Australian cricketing great Adam Gilchrist admits the public sentiment surrounding the Aussies “felt a little bit flat” throughout the T20 World Cup.
Gilchrist says time will now tell what the reasons behind the slump in interest were, although there are concerns Australians are losing passion in the national side.
Australia failed to progress past the Super 12 phase of the tournament, with England’s win over Sri Lanka on Saturday sealing the disappointing fate. Aaron Finch’s men never produced their best in the tournament, unable to vastly improve after a poor defeat to New Zealand in the opening game of the campaign.
As Gilchrist notes, there was interest in the World Cup, just not necessarily from an Australian perspective.
“You’ve only got to look at the crowds, the crowds were down,” the 96-Test wicketkeeper told SEN WA Breakfast.
“There was no feeling of a huge excitement about this World Cup from the way crowds turned up to the Australian games.
“On the flip side of that, look at what was almost a dead rubber on Sunday night in Melbourne, Zimbabwe vs India and there’s 82,000 people there. That’s just a whole different conversation isn’t it, that’s one of the great phenomenons of sport. The Indian passion for the game continues to go to new levels.
“That’s something that’s really positive and exciting about cricket.”
A crowd of 34,576 saw the Aussies’ opening game against the Blackcaps at the SCG, while 25,061 turned up at Optus Stadium for the game against Sri Lanka.
The ultimately abandoned game between Australia and England attracted 37,556 patrons who braved the rainy conditions, while crowd figures for Australia vs Ireland aren’t yet available.
But in perhaps the most telling sign, with Australia’s campaign on the ropes and coming into a must-win game against Afghanistan in what turned out to be the Aussies’ last game, only 18,672 turned up to the Adelaide Oval.
While fans no doubt “voted with their feet”, as Gilchrist notes, it could be for several reasons.
“But whether those crowds being down and the appetite and enthusiasm for World Cup is reflective of the current team, I’ve got no idea,” he continued.
“People vote with their feet, but I don’t know if it was too early in the summer, whether the footy season was so recently completed that we weren’t ready to move to cricket mode yet.
“Any time Australia have hosted a World Cup, men’s or women’s, it’s always been at the end of the summer, so there’s a whole build-up and promotion of it and expectation for it.
“It felt a little bit flat in that regard around the Aussie team.
“We’ll see how it plays out over the summer because there’s plenty of cricket coming up.”
Current Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell has attracted criticism for his comments on how much the World Cup meant to the players.
“Cricket never stops so you don’t get time to dwell. Maybe when you retire you think back to it would have been nice to win that but it doesn’t mean anything,” Maxwell stated.
“I wish we had have won but we didn’t.”
Australia’s men’s side faces England in a three-game ODI series later this month, before a total of five Tests against West Indies and South Africa.