Andrew McDonald (Australia, Head Coach) | Post-Match Media Conference Transcript | AUS v ENG | T20 World Cup

Andrew McDonald (Australia, Head Coach) | Post-Match Media Conference Transcript | AUS v ENG | T20 World Cup

Source:  ICC-Cricket – Copyright Trevine Rodrigo (eLanka)

Q. Andrew, with your strong Victorian background, were even you a little bit surprised with how dodgy this weather has been of late for the World Cup?

ANDREW McDONALD: Yes, simple answer, especially this time of year. It’s unfortunate. It was shaping as a blockbuster really. Most of our players had penciled this one in early in the World Cup campaign. It was going to be a huge crowd.

It’s bitterly disappointing for the fans, bitterly disappointing for the players, and really surprised about the weather.

Q. Earlier Jonathan Trott made the point there’s a stadium across the city that’s got a roof on it. In your opinion, is that something maybe the ICC should have factored in given that spring in Melbourne can be a bit fickle?

ANDREW McDONALD: I think everyone likes to play the MCG. You can’t predict the weather. What you do know is Melbourne fans generally turn out. When it’s England-Australia, there’s no better place to play than in the MCG.

Whether we look at something with a roof on it, that’s up to the scheduling. It is down the road. It’s not a purpose built cricket venue, but it’s done alright over time for the BBL games.

Q. It seems likely that run rate is going to be even more important leading into the rest of this competition. Does that limit team selection coming into the final two matches in the Super 12 stage?

ANDREW McDONALD: I don’t think it will shift team selection too much. We’ve picked a pretty powerful batting line-up, and we’ve got bowlers that we think in certain conditions against certain opposition that can do the job. So we feel as though we’re pretty well covered for the options we have.

We’ll pick each team based upon the merits of the surface, based upon the opposition. We’re probably where we were at the start of the night really. No one’s really made any ground. That’s a disappointing fact.

I think whoever come here and was able to take the points, it would have gone a long way to securing potentially a semi-final berth, albeit with Ireland and Afghanistan to go.

Q. When you lost to England during last year’s World Cup, you had to win those last two games against Bangladesh and West Indies, I think it was. They’re using that net run rate by a lot. With two games to go here, do you feel like you’re in a similar position?

ANDREW McDONALD: Yeah, very similar albeit this is the unknown of weather at the moment, all across the country really.

But net run rate is going to come into it. We knew that at the start of the tournament. When you only play five games, net run rate can decide and influence who goes through into the final four. We feel as though we’ve been here before.

We’ve got games that go ahead of us as well, we’ve got New Zealand and England. We’ve got to look at games ahead of us for that last game against Afghanistan.

First and foremost we’ve got to improve certain facets of our game and build throughout the tournament. We just want to get back to playing the cricket we know we’re capable of, and we probably haven’t done that the first couple of games. So that excites me, the fact that there’s still plenty of improvement left in the group.

Q. Can I just ask about Matthew Wade and Adam Zampa. Both had COVID recently, or Matthew still has it. Is it a bit of concern with not just those two getting, but potentially more players could go down and maybe derail things a bit?

ANDREW McDONALD: That’s highly possible really the way it’s gone. I suppose the strong point around that was that Matthew Wade was going to play tonight. So each individual is affected differently by the virus.

Obviously, Adam Zampa wasn’t quite right. We had a caution there to make sure he was ready to go for this game whereas Matthew Wade responded totally differently, less symptoms and he was ready to go tonight. Had to be isolated from the group. That was probably the only thing where we had to communicate separately from him, which is a little bit unique.

But yeah, it’s a real possibility for all teams.

Q. Should you and England win your next games, how much of an advantage do you think England playing very last in the group gives them?

ANDREW McDONALD: It depends on England and New Zealand really, doesn’t it?

Q. Assuming you both —

ANDREW McDONALD: I think we get a look at pretty much all the scenarios that potentially may happen up until our point against Afghanistan. Yeah, we’ll be watching no doubt the New Zealand-England game to see what happens there.

Then the earlier question was will that influence the selection of our team? Probably not. We can only control what we can control, and that’s us getting back to the cricket that we think we’re capable of and we haven’t quite shown that yet.

Q. Did you feel today with it being such a potentially blockbuster game, as you said, had it been a real 5 over thrash or a shootout, that probably wouldn’t have done justice to your World Cup hopes, I guess?

ANDREW McDONALD: Australia came to play. Whether a 5 over game or a 20 over game, the importance of the game and the importance of the two points was huge tonight. We came to get out there, whatever that game looked like. We feel like we’re well prepared for it.

England have obviously caused us a few problems over time, but we felt like we had the team tonight. Albeit it changed over the course of the day, our team shifted as the rain kept coming down and the game was potentially shortened, so we went through different scenarios. But we feel as though we’re well prepared for whatever may have happened.

Q. Just to follow on from that, what team were you looking to play? I know you didn’t get as far as a coin toss, but what was it going to look like when you might have been playing a 15 over game or 10 over game or whatever?

ANDREW McDONALD: I’m not going to answer that one. I’ll keep it quiet on that one.

Q. Just in terms of just how Adam is feeling and recovering and whatever, he’s fine? In terms of Matthew, it’s a fairly light dose?

ANDREW McDONALD: Yes, as I said, he was going to play tonight. He was pretty good yesterday. It was just the positive test that obviously isolated him from the group, but he was ready to go. As I said, it affects people differently.

Zamp’s responded differently. We didn’t feel like he was ready for that contest in Perth. We erred on the side of caution to make sure he was ready and recharged for this game, but he’s back to full health and fitness, which is great for us.

Q. You’ve worked very closely with Aaron Finch over his career, probably as well placed as anyone to assess how he’s going. What was your take on his performance the other night? And are you committed to sticking with him for the whole campaign?

ANDREW McDONALD: He was selected for the team, he’s our captain, so I think that says everything with the way we internally view where he’s at. He didn’t have his greatest night the other night, and I think he’s pretty much shared his views on that.

That can happen in T20, but we know equally it can shift quickly the other way as well. You’re a couple of shots away from finding your rhythm, finding your tempo, and unfortunately, he wasn’t able to do that the other night.

The beauty of the team is that, if one is not functioning to the full capacity, you have a few teammates around, and Michael Stoinis was absolutely brilliant.

It’s really how the team functions. He’s really important to us in terms of connecting the strategy of what we want to do, and his captaincy record in big tournaments has been pretty good. So we feel as though that captaincy is a real benefit for us. So we’re not prepared to shift that at this stage.

We feel as though that he will come good, and when he does come good, I think that that then probably puts the finishing touches on us being the team that we want to be, no doubt.

Q. And what needs to happen for Steve Smith to get a look into the 11?

ANDREW McDONALD: He gets discussed regularly. So depending on the surface, as I said, depending on the opposition. So, yeah, we’ve got 15 players on our squad, and it’s a challenge to pick 11, it always is. As I said, the surface and the opposition really probably shift our thinking and get to our final decision around what that 11 looks like. So he’s definitely come up in conversation.

As I said, there’s a role there for him.