Test focus hurt World T20 chances: Waugh

Former Test captain Steve Waugh has praised Cricket Australia for prioritising Test cricket over Twenty20 internationals, but says it played a part in Australia’s disappointing showing at the World T20 in India.

Australia fell short of expectations in the tournament, which concludes with the final on Sunday night, losing to India and New Zealand to finish third in Group 2.

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Waugh, who was Test captain between 1999 and 2004, said a deficiency of scheduled T20 internationals in the lead-up to the tournament as well as the team’s lack of stability were the main factors behind Australia’s disappointing campaign.

"We probably haven't played enough Twenty20 cricket in the past 12-18 months and we swapped the team about a fair bit," Waugh told Fairfax.

"To Cricket Australia's credit, we have put Test cricket on a pedestal, we've put that above all else, which I think is a great thing for cricket. Not many other countries are doing that.

"The down side to that was that the Twenty20 side [of the game] suffered with players in and out and [they] didn't get a consistent role in the side and they just fell short in India."

Australia played six T20 matches in the six months leading into the World T20; against India in a three-match home series in January followed by a three game T20I tour of South Africa in early March.

Remarkably, between a three-match home series against South Africa in November 2014 and the matches against India in January, Australia played just one T20I, against England in Cardiff in August last year.

This lack of matches created the instability Waugh pointed to; 19 different played were trialled in the three games against India, 10 of whom were not picked for Australia’s World T20 squad, meaning a total of 23 players have represented Australia in 10 T20Is in 2016.

But the lack of international T20 cricket is a reflection of the overcrowded international schedule, something Australia coach Darren Lehmann acknowledged in February.

“We need to get it better,” he said.

“It’s hard though with all the bilateral agreements and what you’ve got to fit into a summer.

“I don’t know the answer, to be perfectly honest. It’s the way it’s at the moment. You take seven weeks out for the IPL and (have) to fit all the other games in. It makes it tough.”

While tournament hosts India played 13 T20Is in the six months leading up to the World T20, including five in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh just weeks before, the other three sides to make the semi-finals had a similar preparation to Australia.

New Zealand and England each played five T20Is in the six months prior to the tournament, while the West Indies hadn’t played any T20Is since November.

Speaking on last week’s edition of The Unplayable Podcast, Australia fast-bowler Mitch Starc, who missed the World T20 through injury, echoed many aspects of Waugh and Lehmann’s comments while also pointing out the difficulty of adapting to local conditions in such a short period of time.

“(Australia’s exit from the World T20) is disappointing but … look back at how many games of T20 international cricket Australia has played over the last couple of years,” Starc said.

“We played one last year, we played six heading into this World Cup … you obviously want to play more and you look at where those T20s were played; we played three in Australia and three in South Africa.

“They’re very, very different conditions to what you’re going to get in India so that’s a bit disappointing that we haven’t really prepared to play in the sub-continent. But that’s scheduling as well.

“I think it comes back to playing more T20 international cricket against the really good teams.”

Ideally, teams would play more games leading into a major tournament but fitting more T20Is into an already jam-packed international schedule is no easy feat, and Waugh acknowledges how much more crowded the fixture list is compared to when he played.

"I bumped into Steve Smith over there and he said playing three forms of cricket means you're away for 280 days a year, which is a lot from your family but it is more intense these days," he said.

"We were away for the same amount of time, for instance the tour of the UK for an Ashes tour was four-and-a-half months, these days it is two-and-a-half months, so they squeeze in a lot more high-level, intensity cricket. 

"So it is hard on the players physically, I guess mentally and technically. It is a real challenge.

“I think (having) the guys play all three formats is probably too much but I still think we need to find a way for the T20 side to fulfil their potential and we can be the top of all three forms of the game."