![\"Australia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/651901_871774_updates.jpg\")
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Australia head coach Andrew McDonald after the 2025 ICC World Test Championship Final against South Africa,\u00a0Lord’s Cricket Ground, London, Britain, June 14, 2025. \u2014 Reuters<\/p>\n
MELBOURNE: Australia head coach Andrew McDonald put the blame for the team’s humiliating T20 World Cup exit squarely on the players, rejecting criticism of their preparations and a “false narrative” that the nation is not taking the format seriously.<\/p>\n
Australia crashed out of the group stage following losses to Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, triggering acrimony on the home front.<\/p>\n
Former players and pundits have zeroed in on Australia’s preparations for the tournament, which saw members of the squad arrive late to a warm-up series in Pakistan after prioritising the Big Bash League.<\/p>\n
Australia were thumped 3-0 by Pakistan before failing to qualify for the World Cup’s Super Eight phase.<\/p>\n
McDonald dismissed criticism that Australia had not prioritised the tournament, saying the team had been “fully locked into (it) for a period of time”.<\/p>\n
“I have heard that sort of narrative that T20 World Cups don’t matter to us,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n
“I think all that is a response to the performances of Australian cricket teams in these competitions.<\/p>\n
“We won in 2021, and we haven’t been as successful since then. The expectations on the Australian cricket team are high \u2014 and rightfully so.<\/p>\n
“But to sit back and say that we’re prioritising other formats or other versions of the game and not the T20 World Cup is entirely false.”<\/p>\n
Australia were missing leading pace bowlers Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood due to injury, but McDonald said the available players were good enough but had not performed.<\/p>\n
“It shouldn’t be about the players that we’re missing,” said McDonald, who is also a selector.<\/p>\n
“It should be looking at the performances, and we’re disappointed in those. We need to own those, and the critique is fair and reasonable.”<\/p>\n
Australia finish their tournament with a dead rubber against Oman in Pallekele later on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia head coach Andrew McDonald after the 2025 ICC World Test Championship Final against South Africa,\u00a0Lord’s Cricket Ground,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-436840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}