Brett Lee puts his weight behind Australia to win 20-20 World Cup
Former Australia pacer Brett Lee has backed Australia to win the 20-20 World Cup. Australia head into the mega event on the back of two series defeats to West Indies and Bangladesh. Moreso, most of the senior players are short on game time as they have not played cricket since the Test series against India and acclimatising to the conditions won’t be easy. They were also handed a crushing defeat by India in the warm-up game. Despite all the lows, Lee feels Australia have the team to turn things around.
“For me, the expectation is that Australia will go and win the tournament. I know they might be high expectations but if you don’t go and set the bar very high, you are not going to succeed.
“We have not had a lot of success in this format — it is time we changed it and we do have a side that can take it all the way. It obviously won’t be easy, especially when you look at how strong teams like England, India and New Zealand are.”
David Warner has gone through a lot in the last month or so. He was dropped from the SRH team following his poor run. He didn’t show any sort of form in the warm-up games as well. However, Lee has backed Warner to fire in the showpiece event saying that he thrives on big stages. “But this Australian side is loaded with talent and for me, the key is David Warner. I would like to say he is saving the runs for the games that count after his IPL form! He was really harshly dealt with there and it may have knocked some confidence out of him but he thrives on the big stage. Everything should be rosy for him here, class is permanent,” he added.
Lee also talked about Australia’s biggest strength – their pace attack and said the pace trio has the capability to rattle any batting lineup in the competition. “I will also put a lot of weight behind Mitchell Starc. There has been some debate in the last year about Starc being past his best but he would be in my team every single time, Josh Hazlewood has had a good IPL and Pat Cummins is a superstar. He is the David Beckham of the team, whatever he touches turns to gold,” he added.
