Australia are grouped against defending champions West Indies, top-ranked England and South Africa in a tough group in the T20 World Cup Super 12 stage.
With most of the Australian players for the T20 World Cup competing at the Indian Premier League (IPL) in the UAE, star Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell believes that the cash-rich league will be the ideal preparations for them, especially batters, ahead of the mega extravaganza that starts on October 17. (More Cricket News)
Australia’s top players, including Steve Smith, David Warner, Aaron Finch and Pat Cummins, have not competed in the last few months and will be back in action at the IPL. “The fact we’ve got a lot of guys going over for the IPL as a preparation, get a few games in those conditions, it’s going to do wonders for our batters,” Glenn Maxwell told icc-cricket.com.
“Our bowlers are going to be up and firing by the time the tournament starts. I can assure you everyone is looking forward to hitting the ground running over there,” Maxwell, who plays for Royal Challengers Bangalore, added.
Australia have been put against the likes of defending champions West Indies, world No. 1 England and South Africa in a tough group in the Super 12 stage. The Kangaroos play their first game against South Africa on September 23 in Abu Dhabi.
Australia have endured a tough time recently suffering 1-4 series losses both against West Indies and Bangladesh in T20 internationals recently, but Glenn Maxwell has no doubts they’ll manage a better performance at the big competition.
“I think they’re very good. When this team comes together, I think we’ll slip straight back into us being in a great position. We’re all looking forward to it. You look through our line-up, we’ve got a team full of match winners and guys that on their day can take the game away from the opposition,” he added.
The right-handed swashbuckling batsman also stated that having the IPL 2021 in the UAE will level the playing field ‘a fair bit’ in the T20 World Cup. The IPL will resume on September 19 in the UAE after being suspended in May due to the second wave of COVID-19 in India, which led to multiple cases inside its bio-bubble.
“The tournament being in UAE probably levels the playing field a little bit. Probably makes it a little bit easier for there not to be as much of a home ground advantage. For the IPL to be there to have a lot of international players that are potentially going to be in that World Cup over there playing, I think it's probably levelled the playing field a fair bit,” Maxwell said.