WT20: Shane Warne hits out at Australia selectors

Omnisports

March 28, 2016 10:49 AM

The decision not to open with Aaron Finch and David Warner at the World Twenty20 left Australia legend Shane Warne baffled.

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Australia great Shane Warne has hit out at what he considers "funky" selections that blighted the team's World Twenty20 campaign.

The 50-over World Cup champions were sent crashing out at the group stage after Virat Kohli's inspired 82 off 51 balls helped India into the semi-finals courtesy of a six-wicket win in a straight shootout on Sunday.

Warne believes that selectors should accept the blame for the team's failure, including the decision to tinker with the top of the order, and says that big-hitters Aaron Finch and David Warner should have been the opening pairing.

The 46-year-old was also baffled by the decision to overlook all-rounder John Hastings for the last two group matches.

"First of all, our selection was wrong in my opinion," Warne told cricket.com.au.

"I don't think we got that right, we messed around with it too much rather than sticking with what's been a proven formula and we probably didn't play well enough, which is the brutal truth.

"I know [Usman] Khawaja was in unbelievable form and had to play but I would have batted him at number three. I don't think they should have broken up Finch and Warner and I think it upset the balance of the team.

"Those two guys had been batting together for a long time, they have done well in Twenty20, they've done well in one-day cricket, and suddenly they got spilt up. And I just would never, ever have left Aaron Finch out.

"I think that Finch-Warner partnership, it's an intimidatory factor before a ball was bowled and people would have worried about Finch and Warner.

On Hastings he added: "Australia got a bit too funky with their selections. I think John Hastings was picked in the squad as a specialist to bowl at the end but he got dropped for the game he should have played at the end [against India].

"To me, [Josh] Hazlewood is a guy that is a beautiful Test bowler, and it's not that he can't bowl in these forms of the game, but I just think Hastings is a better option in a Twenty20 game because of his yorkers.

"We needed another option rather than [left-arm paceman James] Faulkner just bowling his slower balls at one end and [right-armer Nathan] Coulter-Nile with his pace on these sort of wickets - I thought we were one-dimensional by not playing Hastings all the time."

Omnisports

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