Hello there!
This week we’re doing something a little different. The ABC newsletter team is fixing up some technical stuff to help us keep delivering your weekly newsletter. I don’t fully understand it. There are terms like ‘migration’ and ‘back end’ and ‘optimisation’, but I *do* know we need to do this work to keep getting you your weekly dose of sport.
SO, because of these changes, we’ve got to write this week’s edition on a Wednesday, for Saturday’s release. What could go wrong? If we’ve missed something you feel we should’ve touched on, then you can almost certainly read about it on the ABC sport website.
In the meantime, let’s talk about the T20 Cricket World Cup, which kicks off this weekend.
Australia’s lead in has been… well, dreadful. They were thumped 3-nil by Pakistan. Pat Cummins was ruled out of the tournament. Fellow star quick Josh Hazelwood was ruled out for the early stages of the tournament. Mitchell Starc has retired from T20I, so he can’t rescue the boys as he did in the Ashes. And the selectors did not pick Steve Smith despite a brilliant end of BBL run of form. Gun all-rounder Tim David is coming off a hamstring injury, he didn’t feature in the warm-ups. IPL star Cam Green took his poor Ashes form and turned it into poor T20 form in that Pakistan series. Did we mention Glenn Maxwell had a bizarrely quiet BBL campaign? Well, yeah, he did.
Does any of this really matter? Short answer: no, not really. Australia’s first four games are against Ireland, Zimbabwe, hosts Sri Lanka, and Oman. They have time to get their sh*t together, but you can’t feel good about the situation if you’re an Aussie cricket fan.
Do you know what really does matter? Pakistan pulled out of their World Cup group clash with India. The nation’s government dropped the news in a 43-word post on X (nee Twitter). This is a deeply complicated story rooted in historical geo-politics, which we discussed with cricket writer Gideon Haigh on the podcast this week (link below).
Some takeaways:
- Pakistan players and fans are the big losers.
- This must feel like the only remaining lever available to Pakistan after various slights between both nations over the journey.
- Reports argue it will cost global cricket hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s bad for everyone.
- What happens if the two teams end up in the final of the competition? There’s a brain bender.
Gideon did his best to unpack a sprawling story inside 10 minutes. It’s a great listen. Recommend. Five stars.
