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It is always special when England and Australia lock horns and this time will be no different.
The two squads will have ringed the date in their diaries as soon as the schedule for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup was announced.
I certainly did when I was playing because some of my best – and worst – moments on a cricket field came in matches between these two teams.
The key is always to put the weight of history and the emotion of the rivalry to one side. The focus has to be on yourself and the other 10 guys trying to win the game. I only played against England once at the T20 World Cup, in the first-ever tournament in South Africa back in 2007.
We were really still figuring out how the format worked and having lost to Zimbabwe in the opening game, it’s fair to say we were fired up heading to Cape Town. We managed to dismiss England for 135 and chase it down inside 15 overs. Although we went on to lose the semi-final, it was nice to put our stamp on the first tournament.
All of the 10 wickets we took that day were from quick bowlers and the role of seamers in the T20 format has really evolved since then. When it came in we thought it was all about the quickies, that spinners would just be lined up and hit out of the attack.
It didn’t turn out that way with slow bowlers in fashion for much of the last decade. Pace on the ball in the shorter forms of the game has been seen as a negative. I think things have come full circle and here in Australia at this T20 World Cup we are seeing proper quick bowling come back into fashion.
Just look at these two teams for starters.
I have been really impressed with the way Josh Hazelwood has grown as a white-ball bowler and the way he has got to grips with all these variations you need to succeed. We know what Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc can do – as a trio they are a bowling attack that will strike fear in any batting line-up, including England’s.
Mark Wood is the man of the moment for England. He is one of the sharpest in the world when he’s fit and firing and Australia will have to find a way to nullify his threat. Conditions in Australia obviously favour these guys – but look at last year, when Australia’s pace attack took them all the way in UAE and Oman.
It’s clear that this is a must-win game for both sides.
You can’t afford to lose twice in the Super 12s and Australia have already gone down to New Zealand, and England to Ireland in a rain-affected match. The momentum is with Australia after they pulled it out of the fire against Sri Lanka and they will hope to carry that through at the MCG.
England need to find a way to get back on the horse quickly after the Ireland game and this will be a tough test of their resilience. I think whichever team wins this will be hard to stop for the rest of the tournament. It’s going to be a cracker.