Josh Inglis Needs To Replace Steve Smith In T20 World Cup Semifinal

Australia have been a terrific side in this T20 World Cup and won four of their five matches to qualify for the semifinal. They have been brilliant as a bowling unit with all the bowlers firing at one stage or another, however, their weak link has been the middle-order batting. 

Australia have chased on four occasions and on one occasion where they batted first, they lost. While David Warner has done well at the top but in the middle overs, Steve Smith has been rather average and not creating enough impact. 

In three innings he has batted, Smith has scored 35(34), 28*(26), and 1(5) - 64 runs at a strike rate of 98.46. 

In this tournament, Australia scored around 7.5 runs per over in the first two phases - Powerplay(7.73) and middle overs(7.46). What the team needs is firepower in these phases. They need to accelerate during this phase to keep the pressure on the opposition. They can't afford to dig a hole and wait for the final five overs to hit. 

Smith's 117.72 strike rate in the middle overs doesn't help Australia's cause. Even against the Pakistani bowling type, either pace or spin, his lack of acceleration builds pressure on his partner. 

On the contrary, Australia's uncapped middle-order batter Josh Inglis has been backed over Alex Carey for this tournament. It is high time Australia use him ahead of Smith in this all-important clash. 

Inglis has a strike rate of 149.5 in the powerplay; Smith has 119.52. 

Pakistan have five different types of bowlers - Left Arm Pace, Right Arm Pace, Leg Break, Slow Left Arm, Off-Spin - and against each of these types, Inglis has a brilliant strike rate -  the lowest being 133.33 vs off-spin. 

Even in the middle overs, Josh strikes at 157.02 vs pace and 145.29 against spin. If he plays, Babar Azam is likely to attack him with left-arm spin and pace where his strike rate goes down to less than 120. However, it is much better than Smith's who scores at a rate of 123.03 vs pace and 113.5 vs spin. 

Even when Smith goes onto play till the final overs, he strikes at 162.72 while at the same time, Inglis scores at 178.16. 

Also Read: T20 World Cup 2021

T20 games are mostly set up in the first two phases of the innings and the side which makes most of these 15 overs goes on to dominate the game. If Inglis plays in the middle order, Mitch Marsh and Glenn Maxwell will take a sigh of relief from carrying the game forward and focus on the hitting part more.