for getting their tactics all 'wrong' following their fourth straight white-ball loss to Australia on Friday night. Australia started off on fire at Bellerive Oval with player-of-the-match David Warner and Josh Inglis taking it to the West Indies attack.
However, the West Indies opted to throw the new Kookaburra ball to spinner Akeal Hosein at one end instead of a quick. This immediately backfired with Warner and Inglis piling on the pressure early with 40 runs off three overs.
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This meant West Indies' best bowler, Alzarri Joseph, wasn't handed the ball until the fourth over. This didn't sit well with Waugh in commentary after he called out the tactics, which allowed Australia to build from a brilliant start in Hobart.
“Not sure about these tactics, I would have the quicks on,” Waugh said in commentary following Inglis hitting Hosein for four. “I just don’t understand these tactics.
“It’s just easy pickings. They’ve got it tactically wrong here, the West Indies. It’s just not going to work, and it hasn’t worked.” While Australia raced out to a strong start, so did the West Indies during their innings on a good batting wicket in Hobart.
Akeal Hosein to Warner 28 runs conceded in 12 deliveries with a wide delivery bowled to Warner
Akeal to rest of the batters 13 of 12 balls...Poor call to have him bowled against a LHB. That is the margin of today's loss for Wi.— Mukesh Patil 🇮🇳🇱🇰🇯🇲🇳🇿 (@Mukesh2085) February 9, 2024
West Indies hand David Warner life after drop catches
However, the West Indies also came undone after a nightmare performance in the field. The visitors dropped three catches in Australia's innings and would be ruing their fielding having only fallen 11 runs short of the mammoth run chase.
Wicketkeeper Nicholas Pooran dropped Warner on 32 runs and the opener went on to make another 38 before his dismissal. Brandon King was immense with the bat, but his dropped catch at mid-wicket allowed Josh Inglis to score a few more.
The worst was yet to come when Inglis hit an easy catch square in the final deliveries, but the two West Indies fielders stared at each other as the ball landed between them. And Waugh was also critical of the fielding at international level as he labelled the incident 'poor'.
Fellow commentator Isa Guha admitted: “They’ve had an absolute shocker. That miss could be the difference.” While the West Indies would he frustrated with their fielding misses, it was Aussie spinner Ada Zampa that salavged the match for Australia.
Zampa took 3-26 off four overs in a brilliant spell in Hobart with a number of players chipping in throughout the clash. “Zampa was the difference,” Waugh said. “He got wickets, stemmed the run flow on a night where hitting sixes was the way to go. He bowled beautifully … without him, Australia maybe lose that match tonight.”
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