World Cup 2023: Michael Clarke slams Australia’s preparation following big loss to South Africa

Michael Clarke has slammed Australia’s preparations heading into the 2023 World Cup campaign as they lost their second consecutive match to South Africa on Thursday in Lucknow.

Australia’s performance in the tournament has been far from impressive. The team suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of South Africa in Lucknow, marking their heaviest World Cup loss to date.

The match was held at the Ekana Stadium, where Australia faced a daunting target of 312 runs set by South Africa. Despite their best efforts, Australia’s batting display was dismal, resulting in them being bowled out for a mere 177 runs in 40.5 overs. This led to a staggering loss by 134 runs.

World Cup campaign started on a sour note with a six-wicket loss against India.

Speaking on Sky Sports Radio’s Big Sports Breakfast, as quoted by the Daily Mail, Clarke feels worried about Australia’s chances against the sub-continent sides and a repeat performance from the first two games could end the five-time winners’ hopes of qualifying to the semi-finals.

“Sri Lanka are going to be tough in those conditions. We haven’t played Pakistan yet. We’ve got some really tough cricket ahead of us and if we play like this, we are not qualifying,” said Clarke.

“I’m more worried about the sub-continent teams… if we’re getting shown up like that against South Africa, the spin in the sub-continent teams… we’ll be laughable.”

“If we’re not careful the conversation we’ve been having for the last three weeks about the Wallabies, in two weeks’ time we’ll be having that about Australian cricket.”

Clarke continued to say that a top performance in the Ashes and the World Test Championship had just papered over the cracks that had been existing for a long time. The former Australia captain went on to criticize the preparation for the tournament and said they should have turned up to India in their prime.

‘I’ll go back to the Test series in India, our preparation for that tour was disgraceful,” Clarke continued “We are not there at the moment and honestly, no disrespect, but we haven’t been for a while,” he said.

“The Twenty20 World Cup, that’s not OK. We’re better than that. It’s not OK. Leaving England, levelled series, is not OK. That series was ours for the taking.”

“The way we lost to India in India… our preparation for that tournament [was] not OK. Then winning the Test Championship — amazing. So that swept all this other stuff under the carpet. That’s not right.”

“Now here, our preparation for this World Cup, we won two games out of seven. We had a brilliant lead-in for this World Cup, an awesome amount of cricket, good competitive cricket.”

“We should have turned up to India in our prime.”