The first week of the ICC World T20 was a humbling experience for some, a scary one for others and a frustrating one for a couple of teams hoping to break into the big league. Reputations have counted for little, as happens in the younger, more irreverent world of youth, and happily we are discovering that there is a learning curve to this new version as well.

I wonder if Australia were a victim of that. The danger with assessing Australia now is that you run the risk of being wise after the event because almost everyone had put them in among the three best teams of the tournament. But if we had to conduct a post mortem, the first conclusion would be that players who are very good in one form need not necessarily be as effective in another. I know there is a school of thought, and one that has some strength to it, that a good player will be good in any form, but looking at some of the Australians, Ponting, Mike Hussey, even Clarke and certainly Lee, you wondered if they had made the adjustment.

No time to build

One of the things we learnt from the IPL was that great players in the traditional formats put a price on their wicket and consolidate when things go wrong when sadly, there is neither the time nor often a sound reason to consolidate. Maybe that is where a Ponting or a Hussey haven’t allowed the learning curve to set in. In the absence of Symonds, their best T20 batsman is probably David Hussey but he saw six others bat ahead of him. And I am beginning to wonder if there is some truth to the joke going around that the Aussies can play any bowlers except those that bowl under 100 kms an hour!

... contd.